On August 14, 2004, Dhananjaya Chatterjee, 39,was hanged in Calcutta’s Alipore Central Jail for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh who he had stalked and hounded for a long time. Hetal, still just a child, had not been able to share her torment with her parents. She had been too afraid. Chatterjee, a security guard at her building, forced his way into her home on a day when her parents were away. He then raped and killed her. During the hours that led to his execution, many activists gathered outside the Alipore Central Jail to light candles and to rally support for his right to live.
In the same city in 2003, a traffic sergeant Bapi Sen, was killed by a group of eve-teasers while he was trying to stop them from molesting a woman on New Year’s eve. No one came forward to help him as he fought alone. So victims and those who defend them have no human rights but criminals, murderers and rapists do? It is easier anyway to light a candle for a rapist or ignore eve teasers than to take them on. It is never safe to take a stand. Bapi died trying.
So did Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez and the 16-year-old boy who tried to save his sister from eve teasers and was murdered eight years after the Bapi Sen incident. In our country rapists, molesters and goons move in packs while heroes like Bapi, Keenan and Reuben stand alone.
Also, be it a home, a bus, a street, a pub, a tribal village or a supposedly safe city like Mumbai, a woman is responsible for her own safety. She is on her own. As is the person who tries to help her. Because as a nation, we like to watch street brawls, reality shows where people scream at each other but we do not like to get involved in business that is not ours. This I discovered when a bus conductor beat me in a BMTC bus many summers ago.
During the beating and after it, I was told time and again how pointless my reaction was. How crazy I was to have slapped the conductor. What a nuisance I had made of myself and if only I had handled the situation with more restraint, I would not have inconvenienced my family and landed up with a black eye and a broken lip. Every woman in India knows this feeling of futile helplessness. Of being a victim no one wants to take seriously because “these things happen all the time to all women..why do you think, you are special? Don’t react.Don’t fight back. Don’t attract more attention.”
Just wait for Valentine’s day and you will see herds of moral sainiks out there, trying to establish that while it is routine to eve tease, rape and molest women, it is against our culture to celebrate them and give them roses. As we have learnt, it is stupid to try and protect them as well. The crimes against women don’t shock us anymore. They happen too often. It is the disinterest of the onlookers that reeks of a deep, problematic void within us.There is something criminally apathetic in our social behaviour if we see two young men being beaten to death and just stand and watch.
Is it fear that stops us from intervening? Would Keenan and Reuben be alive today if the bystanders had rushed forward to help? If we saw a woman being ‘teased’ (what a gentle word for seriously offensive behaviour) or a man being hacked before us, what would we do? A question we must answer before the next murder in a public place confronts our conscience. Before we look away, let us just look closely at Keenan and Reuben’s picture, the heroes who were outnumbered. They should not have died. They would not have if we had stood up to be counted. As I write this, news is breaking that Congress worker and witness in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case, Nadeem Ahmed Sayed, was stabbed to death by some unknown persons. No one came forward to help him too. Just another day in the life of India.
NB: Do click on the link below and sign a petition to show your support for heroes like Keenan and Reuben. We owe them this much.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/zero-tolerance-campaign.html
Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri )
Helpless, angered, provoked, futile we women have to go through so many such situations on the street, in office, in the society and even in your circles!
You have captured the feelings exactly Reema!
yeah Reema…I share the same feelings of anger, hopelessness, and helplessness time and again…at being told that “it’s not your business, why intervene?”
Being reprimanded for standing up to a guy who molested me and then almost pushed me in front of a moving train when i confronted him. the reaction from people ‘close’ to me was “what if something had happened” what they didnt realize is something did happen. it happens everyday. i was singled out and molested in a crowd of at least 500 people on a busy railway station. no one did anything. and it was the same on that day too for Keenan and Reuben.
According to my sister’s friend who was one of the onlookers, there were 15 men with sickles, lathis and swords but there were also a 100 onlookers. so yes i wish i was there, i would have surely tried to save them even if at my own cost:)
I agree this happens in india, we should take some actions against it, and i strongly support you reema ji, as we all daily watch news and atleast one news relates to this kind of issues, women safety is a flying leaf in the air in India.
Government Should hang this kind of peoples publically so that when any one tries to do the same he’ll be thinking twice before doing so..