Bars and liberty

Every time you think you know all facets of something India surprises you and often into helpless laughter, sometimes into taking positions you did not think you could.

The recent attacks on women by people calling themselves Shri Ram sena, much discussed in media with great heat, had a lot of surprises. First the people copying Taliban behaviour had forgotten about the Somarasa of Vedic times, and that women as men did partake Madira through old times. And that women of India were free to move and to act according to their decisions, with men not being approved for attacking one in any way. Never.

A sena would justify its name if it fought armed opposition, not attacking helpless young women and molesting them. Even the sena of Raama did not attack women of Lanka, whatever they were doing - and Vaalmieki does describe them drunk does he not?

As for Raama, his ideal was not attacking any woman (except one who tried to cannibalise them) but in fact bringing one back from a petrified state to life, Ahilyaa.

On one hand the spokesperson of the major party spoke early and said, why is this being sensationalised and politicised when in fact Delhi has had so many murders and rapes of young women on or from their way to work and it was not sensationalised or politicised by them? Good point, and the point still stands. BJP is falsely named Hindu party by media in interest of sensationalising, branding and hacking to bits - it is not clear if it is only BJP or India and its soul they are after, so it would be easy for everyone else to cannibalise it.

And it certainly is true that while the three more progressive and free states of west are being attacked relentlessly in the media, in north women have not been free to go even to school, college, office, work, shopping, or a walk, without fear of molestation.

The fear is not baseless, and things very unpleasant happen with great frequency. The women are brave if necessary, going out and accomplishing and silent about the fear and incidents they often suffer (why complain if it only brings about a return to being shut up in the home, or is useless anyway?); but men often react with "why do they need to go out" when I have discussed it, and further elaborate with "if they need to go to the temple they can take a brother to go with them". What about those with no easily available hefty male protector, are they easy targets (yes of course, in practice) to be disapproved of for stepping out of the home?

There is no easy answer, but here is a clue - you might live in a northern state next door to some family for a year without ever realising they have a teenage daughter, and this is not a palace they are living in but a small house we are talking about.

So really what the spokesperson said needs to be extended and demands need to be made to have women of north as free and safe at least as those in south are until now. The difference has been considerable, and the balance changes with large scale migrations. Like it or not, such is fact of Mumbai and other places too.

Media needs to wake up and realise women coming home from work in Delhi are not less important than women drinking in Karnataka. The former get regularly raped and murdered while media shouting about the latter being a couple of times recently slapped around is losing credibility, for being out of proportion in dealing with the two.

Does that mean the latter should be ignored?

No - because the freedom to go to the bar is included in the freedom of movement in general, and the ridiculous people later found by one channel to explain why only women were attacked were not thinking.

Today they complain that women going to bars are risking being manhandled and this is the excuse for the sena attacking the women - tomorrow it would be about women going to work being murdered and then someone else attacking them for their own safety.

There was already talk of companies being reluctant to hire women or being shouted at for having women employees work at late night shifts, when the few murders of working women happened in Bangalore. But even in the same town far more number of women were murdered around the same time at home, in daylight or at night, and nobody turned around and said, hey, women are not safe at home - please go out, sisters, for your own safety! It would have made far more sense too, since few would dare to murder someone in a public place with witnesses.

They need to clean up their act and thinking, and realise and admit that they attacked women because it is easy and cheap. Attacking males might just bring danger to their own persona. In short, they did not behave like men, but like less than animals. Animals or even insects do not attack their own species females. Men who do not feel certain of their own manhood, do.

What are these idiots trying to do, get the society ready to receive oppressive regimes of terror?

What is the media trying to do, pretending drinking libery is more than life?

Banning pubs or drinks or alcohol at private parties might in fact solve one problem, that of drunken drivers killing others and themselves as two separate happenings in Bangalore last week alone showed. It is not about freedom to spend your own money, it is about freedom of others and their right to life that drunken drivers are putting at risk. And more.

Or else it needs one hefty gun toting policeman per drunken pubgoer to make sure they do not drive. Too much. Can India afford the cost of rapid westernisation to this extent, is India ready? It is ok to go slow, and restrain drinking meanwhile - especially for men.

As for the argument that a hard working person needs to relax, why is this assumed that drink is the only possibility?

The burgeoning cities of today need parks, trees, grass, benches, playgrounds and more, where people can go relax - walk or sit or chat or play, without fear and with being able to breather without fumes of traffic. Read on a park bench quietly without molestation, go with your spouse and friends and family or alone walking without fear of miscreants that has driven middle class out of the existing spaces.

Middle class of Mumbai have the seashore and some cities like Pune have a culture of people walking without fear, but this needs to be extended to others.

As for the anticlimax of Rajasthan CM declaring he disapproves of malls and is going to close them down, because boys and girls go together to them - while his party is taken aback, he is of course securing his own seat by playing to the worst of his backwater state of keeping women enclosed. Today, no malls, tomorrow, no school either - in fact not so many girls do go to school in his state, while in Karnataka they regularly top the results.

The people who mix together are unlikely to attack each other, for they become friends, and if he cares about the daughters of his home state he would prescribe girls and boys going to the malls and elsewhere in mixed groups as friends.

The people who should be not going to the malls are small children, breating fumes and taking in the noise and suffering in the crowd; and the food - don't even begin to think of the effects of fast food on young children. The people who should be banned are the little ones, anyone shorter than four feet and younger than twelve, not yet in high school and not quite responsible or able to take care of oneself. Let there be other, open and safe, places for them. Without lifts and escalators, not so much crowd as trees and benches and playgrounds including cinema hall. And good country food, made from raw ingredients the way grandmother used to make it. Healthy.