The poignant death of Soumya, a 23 year old woman passenger on her way back from work on a train in Kerala following gruesome rape by a co-passenger has kept tongues wagging all over the country, cutting across different strata of the society. Politicians, Woman’s organizations and a surfeit of other commentators were hammer and tongs in condemning the Railway authorities for the lackadaisical attitude for not being empathetic to the woman clan’s concerns. Hang on. Legitimacy though they have, should the attitude of our society and the ethos we exercise be over looked?
India has always been in the head wind in the empowerment of woman and leading them to the forefront of the society. Kudos to the state of Kerala in keeping up this tradition and offering itself as a model for other states. The recently concluded local body elections in the state witnessed woman being reserved for half the pie of the total seats and positions. However, it is a paradox that events like the one mentioned above materialise in the same society which is being often hailed for its high literacy rate.
The Kerala society has always stereotyped the values to be upheld by woman. Giant leap though they have when it comes to woman participating in decision making or the rate of pantry savvy moms giving way to career woman, there has not been much of a change when it comes with the values they espouse.
A woman who travel late night is looked with an eye of suspicion, a woman who shares a seat with a man on a bus is labelled as libidinal, a woman who ride as a pillion on a male colleague or friend seems to break the value thread etc are only the tip of an iceberg of typecasts of air the society has been breathing.
The aforesaid brandings have a different version during its early genesis. We have twin rows in school assembly lines, class room seating arrangements, places of worships, marriage halls, et al for the twin sexes which is the harbinger of the slew of segregations to follow in life. This creates a dictum that women are a different genre of human beings and there is something elusive when they are kept at a distance.
Not long ago, the attainment of puberty for a girl was celebrated with splendour and dazzle in the society. Following her announcement to womanhood, she is contained from interacting freely with her classmates, friends or compatriots next door from the opposite sex. When parents and elders hamper her freedom reflecting the moral values she would uphold in her future life, what they quintessentially do is sow the seeds of segregation from the society and invites hostility, from the opposite gender.
Ultimately what matters is explicable with a cause and effect paradigm. Due to the shackles of moral policing, women are compelled to exercise pseudo morality gimmicks. Though she may feel safer to be in the company of strange male co-passengers in a general compartment, she is impelled to board a LADIES ONLY compartment to duck her being condemned as an aberrant. The situation greeting her there could be not one of security and protection, but of peril and risks. (As a case in point, consider Soumya’s fate when she was the lone passenger in the ladies compartment of the fateful train on that ill ordained day). In this route, what she is doing is nothing but jumping from a fire that could warm her personality and integrity to a fire that could eventually become an inferno which could catapult her nemesis.
Who is to be blamed here? Is it Railways for not stationing guards or our social beliefs and ethos that garrison our grey cells?
