Our Funarena!

  Accept it or not: feudalism had never left India. The feudal forces of exploitation, torture and crimes still flourish, particularly in the northern belt of the country including, prominently, the most populous state of India, Uttar Pradesh (UP), with its around 20 Crore people. This state has been the hotbed of crimes against women, communal violence, maximum custodial deaths, fake encounters and so on for decades, even though its crime rate does not still top the list thanks to its enormous population.     The powerful upper castes here continue playing the dominating roles as landlords, politicians, criminals, rapists and mafias. And they work in tandem forming a huge empire of vested interests that percolates down favorably to the local authorities, including the police in particular. Naturally, there has always been an overpowering spirit of mutual protection between them. Whenever any of the feudal lords is under a cloud of doubt or danger the corresponding forces get into

Juvenile or not—rape is the worst adult crime possible. Anybody who commits this crime is thus the worst criminal and justice must be meted out to him as sternly and ruthlessly as possible in total disregard to the age factor. The horrible Delhi gangrape of 16 th December, 2012 is still a nightmare in the minds of most of the right-thinking people of this country. Therefore, their pain and shock at the release of the most brutal of the rapists who happened to be just days short of the juvenile age of 18 as fixed by international and national standards is only natural. The disturbed and crying mother of Nirbhaya is a sight that can rattle the conscience of any except the ‘animals’ in human garb. The continuing protests in the national capital are just a reminder of the mass uprising against juvenile crimes in 2012 and onwards. A juvenile criminal can be kept in a remand home for a maximum of three years for supposed ‘reform’ and then has to be released as per the prevailing

Even C-grade Bollywood (Hindi film industry based in Mumbai or earlier Bombay) movies show a kind of stark realism in terms of depraved, regressive and malignantly anti-woman villains. If you have been following Bollywood movies for at least the last three decades you must have noticed villains who when confronted with rapes committed (on screen) by their son/sons or male relatives normally say with pride, “He is a boy only…they commit mistakes man, please understand. In my prime time I too had done a lot of merrymaking. I’ll even burn this city to save my son!” These villains are dirty rich mostly being smugglers or business tycoons or plain dons and they carry the concerned ‘screen’ police force in their pockets. They do get punished in the end by the heroes, but after all the gory regressive oppressive chauvinistic feudalistic details shown gloriously by the filmmakers who definitely seem to pander to a sizeable male section of our society. However, you can hardly deny the ‘

Friday the 13 th September, 2013. If you remember the movie for the sheer horror of it you must remember this particular date for the sheer excitement of it. One-two-three…on three counts of major developments in India. This date is considered unlucky as per superstitious beliefs of Western culture, but this particular date proved auspicious and lucky on three major counts. An auspicious beginning for a rape-tormented country as all the four accused in Delhi Gangrape rape were sentenced to death by a fast-track court in Delhi. It definitely proved lucky for Narendra Modi as the faction-ridden BJP finally managed to take the bold decision of anointing him as its Prime Ministerial candidate for General Elections-2014. A triumph for all genuine cricket lovers as the disciplinary committee of the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) imposed life bans on Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan for Spot fixing in IPL. Proof enough to make you reconsider the scare long attached to ‘Friday the 13 th’ !

India is a country much used to outrages and debates. Maybe we have mentioned this earlier in these pages. When something horrific happens the nation gets outraged. By the time outrage eases debate takes over. And by the time debate takes over everything about it literally gets over. Back to square one the nation waits for the next most catastrophic to happen. A fast track court in Delhi convicted all the four accused (the main accused was found hanging in his cell in Tihar Jail sometime back and the another got away with three years for being a ‘minor’) of the Delhi Gangrape case on September 10, 2013. They were found guilty in all thirteen charges made by police against them. Judgment was to be declared today, but got postponed till Friday as debate took over. This is despite all the major forces pitched in this case including the victim’s family, major political parties, the women leaders and the youth organizations demanding death for the rapists most emphatically and v

In the first conviction of the 16-December horrific Delhi Gangrape case the Juvenile Justice Board today in Delhi announced the verdict awarding a sentence of three years to be served in a reformatory home to the juvenile accused and considered deducting eight months already served by the accused in jail from the three years. Because, the accused was just six months short of 18 years of age on the night of the crime. And, not because he was the most brutal of the six depraved animals, not because he was instrumental in inflicting the most inhuman tortures on the victim leading to her death on 29 th December and nearly murdering her male friend too and not because he was the chief instigator of the sub-human herd. He was in fact found guilty in all these except for the attempt to murder of the male friend and this perfectly made this gangrape ‘the rarest of rare’ case where death penalty has been officially recommended by the new Rape Law recently. Besides, the animal did attain m

When the national capital along with its northern allies lead the way in torturing, maiming, raping and murdering women of all possible age-groups how could the financial capital be far behind! A city boasting of being safe for women over the years has lost this tag forever as crimes against women, intimidation and murder of liberals and all kinds of mafia related shootouts increase ominously. On a more sinister note this could just be the reflection of what is going all around the country. Like the nosediving value of the Indian rupee all values of the society are plummeting to all-time lows. Greed, lust, corruption, violence, intolerance, chauvinism, perversion etc are becoming the new parameters of modern life. Why? Because, our political parties and leaders need to contest and win the General Elections-2014. Because, to achieve that goal they need to have a hopelessly divided and morally defunct society. Because, they have to impose a new ‘governance’ on us for the same ‘n