The narrow difference

There lived a boy in a country dreamed of a great nation. He was poor, struggled a lot in the young.

Later he rose as a prominent figure; like many other people he also thought the ruling class let down his country.

He started working in his party, later became the leader of his party.

He dreamed of a developed nation, promised jobs to youth and end of injustice to its citizen’s; offered a better life and future.

He was a crowd puller; a powerful speaker, he amazed people with his words.

Then he became the ultimate leader of the nation, people waited for the revival of the system.

But for him and his party, the ideology of nation and its citizen was different from the normal view; according to them there were no equality between people.

Their ideology stated specific class (race or clan) of people were only the real citizen of the nation and they only were the pure ones and the nation belonged to them. And all others were inferior in the racial hierarchical order.

As came to power he and his party started to repress the people oppose them; they started to ban all which either opposed them or opposed by them. Then the revolts against them were termed as illegal.

They started to eliminate the outcasts, snatched everything from them, and killed them mercilessly. Humanity vanished from the soil and people lived in their country for ages suddenly became orphans. 

People feared to make noise, not all favored class supported the oppression; but nobody dared to make a statement.

The pure class women were encouraged to make more progeny to make his army large. These mothers were awarded on their number of desirable kids.

And the youth were taught his ideology, kids were taught to hate the undesirable and being aggressive. The whole youth of the nation were under his spell, he wanted them to be followers of his ideology.

He started to expand his nation, started wars and challenged the world.  The world warned him to stop the brutality.

But he never heard a word against him. But when the whole world stood against him, he and his party had to retreat.

He took his life himself. 

That man was Adolf Hitler along with Nazi party and the country was Germany.

Only after the death of Hitler and the defeat of Nazi, the world got the exact visual of the holocaust; the mass killing of the Jews and others on the racial difference.

He is never hailed as a visionary or a reformer. World remember him with hate as the worst dictator of the universe. His vision of development of people had a narrow difference from what it had to be. And that little difference in his thought (ideology) made big difference to his actions. And thus a hero turned out to be a villain.

Trust to exploit?

     A few years back, one of my hostel mates said to me ‘my parents trust me’; it was her reaction for my surprise look. She was talking to her boyfriend, when her parents called her. She called back later and said them that she was talking to her teacher. When I heard this, I looked back at her in surprise as I was witnessing everything. When the second call ended she said to me the sentence I stated above ‘my parents trust me’. Actually I had no problem with anything; her talk with boyfriend, her lie about that to her parents later or anything. But I was a little bit surprised to hear that she was ‘talking to a teacher’. I did expect a ‘friend’ or ‘classmate’ at the place of ‘teacher’. So I looked at her in surprise, but she thought I was questioning her lie and she gave me the reply ‘my parents trust me’. But that pushed me into deep confusion ‘what the hell now this means?’ Do her parents trust she doesn’t have a boyfriend? Do her parents trust she doesn’t talk to her boyfriend? Or do her parents trust she doesn’t lie to them? Whatever they meant, they were wrong; she had done all the three things. It is always a person’s choice how to live. But my doubt still stays there where it formed 6 years back. Was she right in saying ‘my parents trust me, so I can do anything?’ Should we try to keep trust unbroken or we can just break it at any times and just fake it still there? Or is it ethical to exploit somebody’s trust to our profit? 

      The thing ‘trust’ is very important in current scenario, it was always, but now it’s more important as how often people exploiting it, more than ever! The above incident was just a daily affair. But it is not right to exploit trust. In the whole incident, the calls or lie was not something big when comparing the fact that my friend thought she could easily deceive her parents because they trust her. In any relation; personal or public trust develops between two people very rarely, it takes time. So when that happens, it is our duty to keep it rather than exploit it or break it mercilessly. For that it is important whom we trust or who deserves our trust. We don’t have to fall in the trap of people who just want to utilize our trust.

      When I trust a person, of course I expect that is as a two way process. When I befriend somebody I usually let her know my personality, like ‘okay this is me, you don’t have to have any assumptions’. When relationship deepens the trust factor anchors more. It is not like when she hears something bad about me, I expect her to disbelieve it. If that person knows me well and she knows what she hears is a lie then I would love to hear that the person opposes it. But even if that doesn’t happen I expect my friend comes to me straight and ask about that or clear it. That is what trust means to me. I don’t expect my friend hears something and then act accord with that to me later. It hurts. The right to ask ‘what is truth’ is trust brings us. If I fail in inducting that much faith in a person even after year’s long friendship then I should check my choice of friends. So trust doesn’t make you believe somebody blindly, it gives some right to you as well as your friend (or whoever in that position) to talk about things and clear the air.

     So some people exploit trust of others and some reluctant to trust. The third group of people is curse of our society. These people trust blindly others. They are people who sit with zero power to reason. And these people are us; at times we all fall into this category. But unlike some of us there are people who are permanent members of these groups. Want to know who? The followers of political leaders, the followers of political parties, the followers of religious leaders, the followers of fringe groups, the followers of terrorism in the name of religion and god etc. Well, in these groups two are predominant in my place at present time, the political leader followers and religious leader followers. Following somebody is not a fault. In fact our country provides us that basic right; follow or trust anybody you want. But does that mean you support anything that done by people whom you follow?

       Here in my country there is no shortage for corrupted politicians. In a number of times some of them caught red handed. But even with all these evidences in front of people they are ready to fight for them. These politicians’ turns after turns eat our money and then when they caught, escape with the support of people. The first sentence the politicians say when they accuse of something like a crime or corruption is ‘people know me well, they will give answer to this’, that is they just make a suggestion to people to get into the streets and show their support. And before hearing this completely people are ready to die for their leader. I just don’t get it, some leader stole our money and enjoyed with it and when he comes under scanner, why they invoke people’s sentiments and ask them to prove or answer his actions? But what to say, there are his followers ready to fight his opposition as well as the law and order to prove their leader innocent. This is called trusting blindly. It doesn’t matter for the followers whatever the truth is, they are ready to homicide for the leader. They fight with others, undergo fasts, protest in many ways or even commit suicide to release their leader. These people are the ones who are not ready to look at the facts spread in front of them. Whatever happens, these tainted leaders and parties will be elected by people the next time too.

      The famous God men of this country do the same. People trust them badly. They make people believe that they are gods. And then when they are accused of murders, rapes, economic offences and other antisocial activities, the followers lead processions and strikes on their support. They veil human shield before them so that the people get hurt before police could touch them. And whoever follows the logic and questions the antisocial activities will face the wrath of followers. They will make the lives of people who question the atrocities horrible. And again the accusations fade away slowly, the ‘gurus’ continue with their blessings and foreign trips.

    The above mentioned cases are common here. I don’t and I can’t question somebody following a person or a party or anything else; But to what extent? To my knowledge every human being got with something called as common sense. But even after seeing all the evidences of these leaders’ fraudulence and malpractices, people are ready to trust them. So what is trust in this case means? Why don’t the followers think, ‘yes, I’m a follower of this person and he/she should prove me first his actions or innocence; since I follow this leader he/she is accountable to me’. Why these followers think ‘I’m a follower and it is my duty to support even if the person is terribly wrong’. And I know the answer; they, the followers are raised as dolls in the hands of leaders, they are raised to fight whoever opposes their leader, they are raised with the idea that people who question their leader are enemies. And more importantly these political or religious ‘dons’ play well with the religion or caste card. So the sincere attack against abnormalities done by leaders by normal people suddenly change to the attack against specific caste or religion in the eyes of followers and well, the followers now add caste tag to their protests and start street fights.

     The ‘ammas and babas’ of this kind rules our country. If political leaders face criminal offences the religious leaders help them to come out of it, and vice versa. But people follow them blindly till their end. If somehow they realize their mistake they change their leaders but not try to use their logic to live. For the leaders the trust of their followers is just to exploit at the times it needed. And the followers don’t value their own trust something worthy; ‘You do whatever you like, we will follow you; you are the leaders, lead us’. For a moment if we think of responsible and reasonable followers of somebody who question his actions, I don’t think, that leader may have the courage he has now to cheat; at least considering the fact that his main weapon against the law is his followers. This accountability on the name of trust is the only thing we needed to keep many menaces like corruption at bay. But we don’t consider ourselves worthy of trust; we just trust others and trust blindly. We don’t think giving trust is a two way process. And we don’t trust in the power of our trust.

    

When legislatures find new lows….

    13^th financial budget for Kerala presented in Kerala assembly on 13^th March that is yesterday. The things can be put in short like this; finance minister presented the budget, 21 casualties reported from the assembly and more from outside, damage of lakhs of rupees estimated. Well, some may be shocked to read this, but not in India I hope, because almost all national dailies and channels reported this incident well. Actually all Malayalam news channels were celebrating this from Thursday, and they are thankful to the legislatures that they got more than they expected.

     Okay, let me give a preface for all the events happened on Friday. There has been a political turmoil in Kerala since some bar owners accused the finance minister for taking bribes from them on giving bar licenses. But finance minister rejected all these accusations. But day after day more evidence (audio, video) came out yet he was not ready to resign his post. It is most common ‘ritual’ in India that when some allegations pop out ministers resign and face enquiry (just to fool people for some time). But in this case it didn’t happen and the chief minister was not in a state to demand a resignation (without FM and his 9 MLA’s the ruling party would be minority, ha ha). So opposition started protest but in a limited way and warned if the corrupted FM tried to present budget there would be ‘blood river’ in this assembly. Well, they didn’t succeeded with the ‘blood’ part but the ‘drama’ created was exceptional (yeah, exceedingly exceptional so that we malayalis need head scarf to hide our faces from the world!).

      First thing, I don’t see the moral side of opposition in threatening the FM’s budget presentation. The bribe issue started 3 months back, there were enough evidence against the minister, he was under vigilance enquiry and everything was under the control of opposition, but they didn’t do anything possible to remove a corrupted minister (they accuse him so). Even from the starting, they focused on the budget only, they were adamant that the accused minister can’t present the budget. How can they possibly say that? How can they the state FM can’t present the budget of the state? If he is accused he should be removed from such an important post, then this whole problem wouldn’t arise. But the opposition stand was that the FM could continue but not allowed to be present the budget. And to my view opposition was terribly wrong from that point itself, they were trying to achieve their profits and their motive was not for the sake of the State and its people. The last condition laid by the opposition to the government to abandon the ‘budget protest’ was that ‘somebody’ on the behalf of FM could read the budget. And the government which never accepted the bribe accusations, never agreed to replace the FM from the budget speech (that would be a political suicide).

    So both sides went on as they planned. I should say both the ruling and opposition were well planned. The opposition said earlier they would block the FM from budget speech at any cost. So it could be any way, the opposition could block the FM from entering the assembly and thus the presentation. So the 'intelligent' ruling party decided to stay in the assembly building after the Thursday proceedings. The opposition also did the same; they stayed in the assembly hall (assembly well) itself. And by knowing the development in the assembly, people started to campaign around assembly. All the news channels focused on the development in the assembly and waited for the dooms day.

     On Friday, FM was restricted from entering the assembly two times by the opposition but he succeeded in the third attempt. And then everything turned into violence. What happened after that is a real shame for the history of Kerala. Opposition which couldn’t prevent the FM’s entry tried to block the speaker of assembly from the proceedings and that happened in a heinous manner. They destroyed the speaker’s dais completely, computer, mics, chair all flung and torn and the speaker himself was pushed out of his dais many times. The FM who was in the protective circle of other ruling MLA’s and protected by the watch and ward never attacked directly by the opposition. The trickiest move by the ruling party came then as the FM switched his seat to back line (it was later explained as lawful). Opposition MLA’s were seen standing on tables, were seen jumping over chairs and pushing and pulling watch and ward and ruling party MLA’s. The opposition encircled speaker used his ‘hand action’ to instruct the FM to start the budget. The FM came with a microphone attached to his body started to read the budget amidst of the chaos. The ‘great budget speech’ lasted for 6 minutes and he put the budget on the table and thanked everybody including opposition.

     After that we could see some happy moments by the ruling party members, they kissed and hugged as they did something ‘admirable’. They distributed laddu (sweet) as the opposition still making a lot of noises. Some of the opposition MLA’s fainted, later explained as high blood pressure attack in some cases and ruling MLA’s physical attack in others.

    It was really a war seen inside the assembly, the same thing happened outside too. The opposition party workers had a fight with police as they tried entering the offices. There was blood shed outside assembly, even though opposition couldn’t make that happen inside. Public properties were heavily destroyed by party followers. India watched the ‘Kerala model capital fight’ live. And it was terrible.

    The ruling party took all the precautions possible to make the budget happen. Their stay in the assembly itself prior to budget, the entry of FM through back door, his seat change to the back row, everything was planned and well executed. They were wrong about only one thing; the opposition attempt to attack the speaker and his dais. But it turned out to be the opposition’s grave yard. They created such violence there, people forgot to look at the cause of all these. The violent reaction by opposition later termed as violence against the democracy and the government gained on this.

    Now have a look at the after effects. The government celebrated it as their victory and established the budget a legitimate one. I don’t find anything to be proud of there for the government; their attitude towards serious offences brought all these up. They didn’t fail opposition; actually they along with opposition failed the people. And some MLA’s complained about attacks by ruling party MLA’s. I can’t say anything about verbal abuses or name calling on caste as we can’t hear anything properly from live telecast. The opposition actually acted very physically against ruling MLA’s and watch and ward. They tried to do anything possible to reach the FM (in addition to the vandalism on speaker’s dais). So if you attack others, you also get tired. That was what happened to most of them. And there was mild (when compare with the opposition) push from the ruling party too, but was it possible, they remain nonreactive when so much pressure exerted on them? And I don’t support any lady members for their accusations like they were attacked purposefully. If you indulge in attack and somebody gives that back how you can accuse them? If I beat my brother or my enemy (male) and he pushes me back I can’t blame them for attack on gender basis. If the opposition doesn’t take this to that level, which will be better because there is proof for all things happened in the assembly.

    Opposition is nowhere in a position to blame ruling party members for the attack on them and they should probably check their behavior first. The biting and beating scenes from the assembly is really a bad impression on us. And what can I say about the fools who fought in the streets with police and break their heads by hearing the words of political gurus? We should understand this thing well, politicians are making fun of us, and they are not attacking each other for the welfare of us. They are working for their agenda and they are working together for their profit. The sooner we learn this, the better for us. Their drama will continue like this. If we want to stop this we should act intelligently when we stand in front of the voting machine; that is the time we have to act. And the real ‘we’ should be our representatives.

India’s daughters or India’s criminals, To whom with you stand?

         Even before watching the documentary film ‘India’s daughter’ I had this feeling that the video should be telecasted. It hasn’t change a little bit even after watching it. But the telecast is banned in India and that pushed me to watch it in YouTube. And I hope, that won’t be an offense. If banning make you to restrain from things which banned then Government should try to invoke a ban in rapes (who knows it may help, as a last resort!). And above all a man convicted death penalty for rape and murder is challenging Government and Judiciary that criminals who are better than him in ‘works like rapes’ have not yet convicted then why him, and demands explanation to justify that. But as usual like every government the present one too is trying hard to take each step to stop and victimize the channel which showed a mirror against us. What would be a heinous crime than dislodging ‘terms’? I don’t know what the terms were. If the government had restricted BBC from telecasting it and they rejected that request, then they have to face the after effects. And I think they are going to defend themselves well and happy as they did something worth of a battle, so they can do that proudly. And importantly, it was the government that forced them to break the terms.

             Let us leave the morality and ethics in ‘banning’ and ‘telecasting’ for some time and see what was in the film. It was some people related with the Delhi gang rape 2012 case giving their views. But there was only one person in the film who happened to be at the sight of the incident (one of the convicts) and all others are victim’s relatives, convict’s relatives, lawyers, people who related with the case or public. The convict’s statements and remorseless accusation on the girl is enough to kill him in the mind thousand times. But still it is nothing more than what he did. He questions why there were so many protests that time only (accusing the protesters for his plight) and why he got a death penalty since rape according to him is not at all an offense. For him it is a usual thing to teach girls lessons. And he said that the victim was not cooperating so that they had to beat her to death and he was driving all the time and he didn’t commit any crime. Well, he is 28 now and I think that is too long for a devil’s life. I never supported death penalty but in this case it is nowhere near a punishment and I think for every rape case this is the situation.

         But he is only the reflection of the society. Every time a rape happens (1 in every 20 minutes according to some data) people used to accuse the victim for her attire and behavior; the same view of the rapist. Even when people condemn rape, they question the sanctity of girl going out at night; the same view of the rapist. And people question the character of girl who went out with unrelated male; the view same like the rapist. So the film just reminds a lot of people their views on these issues and made them realize that their thoughts are the replica of rapist’s ideas. In our society, this is the 'thinking/mindset' prevalent.  

         And by society I meant both gender and I don’t find it is only a male thinking. Men have this thought and live this thought while women accept this thought and surrender to this thought. Film has examples for this; the rapist, the lawyers, the family of rapists etc. And this is not a false accusation by me that women are also part of this, this is also the reality. When the gang rape was happened a lot of mothers of young girls came out at Delhi and protested and they were reiterated the rights of women to go out at any time and wear what they wanted. And in my locality I’m sure all women (mothers of girls like me) might have condemned the heinous act but I don’t think without questioning the girl for going movie at night (after 6 pm). And this question ‘why she went out at night’ might be raised not only by the orthodox uneducated women but also by all regardless of the differences in religion, caste, education, financial background etc. And I don’t think there would be any difference in this attitude in the entire state of Kerala. That mentality of the rapist is visibly seen in the state Kerala in every right issue. This is very concerning since the state is acclaimed to be progressive.

         The way lawyers of rapists reacted was a shock and I really didn’t expect that. Again it showed that, the degree or the status in the society doesn’t mean anything when your mentality is not right. Actually one should wonder why they are still lawyers. Does all the officials of this country are responsible for the betterment of the people? Then how can such people are still in the offices? Those lawyers just showed how our system works, it is not only in the judicial system you may find officers with such attitude but every field has such criminal minded officials. One lawyer explicitly stated what our culture is and according to his culture all women expect wife, mother, daughter and sister are mere sex objects. Why these people are still out there when our country has a number of mental hospitals? Lawyers, the guardians of our law live with this attitude, more than that; they live in family with women!  And I’m really relieved; I could be born in some other houses which I’m not.

          The answer to why the rapist justifies himself is the problem of our system. Well, we hail rapists and murderers. They are presented to the society in a heroic manner. And more than that, they will have admirable positions and admirable life which envies others. Well, this thought is a generalization, I agree. Not every society in India thinks like this, but how a rape survivor is viewed by our society when comparing with the life of a convict shows how we judge the criminal and a victim in rape cases. When rape convicts easily start new life or his 'funs', the survivor struggle to get the acceptance of the society. In many states in India you may see lines of parents to marry off their girls to rape accused. So rape convict or accused easily get a life or fun he wants but the survivor face the wrath of the society like she did a crime. This attitude rules allover India. First, men have a right to have fun with girls and then they can have a normal life they wish. And the women should cooperate with them when they have fun and then women lead a condemnable life in the society. Now have a look at the heroes of these criminals and where they are.

          Well, they are at the parliament as MPs, some at judiciary as judges, some are at media offices, some holding positions at government organizations and many more. Teachers, doctors, police, businessmen, administrators and whatever you can be as a human being in India, everywhere you see this female hunters. When people; who make law for you, administer or avail that for you, protect that for you do these heinous crimes and roam free then what you may expect from the youth who already raised with extreme male dominant attitude. The people who should prevent and protect people from crimes are actually showing the path of crime to the people.

          The rapist in the film gives an insight about our judicial system. He tried to justify his actions and said he didn’t commit the crime as he just drove the vehicle (this was repeated by his parents too). He just didn’t have any regret on his actions, in fact he accuses the girl, our system, mass protesters and fellow convicts for the penalty bestowed up on him and claimed he is wronged for a small ‘accident’. This is what a rape convict says when he is in prison with the award of death penalty. So why are we punishing people; just to show the world? The monster in the jail doesn’t have any idea near to what a heinous crime he committed. I don’t expect any other victim may have a different view. Actually the lawyers and family of the convicts held the same view. And I’m sure one may find people with this attitude among you.

         The law thinks punishment like death penalty will be an eye opener to the people who do these crimes. But the rapist himself doesn’t have any remorse over his action even when the rope to hang him hangs before him. So what is it, you do a crime, get some punishment and then redo it? What about the mindset? When the convict who getting a penalty himself is unaware about the seriousness of the crime till now, then how it alter the mindset of the society towards these issues by hearing about the punishment? The men in this case sexually assaulted a young women, then brutally beaten her and did things which are unspeakable. They got capital punishment but none of them is regretted about what is done by them. Their mentality is the same before. Death penalty is too small for them. We should find some way to deliver the pain the girl suffered to these monsters. Well, please don’t say democracy and human rights now; that all are for humans, not for monsters. It is not that I said so, but they themselves proved they are inhuman.

        One of the 6 convicts is a juvenile (actually 6 months short of an adult age at the time of incident). And he got the support of human right activists and child help workers. Child? How can call that thing; that attacked a woman and did all that brutality, a child? But what can we do, the juvenile got only a 3 year term in jail according to the existing law and he will be out in the end of this year. Thus our system successfully produced an adult to rule over women and teach them.

       The human right and juvenile sentiment should work only when dealing a human, not when confronting animals with stone hearts. All the rape accused and convicted in all cases should be tried without the consideration of the rights of them. I don’t say we can do something bad to them as they do to the girls. But we should make some change in our system so that these demons when they get punished understand what they had done and they really regret for it. And then, they will be the message to such people roam to do things like that in our society. And there should be the better implementation of the law to make sure that nobody mocking the law: especially the ones who making it. And finally, everyone (male and female) should aware that women are not valueless objects of our culture. We don’t need rape culture. And kids should get the idea of respecting men and women alike from their own families first.

       Overall the film is a reminder for us. The thing is most of the people could relate them or their ideas with the accused. So people could find the rapist in them, regardless of the gender. That is what this film does. It is a responsible attempt by the director Leslee Udvin to show us the reality. We certainly knew the rapist could think this way at the time of cruelty. But the present unchanged mindset of him really makes us to think of new ways to tackle them. The protests taken place in Delhi and other places had shown us that people reacting positively against human right violations against us. But we want to stop these barbaric acts once and for all. For this, the whole Indian community should change their mindset, they should realize that it is the aberrations in their thinking which lay down the foundation for crimes against women.

        And shame of our country is the attack against the women. And it is really shameful that people of rapist genre rules us in every level. It is really shameful that molestation against women is not under control till now. And if the Government really wants to be proud of our country in women right issues, it should deal with the problems and solve it first.