‘…When I searched my heart, no one was worse than me’, is there a rapist hidden inside you too?

Sandeep Bundela, New Delhi: This question is for men all over the world. Is there a rapist hidden inside you? Do you start having obscene thoughts when you see a girl going to school, a young woman going to work or this half of the world shopping in a mall or market? Why do their deep neck, bra strips, navel-revealing clothes, thigh-revealing jeans and shorts bother you? Why do your eyes try to peek through the gap between the two buttons of their shirt? Leave these things aside…does your mind develop a frustrated attitude even for a young woman covered from head to toe? Is your thinking such that if you get a chance, you will not refrain from force? Then be careful! There is a rapist hidden inside you. You may deny this. You may answer every question asked above by saying ‘no’. You may talk a million times about gender equality, freedom to wear anything and equality with this half of the world, but the recent government figures of NCRB like ‘one rape every 16 minutes’ in the country say that men are outright lying. The brutality against 4-year-old girls in Badlapur, Maharashtra and the brutality against a 90-year-old woman in Shahdol, MP, prove that rape is not dependent on age. From the elite class to slums, there is hardly any place where such cases do not occur. Not only India, the condition of developed America and European countries is also dangerous.

They are being cruel to their own people at home
If not you and me, then who are these monsters? National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics say that in 95% of the cases in the country, the culprit is someone from the family, a relative or an acquaintance. Now what to say about this. Newspapers are full of such news. The father has not spared the daughter and the brother has not spared the sister. In some cases, the mother has made such allegations on the son. The day is not far when the daughters in the house will stop trusting the father and the sisters will stop trusting their brother or say they are leaving it. Even though such cases are like finding a needle in the ocean, the situation is scary.

Have we men started looking at this half of the world apart from us only and only from our frustrated perspective. Trying to cling to the girl standing/sitting next to us in the bus and metro, taunting a girl walking on the road. Harassment in school/college, making obscene jokes of female colleagues in office or workplace. Even if we do not have the courage to do so due to fear of society or POSH (Policy to prevent sexual harassment at workplace), then doesn’t the mere thought of it make us scary? It is not that there are no laws to deal with these incidents. The changes in the law after the Nirbhaya incident and POCSO related to child abuse have given strict punishment to the culprits.

Look inside yourself first
Bombay High Court has even said that stalking a minor will also be considered sexual harassment. Still such cases are not stopping. Easy access to porn websites through easily accessible internet, obscene stories, there can be many reasons for making the thinking of a child’s mind obscene. There can be many excuses that women entice by showing their body. We should question their clothes and habits of working at night, but before that we should look inside ourselves. Saint Kabir Das has rightly said hundreds of years ago – ‘…Jo Dil Khoja Aapna, Mujhse Bura Na Koi’.