When a particular sect of people belonging to a particular gender or group is targeted it becomes a shame for the entire society, just as recently we the people in kashmir witnessed how our society has failed in bringing up healthy and stable youth with an empathetic personality. Well most of the people don’t know about the acid attack in Srinagar, where a young 24 year old girl was brutally and inhumanely attacked with one of the deadliest chemicals ever made simply for turning down a stupid meaningless engagement proposal. Well for me the news came when I was just fiddling around with my phone when my mother came with teary eyes, dismay on her face, I could make out the pain in every line and corner of her face, I could tell she was frightened as she broke the most heartbreaking and dreadful news; A girl was attacked with acid in Srinagar. She told me this with so much rage and concern in her voice. This is not the first time we have heard the news of such a heinous crime but for some reason, this time around it shook me to my core, With all the deaths we witnessed, The pain we went through, I thought the world was becoming a little less of hell and the people had finally started to learn to be humane with each other, but this news took away the chance of doubt I was giving these monsters dressed as humans. learning the details of this attack I got to know that the girl had made a mistake she should never have in the first place, She turned down a meaningless engagement proposal. That too from a guy whose ego was so fragile that he decided to ruin her entire life in return. I mean how dare she, She is a girl, She is a commodity, An entity that is bound to sell herself short every time some pathetic excuse of a man comes to propose to her, She isn’t supposed to voice her opinions, She isn’t supposed to make a choice, She isn’t supposed to say “NO” and hurt the huge yet feeble male ego of these egregious monsters who don’t even take a second to think before getting all vindictive and acting on their ludicrous impulses. Well, that is not how things work for a girl in our society. because if she does dare to do what society does not expect of her, it will only result in her entire life being nothing but merely a single splash of acid on her face and body which would bring her hard built life down to ashes and ruins. Time and again we have seen that this society of ours that runs on pure Patriarchy has had a bigger role in such incidents, and this time around I will not just blame the monsters who made the acid attack on this innocent girl, Rather I will blame every single person in his life who at some point of time made him believe that a girl is less than him, that he was something superior and that he had a right to ruin someone’s life if that person refused to take him seriously. Most of you might agree with me but most of you might as well not, but the fact remains that we Kashmiri people have a sheep herd mentality, if not all of us but mostly 80-90% of people among us form our opinions based on what we see others doing, What we hear others preaching and what we are made to believe through our patriarchal customs and traditions, we as a society have failed our girls, In both respecting them, And protecting them.
Now, commendable is the job of the authorities who arrested the accused culprits in just under 24 hours, But the question is what now? That 24-year-old girl who is still a child for her parents, a ray of hope for her entire family is fighting with pain so unimaginable and unbearable that we cannot even fathom what it is like to be her right now. As reports said her eyes got burnt and she most probably wouldn’t be able to see ever again, even if she gets her eyes corrected somehow what about her face? The rest of her body? The parts that will always have scars of this horrific time of her life, and the psychological trauma that she is going through right now and will go through afterwards? What about all the things these monsters put her through? How will we justify any of these things? Is keeping them in jail enough? Even if they get a life sentence will that be enough? Because realities check, they won’t even have to suffer 0.01% of what the girl went through, and all this because of what? Because we failed as a society to teach our boys how to respect a girl, How to protect her and think of her as their equal rather than a commodity they can own and do as they please. To bring awareness about such issues there are documentaries, Movies, real-life stories, Shows where such victims come forward to speak about the worst period of their lives and yet our youth is not being inspired to do better rather they are becoming even more and more villainous with each effort, It is not because their moral compass is broken, it is because our moral compass is pointing us towards a wrong direction, We see someone dying on the road we either pass them by or take out our phones to make videos but none of us would come forward to help, We see someone fighting we are like why indulge in this stupidity, Let’s just save my time and move on, we have become ignorant of the fact that our actions no matter how small can bring about a positive change in the society but none of us is ready to do that which teaches these monsters that they can come and go as they please, do as they please, as they think they are not liable to answer anyone because no one would question them. If only I had a chance I would put these people through the same pain, agony and misery and leave them to rot to death, but unfortunately, all I can do is write my anger out, Protest, Try and struggle to change people’s opinions and help them grow above patriarchy, But in the meantime, the people who make and break the law can surely bring about a huge change by punishing these criminals with such a severe punishment that anyone who has such thoughts would think at least twice before committing such a grave sin. These three people who were arrested did not only ruin a single girl’s life, but traumatised her entire family, and scarred the entire society. Because this incident screams how we have failed as a society to teach our kids to accept rejection with grace and dignity rather than pulling such vicious acts of vengeance.
(The author is Operational manager at Himalayan Peaks Wood Industries Srinagar. Views are her own)
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