I have been reading a lot about the gang rapes happening in India nowadays; or rather the media attention it has been gaining. I am stunned that every newspaper is able to find an incident or two every other day which make it to the news. The "related news" when you visit the news websites will take you down a very depressing and gloomy reality of modern India. Till a few days ago, there was nothing I took out of this news and most of the times even wondered why the Indian media keeps bring such news on to the surface when there is not much we could do but shake our heads in disgust and shame while continuing to read the hindu-muslim comments which ensue irrespective of the news item under consideration.
More recently, the delhi gangrape spurred a whole lot of articles online. The "juvenile" in the case gripped us more and we all unitedly believed and prayed that this so called juvenile not be pardoned and be tried and tested along with the other adults. All this, till I read an interesting article which talked about the other end of the spectrum. Interesting because the author dared to talk about the case from the other end. It talked about the case from the side of the juvenile (if at all) and how he has no hope for any real justice and how justice to anyone in this case will be blinded by our collective drive towards justice for the innocent girl. While I have no soft side for any juvenile or adult in this or any rape case, it got me thinking. What is the real cause here? Why do I keep reading such news? When will it stop?
I did not find any answers right away, but the thought kept me thinking in some part of the head with no real solace. Today, while having a long conversation with my friend, I was able to put some pieces together. Here is what I could collage together from all the reading that I had done. The reason why this is is real occurrence in India is because the situation itself is very "unreal" to the doer itself as one article put it. The question is why? The answer lies in another piece of news. Not the one about rape, but about tariff fixing for auto-rickshaws in Chennai which got people complaining and cribbing about how the rickshaw-wallas skip the meter. While I have been on the side of the cribbers back in India, I have more recently come to realize after meeting their counterparts here in USA that our poor drivers in India are underpaid and have very tough life on very tough lawless roads. Why is it that I was so blinded back in India while I see a more clearer picture in a newer country?
The reason is very simple. In India, my perspectives were based on the what we are conditioned to. Based on what percentage of the pocket-money/salary we could spend on transport after paying for the ever increasing prices elsewhere. Why is it that we never cared about the quality of life of the rickshaw-wallas? Because we were fending for our own. It was me first and then everyone else after that. "If I barely have enough to take care of my own needs, why would I worry about someone else?" The hatred that we have collectively built up towards the politicians and the super-rich is probably the same hatred that the poor (who are getting poorer) have towards everyone else who is not their kind. To them, the rest of the world is "unreal". It just does not exist.
So what is the real problem here? The real problem is the other news we keep reading about. Scam's, inflation, bribery, politics, etc. The list is endless. The wider our gap in between the rich, the middle-class and the poor; the more unreal the other worlds are to each of these individuals. The rich do not understand and probably don't care enough about the problems of the poor or the middle class. Like wise, the poor and the middle class are stuck in their own rut. We are so busy about our own problems that we have forgotten about and probably don't care about the problems we collectively face as a nation. Our problems are like the garbage problems that becomes the governments' problem the minute they leave our car windows. I am more and more convinced that the rapes in India are not the problem, but a very sad outcome to an even bigger problem; a problem that will and probably already is manifesting itself in many other forms.
