Has the Nation really awakened?

The horrific “Delhi Gang Rape case” shook the nation from its roots. People were down on streets protesting against the government, against the brutality, against the crimes in India. Two slogans stood out among all the placards and banners - “Hang the rapists” and “We want justice”.

The government immediately set up five fast-track courts to try sexual offences against women.
It’s nothing new. The Indian government set up 1,734 fast-track courts in the country a decade ago. The purpose was to quickly clear pending cases. But according to some legal experts, many of these courts disbanded after the government stopped funding them.

In 2006, a fast-track court in Alwar, Rajasthan convicted the son of a police officer less than a month after he raped a German scholar. (The prisoner escaped while on parole, and has been missing ever since). Fast-tracking cases may not always be the best option anyway.

Even in this case, till the case was covered by media and people were on streets threatening the government; the police actually was going to take a week to just file the case.

Delhi, the so called “Capital” of India is now categorised under top 5 most unsafe places in the world. China has actually tagged Delhi as the “Rape Capital” of the world after a Chinese citizen was raped in Delhi; and has issued travel advisory to its citizens. Delhi is now considered at par with South Africa, where according to statistics; cases like these are reported every four minutes. Even while the trial of this horrifying case was on, gang rapes, murders, molestations continued in Delhi at the same rate. How embarrassing and disgraceful is this, your country getting popular not for its achievements but for its heinous crimes.

The crime rate in Delhi has only been increasing every year. Criminals are making a mockery of our system and what are we doing about it? Making excuses such as “women are the instigators of such heinous crimes”, “only if girls were more appropriately clothed these days”? Which age are we in? Is there any progress in our society, at all?

One of the politicians actually commented that these protests and candle march are just a way for “pretty girls” to grab people’s attention so that they get their “break”. This outraged the crowd so much that they started protesting against the politician asking him to apologise and totally forgot the whole point of why they started their protest initially. Only after the female was snuffed out, did the crowd remember their actual reason behind the whole protest. If this is how serious we are going to be about things happening around us, how can expect our government to take us seriously?

Movies are produced, where one guy removes corruption and corrupts from the country and we love it. The actor becomes our hero! Ever wondered why? It’s because each one of us has that anger inside us, against where our country, our society is heading to. We are all waiting for that “hero” to come change our society for us. But what we don’t realise is, fantasy is way different from reality!

Few people say, this is how India is. Accept it! There’s nothing we can do. That is exactly where we go wrong. It’s us and only us, people of our nation who can build or break our nation. It’s not the government, not the jurisdiction, but us. A 10-15 day public protest is not the solution. People protest and eventually move on with their lives and forget what happened 10 days back. Laws are created and forgotten. They are just printed on papers and are broken every single day.

If we really want our country to change then we should first start with ourselves. Only if we are good, law abiding citizens of India, we can make our society a safe place to live in and in turn our nation. Corrupts are corrupt because we are there to feed their corruption. If we follow the rules and stick to the laws created for us when at fault, there will be no way on earth that any one will ever be able to take advantage of our situation. Small changes are all that’s required to achieve this.

I don’t believe in building roads and museums in the name of the victims will pay them respect. I believe changing the society, eradicating such crimes is what can pay respect to the victims.