There's something ironical about the social media outrage in India about sexual molestation of girls outside bars. That happened after the new years party, when they exited the posh bars into the brawny streets, the dangerous world of men who are sexual predators, rapists, thugs, criminals?
This is only one angle and there are several more. For example, there is an angle of class. The people who can afford to go to the high end joints end up being afraid of the people who can't go there. The others have to spend it on the streets, lurking after the rich who have it all, the cars and the girls and the jobs.
Political leaders made inappropriate statements as usual after the incidents, the same old thing about how the girls should have covered up and got bashed online, after which they suitably modified their statements. Why did they blame the girls in the first place though? Simply, because that was what their electorate believed too.
For most of the people in India, the social process is about conforming to the norms that have been set since ages, conforming because the traditions are meant to be followed and then also because we are so tightly packed that those who try to break this hegemony of tradition are quickly punished and put back on track. Norms are necessary in a resource deprived, overpopulated society to avoid conflicts that invariably would arise and religion provides the appropriate cover.
That is not to say that norms like modesty, inter-gender divide, male chauvinism are right or even wrong. Norms are still adhered to because the social situation hasn't changed much for a vast majority of the Indians. Case in point is the availability of jobs. If 65 % of our population is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture, that means that most of them are after temporary jobs that are oversupplied with under qualified men and therefore insecure by their very nature.
Private sector hasn't been able to absorb the bounties of Indian loins and government jobs are too stultified to offer any meaningful satisfaction. And yet, the digital bits of global media have unrealistically raised the aspirations of the growing tribe of globally connected Indian citizenry. In the void of jobs, they have planted visions of plenty.
Reality is different, a reality where our inefficient government sector and basic structural weaknesses of economy aren't able to give even a modicum of basic security to people. The result is poverty and exclusion. The result is resorting to some sort of mechanism to protect the ego, to be able to believe that they too wold have a future as bright as the screen of the giant screens and hoardings in cities. The result is a deeply rooted frustration and aggression because when even the veil of religion and social norms are gone, there is nothing left to protect a vast majority of people from gloom that perpetually surrounds them.
Most of the people are too poor to afford introspection, moral philosophy and generally anything to do with liberal philosophy. They are rooted in their faith, society and unfortunately the bigotry that comes with keeping a closed mind. To go beyond this, you need to give basic security to people, a sense of dignity of their worth, an education, a job, a life... a real one.
If an individual himself is struck in the most dire circumstance, you cannot expect any different treatment for others. This is not an apology or a justification, merely the state of things as they are.
So when we brand the men who groped women on the new years eve as animals and criminals, then we should also keep in mind that maybe most of them are poor working men from the villages who have come to the city to make a life and found that they won't be able to make it. Neither do they have the requisite skills and neither would they be allowed to learn those skills.
The groping then becomes an instinctive snatch at something that they can never have, the life continually shown to them as the good one, the life of the rich where the girls have the economic and emotional security to go to pubs and dress skimpily and where these men would get associated to these very girls, a life where they aren't constantly humiliated, looked down upon by these higher classes, where they would be allowed to move up and the system if fair and opportunities are plenty.
By the way, the rural women are just as frustrated. They too want to break the shackles and define their life on their own terms. But their anger is far more subversive, working through the passive route, the domestic route, through the torture of their male counterparts emotionally- because who else would listen to their constant tales of woe and constant lack of affection and - for their men are always running about seeking to grope the dream girls while they make life for their own girls a nightmare.
This is only one angle and there are several more. For example, there is an angle of class. The people who can afford to go to the high end joints end up being afraid of the people who can't go there. The others have to spend it on the streets, lurking after the rich who have it all, the cars and the girls and the jobs.
Political leaders made inappropriate statements as usual after the incidents, the same old thing about how the girls should have covered up and got bashed online, after which they suitably modified their statements. Why did they blame the girls in the first place though? Simply, because that was what their electorate believed too.
For most of the people in India, the social process is about conforming to the norms that have been set since ages, conforming because the traditions are meant to be followed and then also because we are so tightly packed that those who try to break this hegemony of tradition are quickly punished and put back on track. Norms are necessary in a resource deprived, overpopulated society to avoid conflicts that invariably would arise and religion provides the appropriate cover.
That is not to say that norms like modesty, inter-gender divide, male chauvinism are right or even wrong. Norms are still adhered to because the social situation hasn't changed much for a vast majority of the Indians. Case in point is the availability of jobs. If 65 % of our population is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture, that means that most of them are after temporary jobs that are oversupplied with under qualified men and therefore insecure by their very nature.
Private sector hasn't been able to absorb the bounties of Indian loins and government jobs are too stultified to offer any meaningful satisfaction. And yet, the digital bits of global media have unrealistically raised the aspirations of the growing tribe of globally connected Indian citizenry. In the void of jobs, they have planted visions of plenty.
Reality is different, a reality where our inefficient government sector and basic structural weaknesses of economy aren't able to give even a modicum of basic security to people. The result is poverty and exclusion. The result is resorting to some sort of mechanism to protect the ego, to be able to believe that they too wold have a future as bright as the screen of the giant screens and hoardings in cities. The result is a deeply rooted frustration and aggression because when even the veil of religion and social norms are gone, there is nothing left to protect a vast majority of people from gloom that perpetually surrounds them.
Most of the people are too poor to afford introspection, moral philosophy and generally anything to do with liberal philosophy. They are rooted in their faith, society and unfortunately the bigotry that comes with keeping a closed mind. To go beyond this, you need to give basic security to people, a sense of dignity of their worth, an education, a job, a life... a real one.
If an individual himself is struck in the most dire circumstance, you cannot expect any different treatment for others. This is not an apology or a justification, merely the state of things as they are.
So when we brand the men who groped women on the new years eve as animals and criminals, then we should also keep in mind that maybe most of them are poor working men from the villages who have come to the city to make a life and found that they won't be able to make it. Neither do they have the requisite skills and neither would they be allowed to learn those skills.
The groping then becomes an instinctive snatch at something that they can never have, the life continually shown to them as the good one, the life of the rich where the girls have the economic and emotional security to go to pubs and dress skimpily and where these men would get associated to these very girls, a life where they aren't constantly humiliated, looked down upon by these higher classes, where they would be allowed to move up and the system if fair and opportunities are plenty.
By the way, the rural women are just as frustrated. They too want to break the shackles and define their life on their own terms. But their anger is far more subversive, working through the passive route, the domestic route, through the torture of their male counterparts emotionally- because who else would listen to their constant tales of woe and constant lack of affection and - for their men are always running about seeking to grope the dream girls while they make life for their own girls a nightmare.
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