No Country For Women

A minister's son stalks a girl along with his friend. The girl reports the alleged threat on her body and mind and the two are jailed for few hours before getting a bail.

So the question is, whether all the universe conspires to extend VIP treatment to the ‘privileged’ stalkers, even when the complainant was the daughter of an IAS officer.

#JusticeForVarnika, AintNoCinderella #बेटी बचाओ बीजेपी से: Social media was flooding with expressions of protests and condemnation. On the other hand, cctv's had stopped working and so no footage was available, section 365 (kidnapping) and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) were deliberately forgotten, to save the Haryana BJP minister's son Vikas Barala and his friend.

Nevertheless, the constant campaigning by the media, resulted in outpourings from the father and party persons in favour of Varnika. She was applauded for her timely response against the contemptible act, and justice certainly shall be served. This points to the bigger problem of the country.

When asked by a reporter from the Hindustan Times, if she had faced any harassment before this episode, her answer was quite firm and crystalline: “It has happened to every woman in Chandigarh. It happens everywhere. It happens even during the day. Sometimes what happens is that such guys follow you for a few minutes, then get bored and move on.”

It is a scenario which is abundantly flourishing in our country, the perpetual catering of stereotypes on women such billboard images of domestic women and objectified Bollywood women and glorification of the “stalking culture” where the hero pursues the women unsolicitedly in aiming to be her romantic partner. A ‘no’ is an affront to such men and to their fantastical ideas as was seen in the movie Pink, the women who complained were molested and derided by the society, though were ultimately saved in a magical case of poetic justice. This is the real life and money and position in society is a prerequisite for an individual to claim victory and power.

Although, unity and awareness are strengths, as happened in the case of Jessica Lal and priyadarshini Mattu where awareness and call for justice brought a fair resolution of their cases.

Still many a woman is stalked, exploited and oppressed; unaware of how she could get justice. 6,266 complaints under stalking have been made under Section 354D of the Indian Penal Code, not each one would be entitled to justice. The family of each girl or woman in the country is her first teacher and it has to make her strong enough, knowledgeable enough and aware enough so that she may not cower if any such situation is at hand. Again in Varnika's words- “Every woman needs to understand that we are responsible for our own safety. Why should we delegate our safety to men? If we give them that power to keep us safe, then they also have the power to not keep us safe. If those guys hadn’t thought that I would get scared, they probably won’t have tried this. Changing these men is not easy. What we (women) can change is how we think and how we deal with our lives...You need to give your daughters all the right that a man has, before you want anyone else to do that.”

Women are not recreational pastimes. They are an essential part of the society. The females must know that they don't have to be the princess trapped within, but the warrior outside- for society works on the hierarchies of power, and a mindset cannot be transformed in a day.