MARCHING TOWARDS THE NADIR !

Kajal Chaterjee

Gang-rape survivor the 16 year 11 month old girl, carrying a 7-month-old foetus, with the Court getting knocked to abort it! 

 

Yet, far from treating the case with utmost sympathy and delivering verdict to bring relief to the vulnerable girl, none other than a judge of a particular High Court is directing her to read Manusmriti and advises her to draw "inspiration" from it and learn how to give birth and bring up a child before reaching 17 years of age as it was prevalent in earlier generations!

 

This incident again brings to light how attainment of mere glamorous academic degrees and high posts can neither serve as the gateway to emerge as truly "educated" nor act as the  be-all and end-all of life!

 

 A truly educated person is he/she who feels the pain of a vulnerable person including that of a minor rape-survivor with additional burden of carrying a foetus and act accordingly.

 

But such compassion is too much to be expected from the zealous votaries of that heartless insensitive document emitting foul odour of blatant casteism, misogyny and patriarchy! 

 

The document, which should hang the heads of all conscientious Indians to perpetual shame and disgrace as it carries blood and tears of countless Indian women and caste groups deemed "low" since centuries or time immemorial, is instead getting projected as the "role model" which requires to be "lapped up" by a minor rape-survivor! 

 

Now from the misogyny front to superstitious front! As if the ecosystem of a particular brand is not heartless enough to project "restoration of the railway line" as a "massive unprecedented achievement" of sorts so as to sweep the hard reality of the greatest railway disaster in Indian history; the Bahanaga high school, in Odisha, is being demolished and rebuilt so as to "get relief from the ghosts" of dead passengers laid there before getting shifted to the morgue! What message is being imparted to the students by making a mockery of the Article 51A (h) of the Constitution which expects every citizen to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform! 

 

With each passing day, Indian society is simply and gallantly marching towards the nadir in terms of morality, humanity, rationality and sense of justice.