An Obituary Of The Nation: By Cropped Roots, Chopped Wings And Silenced Voices

Dear Fellow Countrymen,

As I write this down, I am in tears. It gives me a choking discomfort and terrible pain to pen down this obituary. This obituary does not speak of a woman dying a sad death after being raped or tortured, but about the sad demise of humanity amongst a nation of beings with whom live the hundreds of women who have no clue how they are being sucked into a black hole of predators just looking for them to fulfill sexual pleasures; of predators who look for the chance to assert their ‘manly’ power, of predators who smile inside when a female foetus is not allowed birth in this land.

This might be an obituary for many men around you, women too. And sadly, if you read this and look away, this might be an obituary to that little human heart of yours. Therefore, this might be the biggest obituary written in history (read: of the second most populated country in the world); of hoards of men and women, who might feel this is an obituary to them. Because even when you are breathing, you are dead inside. And while the Nation still claims to be highly populated with different categories of Indians, blood sucking Vampires in human form are the ones that make the biggest class, caste and community of this country.

This is your obituary, if one day you told your wife/daughter/daughter-in-law to get her womb tested for determining the Gender (not sex, because before her birth is decided her life) of the baby. This is also your obituary if you tortured a woman for dowry. This is your obituary because you died inside the day you lurked at a woman as a sex object, and yours too if no matter how much you loved your wife, you beat her up at home in order to showcase your masculinity, the strength of being a man – powerful.

This is your obituary too if you as a woman tortured another for not following the gender norms, social rules. This is the obituary of those innumerable men and women who at some point or another didn’t realize that it is their duty to stand up and fight for humanity, womanhood, even if they are not facing anything themselves; after all watching in silence is a crime too.

An obituary of the numerous politicians who fail to recognize what an important issue women’s safety is, who call a woman ‘dented and painted‘ if she makes a choice, who tell women who are sex workers that they are criminals, who think that all women’s issues are not of national importance. This is an obituary to those numerous women who are swimming deep in power, strong enough to shut out the voices in their head, voices of women who are in pain. This is an obituary to those youngsters who find happiness is all about material assets while they walk past that woman who is being tortured by her family, and those who bear the torture thrown upon them too. An obituary of those educated, cultured and so-called high-class people sitting in offices thinking of how to ignore these daily reports of gang rapes, rapes, dowry deaths and suicides of women, yes this is it.

The day you thought that feminism was all about women, you died. The day you thought that those women who fight for their rights can be silenced by being harassed, tortured, abused or raped, you died. The day you thought that a woman is not equal to a man in terms of human rights and freedom, you died. The day you made bread out of a career in this field, silently torturing women around you in your house, you died. The day patriarchy was logical to you, you died. The day you thought that your wife should only be born to feed, reproduce and take care of you, you died. The day you thought that women are the weaker sex, yes, you my friend died.

While Patriarchy crippled us, the National history of women’s movements and support haven’t been of any help either. This is an obituary of the past, the hard work done to create a global uproar by women in this land of hungry monsters, men and women both. This is an obituary of a failed national system of governance, of the law, of the policies, of the family culture and dynamics that fails to teach us as citizens, as humans, the difference between right and wrong, the difference between crime and punishment, the difference between human and evil.

As I write this, I am in a lot of pain. Writing on behalf of those hundreds of women who left this land of living hell to may be a better place far far away, for their voices went with them, for their unspoken pains will never be penned. And as I write, I feel another pain towards those many more who are living in hell here.  I am saddened, also a little disgusted at the sight of those laughing men and women who escape the heinous crimes they commit against women, and at the faces of victory of those who help them escape.

Those policemen who bring shame to women, yes, you are trusted upon the task to protect, and when you do inhuman deeds, I am ashamed. To those hundreds of lawyers, doctors, teachers, politicians, bureaucrats, parents, management gurus, celebrities, and yes media professionals, sadly this is an obituary of the educated, polished, looked-up-to (down by me) you.

Dharnas for issues as low as demanding a certain person to walk away from his job seem to be taking over the freedom movements of women. While the media can’t stop talking about the baby of a celebrity, the woman who was brutally raped by 12 men, and one who was killed seems to be an issue of less national importance. Today, this is an obituary of all those moments where the media and people have let us down. This is an obituary, of not one or two but those unaccounted men and women around who think women’s rights and issues concerned are not of immediate importance.

Sadly, this will remain just another piece of a voice among those many different voices that are being shouted from the corner of every village, town and state of India. When a woman is killed somewhere, or tortured, a little part of humanity dies every second. This is a sad reminder that India has become a land where economy takes over human rights, where people fight for a statement made by an opponent before they fight for a raped woman, where she is just another case dumped in the pile of files in a court, making her life worth nothing more than a few sessions of court room drama.

Do I rest my case or is my Case adjourned? This is my obituary to a dying, prosperous land which is economically growing but somewhere has become hollow inside. While you read this, yet another rape case, a case of suicide of a woman will be making headlines. I wonder how do you sleep?

May your soulless bodies Never Rest in Peace.

This post was originally published at Women's Web: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/01/violence-against-women-india/

Women, Contraception & Issues of Access-Usage-Rights

She was all of 22 year old. Four daughters already, two abortions done, I thought I should ask her how it felt to have been pregnant literally all the time since she had been married off. But before I could, her tear-filled eyes looked at me, her lips tried to (fake a) smile, and she said, “This is what women are born for after all. Isn’t it?” I had no answer.

It wasn’t literally that I had none. Somehow I could have used all my textbook based knowledge and my dose of empathy to make her understand that she was worth more than that. That she was powerful. That she was more than a baby-producing machine. That she had rights. But suddenly at that moment, I was completely numb. I had nothing to say. I realized how every system, every policy, every initiative, every organization had failed at that very moment for me.

Do I sound a little hopeless? I had to be. I had no other choice that moment. This issue was more complicated than it looked. What were the problems? Was it Patriarchy and Women’s Status? Or was it access to contraception? Decision making? Or Maternal Health Care? Male-heir desperation? What was it?

On my way back, her strong words kept on resonating in my mind and all I could feel was a sudden rush, an uncontrollable feeling of hatred towards society. People call me emotional with respect to my work. They say I should be more practical. But wasn’t the first reason I joined such a work force that I wanted my emotions to become a passion? I had a hundred thoughts and as the sun started setting, the cold breeze seemed to hit me harder than it usually did.

Issues of Family Planning go way beyond the number of babies. It encompasses the awareness of contraception, rights to make that choice on using one, it entails the issues of maternal and child care, it entails patriarchy and control over bodies, it involves issues of infection, HIV and Violence Against Women. It’s much more than contraception and incentives to get vasectomy or birth control. While the whole system in the country is working towards making people have  control over the production of babies, the lack of empathy has resulted in a flawed policy system where what we have reached today is a point on which we as citizens and humans are better off killing female fetuses and ignoring maternal health.

The fact remains that while an educated strong working urban woman is moving towards using contraception for her own sake, in an average Indian household (let’s not even discuss rural here) a woman still struggles to discuss contraceptive measures to be used by males. She will pop an i-pill or hormonal contraceptive pill rather than ask her husband to use condoms. Condoms have male ego attached to them.

So, when I asked that woman from a very economically progressive yet patriarchal town of a very rich state in India about her view on condoms and birth control, the blank look on her face made me wonder where we are all going wrong, in our struggle to make the country control the over-production of babies.

Questions remain: Will a woman show that she knows her contraceptives well? Will she tell her male counterparts that she is bothered about her health and so should he be? Will she go ahead and buy condoms for him to use? Will she be respected for her interest in use of condoms for birth control and also infections? Will a man value his partner’s opinion on contraception, let her choose what she wants rather than ego-stabbing his opinions on her? Will Contraception become more than a man’s decision and a choice that both take together? The point is that while men on the one hand expect to rule the woman, force her to do what he wants in bed, expecting an average Indian man to make balanced choices keeping his female counterpart in mind is going a little too far right now.

All this takes me back to my Physiology lessons where we did a project on Contraception in my B.Sc days and we explored the various methods and means, did we understand the theory and practicality to use them? The issues of negotiating, of decision making and of rights vs access are something that still remain untaught to women and men out there. Indians don’t appreciate talking about bedrooms publicly but somewhere the urgent need of the hour is to start talking about things as crucial as contraception, sex education, menstruation and pregnancy-childbirth-menopause.

Her eyes still haunt me when I see women like her around. And till date, I don’t have any answer to give to any woman who comes and asks me what to do to stop her husband from asking her to pull out baby boys from her uterus. I can never forget those eyes. Not until I find an answer, a solution.

This Post was originally published at Women's Web: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/01/women-contraception-usage-rights-india/