Saturday 14 April 2018

A False Modern Society

Amidst in the celebration of women’s contribution in Commonwealth Games, this country witnessed a barbaric and inhumane incident that shook everyone; yes I am talking about the abduction, rape, and death of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua District. This incident shook my nerves and coaxed me to think about in which modern society am I living? Is it really modern? Well, I think it isn’t since we are living in a false modern society and not-so-surprisingly lots of people don’t even know what modern society means.

So what is modern society? Well, I don’t want to get into that but surely I would like to raise one of the aspects of modern society i.e. women empowerment and equality. In this modern era where we youngsters are said to believe in women empowerment and equality (equality in terms of gender, caste, religion, and colour) are also involved and enjoy the discriminatory and cliché comedy or jokes on gender – how women and men behave on a particular issue, cities – the most common Delhi vs. Mumbai, Religion – how South Indians behave, etc. And in case of women empowerment, well we enlighten women’s strength on women’s day or enjoy and support the videos on women empowerment but the moment those are turned off we enjoy misogynist movies like Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety. We are all involved in boys vs. girls’ game. Our Whatsapp groups are flooded with cliché misogynist jokes.  But who cares? These jokes and videos are for entertainment and fun. We should not be offended, right? That’s what the attitude majority of people carry when I talk to them on this issue. But is this the time to ignore this issue?

Lot of social reformers like Savitribai Phule, Raja Ram Mohan Roy worked on women empowerment. Even Savitribai Phule worked to abolish discrimination and unfair treatment of people based on caste and gender. In the era where people were rigid towards their social norms, religion, culture, and thinking these reformers went into the roots of India i.e. rural areas, worked hard, and brought the massive reforms in India. At that time, they brought the changes that nobody could have imagined. They did this when there was no technology, when people were what we call orthodox and rigid towards their social norms, culture and religion.

When those massive changes were possible to bring in that era then why are we unable to bring a simple yet inevitable change of women empowerment and equality in this modern era when we have so many resources and people are upfront.  Why political parties effort to urge people to change their thinking, youngsters effort to abolish orthodox practices, talking openly about taboo topics viz. sex and periods and launching of social media campaigns that talk openly about sexual harassment are going in vain?

This is because of the fact that we have no proper agenda. We are working in an aimless direction. The moment we praise women, these lame and misogynist jokes that hit in our mind, trolls that force women to answer on their clothes, sexuality, and nationality smother the flame of women empowerment and their freedom to live in this country. The subtle laughter and persistent jokes are ceasing us to think about this world differently.
Surely we youth can write and express our anger on such incidents on social media. We can involve and support campaigns like #metoo and lighten our heart when we tell the world of what we faced. Surely we can come together and urge our government to have stricter laws for rapists; but do you really think this would work? Do you think this would change the society’s perception towards the discrimination against women? Do you think this would change the thinking men are superior to women? Do social media campaigns worked in India? Do our parents even know about campaigns like #metoo? Do people living in villages know about this? Yes, they have smartphones but they don’t necessarily have media literacy. We can tell the public of what we faced, we can urge the public to change their thinking but are we actually making an effort to change the thinking from our home. Are we going to the roots of this country?

The merger of stricter laws and the changes in people’s thinking would make this country modern and developed, would bring the women freedom they deserve. But at the same time, it’s time for us to come out of the virtual world and bring the campaigns on the floor of the real world. It’s time to accept that these uncles and aunties are not hypocrites but we are also hypocrites. It’s time to choose an option between do we support women empowerment and equality or trolls, discriminatory and lame jokes that divide gender, caste and religion. It’s time to start taking initiatives to change people’s perception towards gender discrimination from our homes and then spread it to the roots of this country. It’s time to remove the hypocrisy, turn this false modern society to actual              modern society.

I know we cannot bring changes in few days but at least an initiative, a reliable, strong aim that exists and works in the real world would gradually bring some noteworthy changes.

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