2013 సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

2013 సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

Infinite universal individuality

To gain the infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am one with life. Then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself. Then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself.... Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter. Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.

At the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893. Complete Works, 1. 14.

Yesterday, India celebrated National Youth Day on the occasion of Vivekananda’s birth anniversary. It was his 150th Birth Anniversary, and it’s worth wondering whether Vivekananda remains relevant to the youth of India. 

Read full article

 

India’s rape problem is also a police problem

 Posted by Max Fisher on January 7, 2013 at 7:00 am

Indian demonstrators push against a police barricade during a protest calling for better safety for women. 
(SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Public outrage over the recent shocking assault and gang rape of a 23-year-old Delhi woman developed into outrage over India’s much larger sexual violence problem, which is now turning to outrage against the police. It’s not hard to see why: Three-fourths of the perpetrators of India’s 24,206 rapes in 2011 are still at large, and that’s not even including the rapes that go unreported, which are thought to be the majority of cases. The women and girls who do report being raped can sometimes face antipathy or outright hostility from police.


Indian law enforcement officials do not have a particularly strong reputation for assisting rape victims, or even for taking them seriously. When a mob of men beat and raped the young Delhi woman on a bus, later throwing her and her male friend naked into the street, police argued for 20 minutes about jurisdiction once they arrived before someone even covered the victims with a blanket, according to the friend. The friend, who was also beaten, said that police then declined to call an ambulance or even help the badly wounded young woman into her friend’s car. It was, he said, two hours before they made it to the hospital. A police spokesman disputed his account, saying officers had gotten her to a hospital in minutes. Later, the Delhi police chief, Neeraj Kumar, proposed a solution: “Women should not go out late at night.”


A few days after the Delhi incident, another young Indian woman, a teenager, was raped. According to her family, the police who arrived to help asked demeaning questions, worsening what would already be a difficult and shameful experience for many Indian women.


“The police refused to file a complaint. Instead, they asked my sister such vulgar details, it was as if she was being raped all over again,” the victim’s sister told The Washington Post’s Rama Lakshmi. “There was no lady police officer, they were all men. My sister cried in front of them and kept asking, ‘Would you still ask such questions if I were your daughter?’” It took two weeks for the police to register her complaint, and the three men she’d accused remained free until after the young victim, a full 44 days after her rape, committed suicide.


In yet another recent case, police reportedly pressured a 17-year-old victim to marry one of her rapists — or at least to reach an informal financial settlement with the men. One police officer pushed her to withdraw the case, according to a family member. She, too, committed suicide. Last spring, undercover journalists with the Indian magazine Tehelka recorded a series of conversations with police officers, one of whom told them, “In reality, the ones who complain are only those who have turned rape into a business.”

Is it any wonder that activists seem to think most rapes in India go unreported? Or that most of the rapes that are reported don’t yield an arrest? Or, for that matter, that India has such a severe problem with sexual violence? As Lakshmi and Olga Khazan explained in a recent post, part of the problem is that only a tiny fraction of police officers are women, meaning that rape survivors must discuss their ordeal with men — a daunting prospect in any society, much less one as gender-segregated as India. Still, as they note, police gender breakdowns, like the police themselves, are just part of the problem, in many ways a product of larger social attitudes toward gender and sexuality.


Leading Indian politicians have suggested, even in the face of rising public outrage, that the victims might be to blame, arguing as one did that women should not “roam in streets at midnight.” A legislator whose father also happens to be India’s president called the anti-rape demonstrators “highly dented and painted” women who go “from discos to demonstrations.” Last February, a female legislator, repeating the belief that victims of rape are actually prostitutes, suggested that a recent high-profile rape had not been rape at all but merely “a misunderstanding between two parties involved in professional dealings. Between the lady and her client.”


However deep and broad these attitudes might go in Indian society, it’s to some extent the police who ensure they will be acted upon — by shaming victims, declining to investigate or otherwise perpetuating a system in which the woman or girl is presumed to somehow carry the real blame for what happened to her. Addressing problems with law enforcement would almost certainly not fix India’s sexual assault problem on its own, but it could go a long way.


Activists talk about two different ways to improve how police in India deal with sexual assault. The first, and probably most important, calls for the daunting and probably generations-long work of changing Indian social attitudes toward sexuality and gender, which have been codified at least since Victorian-era British colonial rule. In the meantime, activists tend to focus on reforming some of the more egregious practices that help institutionalize these old ways of thinking.


Here, for example, is Human Rights Watch on the “two-finger test,” whereby a doctor’s subjective evaluation of a victim’s reproductive organs can trump all other forms of evidence:

India does not have a uniform protocol for medical treatment and examination of survivors of sexual assault, making responses ad hoc and unpredictable, and in the worst cases, degrading and counter-productive. This is reflected in the continued use of the so-called “finger test,” which Human Rights Watch documented in a 2010 report. While conducting medical examinations, many doctors record unscientific and degrading findings, which involve noting the “laxity” of the vagina or hymen, apparently to determine whether the victims are “virgins” or “habituated to sexual intercourse.” Often doctors, police, and judges look for evidence of “struggle” or “injuries,” especially hymenal injuries, in the medical examination report, discrediting those who do not report such injuries.

Ending this practice, an extension of the belief that women and girls who might be having sex are probably themselves to blame for getting raped, is not going to end the thinking behind it. But it would help, activists say, to at least edge that thinking out of mainstream police procedures, maybe making it easier to develop institutions that could better serve India’s 600 million women and girls.
India’s protesters are calling, often literally, for the blood of the Delhi rapists. India’s politicians are looking for a way out of their impasse, stuck between outraged women demanding reform and a billion-person society probably not able to change very quickly. Dealing with the police problem could be a logical place to start.

By Max Fisher and the Washington Post Foreign Staff

To the woman warrior I did not know

Monsoon Bissell

 

FOR CHANGE: As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for the violence we endure.’ Students register their protest in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar 

You have given us the courage to say: Enough, no more silence.

I heard you fought to protect yourself. I heard that your fight back caused them to get more violent and brutalise you further. I heard you never gave up. I heard you said you wanted to live. 

As I write this I clench my thighs together because the torture you were subjected to could have happened to any woman. I am so sorry that our worst fear became your reality. You didn’t live but you have brought so many of us to life — apathetic bystanders of all kinds have begun to care and participate. Your presence in this world has changed all our lives forever. Yet, I am left with a sense of loss and pain that you were sacrificed at this altar so our complacent spirits could be resurrected. At 23, I am sure you had other dreams. Maybe you wanted to be remembered for what you did of your own free will rather than what was done to you. Maybe you just wanted to live simply, laugh with your male friends, wander with your girlfriends, watch TV with your family, become a medical professional who served all people regardless of how they valued women. At 23, you have come to symbolise our struggle — the collective and individual desperation we all feel. In my small way, I want to honour you by writing about breaking the silence. 

Silence = Death. This slogan was used by holocaust victims, the gay community adopted it and now we, Indian women like you, have to embrace this message. Enough. No more silence. Rape is death and let no one tell us differently. It kills a way of life. It often kills a spirit. You did not let them murder yours and all of us stood in solidarity with you. Women all over this country have risen and shouted out. Some men have joined the chorus, and now we have found a collective energy. We cannot lose this momentum, this commitment, this chance at another life. You have given a voice to those of us who feel our screams like yours in that bus have never been heard. We are the ones who have stayed in homes where we are beaten and raped by men who either gave birth to us or ones we married. We are the women who have been molested in front of a whole crowd and found not one who would bear witness. We are the ones whose teachers have taught us life lessons by betraying our trust. 

My horror

 

As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for the violence we endure. I must break my silence before I ask others to do the same. 

I was 15 years old and walking with two male friends in the lane behind my house when I was attacked by seven men. Other than with a trusted few I have spoken about it only once — at a gathering hundreds of miles from where it occurred. After 25 years, you have given me the courage to bring this home and say it out loud here. It was 9:30 at night and we wanted to take a break from studying for the board exams. I had a bounce in my step, I threw back my head as I laughed, I felt at home in my body. Maybe that is what evoked their rage. It was not desire. It was an act of aggression. Their words were mean, their actions terrifying. I was very lucky that their ring leader lost his balance as he rammed his bicycle into my abdomen for the second time. It created an opening that let me flee. The split second break in that menacing circle saved my life. I wish your bus door had swung open too. I know you would have been saved from this savagery and you would have lived. 

Family’s support

 

Your father may have been like mine. He believed in your right to be equal. He sold his land in order to educate you in a culture that only approves of land being sold for a son’s future or a daughter’s dowry. Mine too broke tradition by insisting I not stay silent and take back my power. He and my grandfather put me between them and took me out that very night looking for the perpetrators. They insisted I take this action so that I would not be afraid to walk the streets I grew up in. We never found them. I am like hundreds of women who have endured this and far worse. We have all fought our internal battles and some brave ones have taken bolder steps. Because of the men in my life who supported and celebrated me, I did not walk away feeling less than. I want every woman to live in the company of such men. Sadly, many do not. However privileged and emancipated I may feel, I am also well aware of my vulnerability — a vulnerability that makes us different from men. We live out that vulnerability every day and are constantly told to protect ourselves — stay out of harm’s way. I see that logic when we are taught to avoid playing with fire. How do we avoid sharing our world with men? How is it that they don’t get the message that their unwanted attention burns? Who is telling them that there are no excuses. None of it is acceptable — not the leering on the streets or the unsavoury office banter, not the pinching on the bus or the groping at protest rallies. It always starts in a “small” way and only escalates when the perpetrator sees his actions endorsed or excused. 

As a culture we are still preaching to our girls not to push the boundaries and protecting our boys when they overstep them — we give them a pass for making a pass. It creates a type of entitlement that is so deeply ingrained that what they cannot get they destroy. I am tired of hearing that if we as women circumscribe our lives further, kill our individuality more, suppress our natural desires, stop believing in the right to live as we choose and stay locked up, we will be safe. Imprisoning us isn’t the answer and is no longer possible. Women like you are the change that Gandhiji spoke of and this fight for independence is causing men to find beastly forms of suppression. 

The entire nation is mourning your loss — a woman we did not know. Your power is far greater than what those men expected it to be. May your passing bring with it a change that sweeps across this country and makes it a place where other women like you can ride buses and make it home alive. 

(Monsoon Bissell is a life coach and freelance writer, developing a project called “Narrative Healing.”)

People stared at us and left, but didn’t help: Delhi gang-rape victim’s friend

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: The male friend of the Delhi gang-rape victim - the only witness in the case - on Friday spoke for the first time in front of the nation and exclusively told Zee News that his friend was “positive” and wanted to live even after the horrific incident that took place on the night of December 16.

"I wish I could have saved her," the friend exclusively told Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary.

The victim’s friend explained to Zee News in detail what exactly happened on that fateful night of December 16.

He said that no one came to their help after they were thrown off the bus by the six accused. Even after the police arrived, it took the cops over two hours to take them to hospital.

The victim’s friend said that since December 16, protests have been happening and people are on the streets. “Many things have come out in the media, but people have been interpreting it as per their convenience. I want to tell them what we faced that night. I want to tell what I faced, what my friend faced,” he told Zee News, expressing hope that people could take a lesson and save others’ lives in future.

He said that the six accused had lured them into boarding the bus on the night of December 16.

“The occupants of the bus, which had tinted windows and curtains, had laid a trap for us. They were probably involved in crimes before also. They beat us up, hit us with an iron rod, snatched our clothes and belongings and threw us off the bus on a deserted stretch.

“The bus occupants had everything planned. Apart from the driver and the helper, others behaved like they were passengers. We even paid Rs 20 as fare. They then started teasing my friend and it led to a brawl. I beat three of them up but then the rest of them brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away.

“From where we boarded the bus, they moved around for nearly two and a half hours. We were shouting, trying to make people hear us. But they switched off the lights of the bus. We tried to resist them. Even my friend fought with them, she tried to save me. She tried to dial the police control room number 100, but the accused snatched her mobile away,” he said.

“Before throwing us off the bus, they snatched our mobiles and tore off our clothes in order to destroy any evidence of the crime,” he added.

“After throwing us off the bus, they tried to mow us down but I saved my friend by pulling her away in the nick of time. We were without clothes. We tried to stop passersby. Several auto rickshaws, cars and bikes slowed down but none stopped for about 25 minutes. Then, someone on patrolling, stopped and called the police,” he told Zee News.

The victim’s friend rued the fact that three PCR vans arrived at the scene after about 45 minutes, but wasted time in deciding under which police station’s jurisdiction the case fell.

He said nobody, including the police, gave them clothes or called an ambulance. “They were just watching us,” he said, adding that after repeated requests, someone gave him a part of a bed sheet to cover his friend.

“My friend was bleeding profusely; I was more concerned about her. But instead of taking us to a nearby hospital, they (police) took us to a hospital (Safdarjung) that was far away.”

The victim’s friend said that he carried his badly injured friend to the PCR van on his own as “the policemen didn’t help us because my friend girl was bleeding profusely and they were probably worried about their clothes”.

“Nobody from the public helped us. People were probably afraid that if they helped us, they would become witnesses to the crime and would be asked to come to the police station and court,” he told the channel.

“Even at the hospital, we were made to wait and I had to literally beg for clothes. I asked one ‘safai karamchari’ to give me some clothes or curtains and he asked me to wait. But the clothes never came. I then borrowed a stranger’s mobile and called my relatives, but just told them that I had met with an accident. My treatment started only after my relatives came,” he said.

“I was hit on the head. I was not able to walk. I was not able to move my hands for two weeks,” he said, detailing the injuries he suffered on that horrific night.

“My family wanted to take me to our native place but I decided to stay in Delhi in order to help the police. It was only after the doctors’ advice that I went back to my home and started private treatment there.”

“When I had met my friend in the hospital, she was smiling. She was able to write and was positive. I never felt that she did not want to live,” he said.

“She had told me that if I wasn’t there, she would not have filed the complaint. I had decided that I would ensure the culprits are punished,” the victim’s friend said.

He said that his friend was also worried about the cost of the treatment. “I was asked to be with her to give her strength.”

“When she gave the first statement to the lady SDM, only then I came to know what had happened with her. I couldn’t believe what they did to her. Even when animals hunt, they don’t mete out such brutality to their prey.

“She faced all of this and told the magistrate that the accused should not be hanged but burnt to death.”

“The first statement she gave to the SDM was correct. She had given that statement with a lot of effort. She was coughing and bleeding while giving the statement. She was on ventilator support. There was no pressure or interference at all. But when the SDM said that she had faced pressure, all her (friend’s) efforts went in vain. It is wrong to say that the statement was made under pressure,” the victim’s friend told Zee News.

When asked what suggestions he would like to give in order to ensure that such incidents don’t recur, the victim’s friend said, “The police should always try to ensure that the victims are taken to the hospital as early as possible and not waste precious time looking for government hospitals. Also, witnesses should not be harassed so that they come to the court to testify.”

He said that one cannot change mindsets by lighting candles. "You have to help people on the road when they need help,” he added.

“Protest and change should not only be for her but for the coming generations as well.”

The victim’s friend said that he wanted the Justice Verma committee - set up by the government to suggest measures to improve women’s security - to make the law easier for complainants.

“I would like to tell Justice JS Verma, Justice Leila Seth and Gopal Subramanium that we have a lot of laws, but the public is afraid of going to police as they wonder whether the police will register an FIR or not. You are trying to start fast-track courts for one issue, but why shouldn’t every case be fast tracked,” he said.

He further said that “only he can tell what he has gone through… what I have faced…”

He disclosed that “no one from the government has contacted me so far to ask about my treatment. I have been paying for my own treatment so far.”

When asked why people don’t want to talk about such issues in public, the victim’s friend said, “In our society, we try to hide such things. If something bad has happened with us, then we try to hide thinking what will the other person say. Also because our friends and relatives talk behind our back about such incidents, that we try to prevent them from becoming public.”

“If I had decided not to file the complaint and just call the incident an accident, this case would not have become this big.”

He rued the people’s indifference towards him and his friend when they were lying on the road. “They (the people) had cars, they could have taken us to the hospital. Every minute was important for us. But they didn’t. Who will change this attitude?” he asked.

He said his mental condition was so bad after the incident that he was not able to sleep properly. “I didn’t share this with anyone. When such a thing happens to us, we often ask ourselves: ‘Am I to blame for this? Why did I go to the mall? Why did I board that bus?’ I was not able to even speak properly for two weeks.”

He said that if his friend was “treated in a better hospital, she would have probably been alive today.” It may be noted that the gang-rape victim was first treated at the Safdarjung Hospital before being shifted to a hospital in Singapore, where she passed away.

He went on to say that one of the police officials wanted him to say that the police were doing a good job in the case.

“Why did they want to take credit for doing their duty? If everyone does their work well, nothing more needs to be said in the matter,” he said.

"We have a long battle to fight," he said further, adding, “If I didn't have lawyers in my family, I would not have been able to fight this.”

The victim’s friend also told Zee News, "I was in the police station for four days rather than being in a hospital where I would be treated. I told my friends that I had met with an accident."

"The internal judgement of the Delhi Police should prompt them to assess for themselves if they have done a good job or not," he added.

"If you can help someone, help them. If a single person had helped me that night, things would have been different. There is no need to close Metro stations and stop the public from expressing themselves. People should be allowed to have faith in the system," he went on to say.

"I never had thoughts of leaving her and running away. Even an animal would not do that. I have no regrets. But I wish I could have done something to help her."

“She has awakened us. If we can carry on this fight with her name, it would be tribute to her,” he said.

First Published: Friday, January 04, 2013, 20:53

శ్రీ కౌముది జనవరి 2013

Powerful Photographs Of India Demanding Justice For Women

A woman who was brutally gang-raped by six men on December 16th died from her injuries on Saturday. The pressure on the Indian government to be tougher on crimes against women reaches its boiling point.  

 BuzzFeed

For Anonymous | nilanjana roy

December 29, 2012    · by Nila    · in Journal. 

  

(Photograph: Ruchir Joshi)

 Don’t tell me her name; I don’t need to know it, to cry for her.

PM condoles Delhi gang-rape victim’s death

AP Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. File Photo.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday condoled the death of the Delhi gang-rape victim and expressed the hope that the entire political class and civil society will set aside narrow sectional interests and agenda to make India a demonstrably safer place to live in.

He said it would be a true homage to her memory if the emotions and energies of the youth generated by the brutal assault on her are channelised into a constructive course of action.

Deeply saddened by the death of the girl, he joined the nation in conveying to her family and friends his deepest condolences at this terrible loss.

“I want to tell them and the nation that while she may have lost her battle for life, it is up to us all to ensure that her death will not have been in vain. We have already seen the emotions and energies this incident has generated. These are perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change. It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelise these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action,” he said in his condolence message.

He said the need of the hour is a dispassionate debate and inquiry into the critical changes that are required in societal attitudes.

Government, Mr Singh said, was examining on priority basis the penal provisions that exist for such crimes and measures to enhance the safety and security of women.

“I hope that the entire political class and civil society will set aside narrow sectional interests and agenda to help us all reach the end that we all desire making India a demonstrably better and safe place for women to live in,” Mr Singh said in his condolence message.

The Prime Minister said he prays for the peace of the departed soul and hoped that her family will have the strength to bear this grievous loss.

Story

Violent Protests in India Over Rape Case

Dec 26, 2012 |

Last week, in New Delhi, India, news stories of a horrific gang rape spread quickly, igniting widespread outrage. A 23 year old woman was attacked by six men on a moving bus and brutalized for 45 minutes, in the most recent and alarming of several high-profile incidents. Protesters have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the growing incidence of rape, and its slow and ineffective prosecution. Riot police have responded, dispersing crowds with forceful tactics including water cannons, batons, and tear gas. India's government has now ordered a special inquiry into the incident to identify any negligence or errors on the part of police. [26 photos]

Let’s ask how we contribute to rape

The Hindu

SHAKING SOCIETY’S CONSCIENCE: It is important for women to raise their collective voice, but it should be for all women and all victims of the violence embedded in our society. Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

As I write this, there are protests going on all over Delhi, and in other parts of the country, against the gang-rape of a young woman on a moving bus a few days ago in the city. People are out there in large numbers — young, old, male, female, rich, poor — and they’re angry. They want the rapists to be caught, they want them to be taught a lesson, many are suggesting they should be hanged, or castrated, but also that the State should act, bring in effective laws, fast track courts, police procedures and more. Not since the Mathura rape case have there been such widespread protests. The difference is that then, it was mainly women’s groups who were protesting; today’s protests are more diverse. Sometimes, tragically, it takes a case like this to awaken public consciousness, to make people realise that rape and sexual assault are not merely ‘women’s issues,’ they’re a symbol of the deep-seated violence that women — and other marginalised people — experience every day in our society.

At a time when every politician, no matter what colour, is crying foul, every judge and lawyer, no matter what their loyalties, is joining the chorus, every policeperson, no matter from where, is adding his/her voice, it is worth remembering some key things. First, more than 90 per cent of rapes are committed by people known to the victim/survivor, a staggering number of rapists are family members. When we demand the death penalty, do we mean therefore that we should kill large numbers of uncles, fathers, brothers, husbands, neighbours? How many of us would even report cases of rape then? What we’re seeing now — the slow, painful increase in even reports being filed — will all disappear. Second, the death penalty has never been a deterrent against anything — where, for example, is the evidence that death penalties have reduced the incidence of murders? Quite apart from the fact that the State should never be given the right to take life, there is an argument to be made that imposing the death penalty will further reduce the rate of conviction, as no judge will award it.

Then, and this is something that women’s groups grasped long ago: a large number of rapes are committed in custody, many of these by the police. Mathura was raped by two policemen, Rameezabee was raped inside a police station by police personnel, Suman Rani was raped by policemen. There are countless other cases: will we hang all police rapists? Put together, that’s a lot of people to hang.

Police action is, in fact, one of the demands. Yet, the police’s record, whether in recording cases or in conducting investigations, is nothing to write home about. On a recent television show, a police officer put his finger on it when he said: how can we expect that police personnel, who are, after all, made of the same stuff as the men who gang-raped the young woman last week, to suddenly and miraculously behave differently? I was reminded of a study done by a local newsmagazine not so long ago of the attitudes of high ranking police officers in Delhi about rape. Roughly 90 per cent of them felt the woman deserved it, that she asked for it, that she should not have been out alone, or should not have been dressed in a particular fashion. Strange that women’s bodies should invite such reactions — could it be that the problem is in the eye of the beholder? Why, for example, does it seem to be more ‘legitimate’ for women to be out during daylight hours, but not at night?

Lawyers and judges too have joined the protests — and this is all to the good for the more diverse the protests, the more impact they will have. But it’s lawyers who use every ruse in the book to allow rapists to get away, judges who make concessions because the rapists are ‘young men who have their whole lives in front of them’ and so on. Do women’s lives not have a value then?

And then there are our politicians. Perhaps we need to ask how many politicians have rape cases, or allegations of rape pending against them. Perhaps we need to ask why no one is asking this question: that here you have an elected politician, your next prime ministerial candidate, someone under whose rule Muslim women in Gujarat were not only subjected to horrendous rape but also to equally dreadful violence. How can we, how can the media, how can journalists — all of whom are lauding the success of this politician, how can they not raise, and particularly at this time, the question of his sanctioning, encouraging the use of rape as a weapon of war? And more, we need to ask: if the politicians are indeed serious about this issue, why are they not out there with the protestors? When Anna Hazare was fasting, there wasn’t a day that went by when one or other politician did not go to see him. Where are they now?

Rape happens everywhere: it happens inside homes, in families, in neighbourhoods, in police stations, in towns and cities, in villages, and its incidence increases, as is happening in India, as society goes through change, as women’s roles begin to change, as economies slow down and the slice of the pie becomes smaller — and it is connected to all these things. Just as it is integrally and fundamentally connected to the disregard, and indeed the hatred, for females that is so evident in the killing of female foetuses. For so widespread a crime, band aid solutions are not the answer.

Protest is important, it shakes the conscience of society, it brings people close to change, it makes them feel part of the change. And there is a good chance that the current wave of protests will lead to at least some results — perhaps even just fast track courts. But perspective is also important: we need to ask ourselves: if it had been the army in Manipur or Kashmir who had been the rapists, would we have protested in quite the same way? Very likely not, for there nationalism enters the picture. Remember Kunan Posphpora in the late nineties when the Rajasthan Rifles raped over 30 women? Even our liberal journalists found it difficult to credit that this could have happened, that the army could have been capable of this, and yet, the people of Kunan Poshpora know. Even today, women from this area find it difficult to marry — stigma has a long life. Would we have been as angry if the rape had taken place in a small town near Delhi and the victim had been Dalit? Remember Khairlanji? Why did that rape, of a mother and her daughter, gruesome, violent, heinous, and their subsequent murder not touch our consciences in quite the same way.

It is important to raise our collective voice against rape. But rape is not something that occurs by itself. It is part of the continuing and embedded violence in society that targets women on a daily basis. Let’s raise our voices against such violence and let’s ask ourselves how we, in our daily actions, in our thoughts, contribute to this, rather than assume that the solution lies with someone else. Let’s ask ourselves how we, our society, we as people, create and sustain the mindset that leads to rape, how we make our men so violent, how we insult our women so regularly, let’s ask ourselves how privilege creates violence.

It is important we raise our collective voice for women, but let’s raise it for all women, let’s raise it so that no woman, no matter that she be poor, rich, urban, rural, Dalit, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever, ever, in the future, has to face sexual violence, and no man assumes that because of the system and people’s mindsets, he can simply get away with it. And let’s raise it also for men, for transgenders, for the poor — all those who become targets of violence. Let’s not forget that the young rape survivor in Delhi was accompanied by a friend who too was subjected to violence and nearly killed. Let’s talk about him too.

(Urvashi Butalia is a feminist writer and founder of Zubaan, an independent non-profit publishing house.)

How To Live

శ్రీ కౌముది డిసెంబర్ 2012

For Second Opinion, Consult a Computer?

 SAN FRANCISCO — The man on stage had his audience of 600 mesmerized. Over the course of 45 minutes, the tension grew. Finally, the moment of truth arrived, and the room was silent with anticipation.

At last he spoke. “Lymphoma with secondary hemophagocytic syndrome,” he said. The crowd erupted in applause.

Professionals in every field revere their superstars, and in medicine the best diagnosticians are held in particularly high esteem. Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal, 39, a self-effacing associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is considered one of the most skillful clinical diagnosticians in practice today.

The case Dr. Dhaliwal was presented, at a medical  conference last year, began with information that could have described hundreds of diseases: the patient had intermittent fevers, joint pain, and weight and appetite loss.

To observe him at work is like watching Steven Spielberg tackle a script or Rory McIlroy a golf course. He was given new information bit by bit — lab, imaging and biopsy results. Over the course of the session, he drew on an encyclopedic familiarity with thousands of syndromes. He deftly dismissed red herrings while picking up on clues that others might ignore, gradually homing in on the accurate diagnosis.

Just how special is Dr. Dhaliwal’s talent? More to the point, what can he do that a computer cannot? Will a computer ever successfully stand in for a skill that is based not simply on a vast fund of knowledge but also on more intangible factors like intuition?

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శ్రీ కౌముది నవంబర్ 2012