A cry for space

Apart from all its other assets, a country’s largest asset is its human capital. The quality of that human capital is what builds the nation.

If the populace, is intelligent then it becomes an asset to the nation. Hence it is important to build this productive capital into a rich thinking populace, so the country can benefit from its service. In the backdrop of the Delhi rape case the country is enraged, because of the heinousness of the crime.

Yet the dismaying factor is that rapes continue. It seems the nation is schizophrenic: one part of the nation is in shock and upset over the incident, and over the other there are those who continue to commit rape despite the national outcry and media spotlight.

 Social awareness needs to establish the fact that women must be respected. They are the other esteemed half of the population. The Anti Dowry Act of 1961, has not achieved its goal from the day of its promulgation, dowry is a social malice of our present society. Divorce, a modern phenomena has gained impetus in the Indian marriage and yet as an anti thesis dowry a draconian social norm lives on in our culture.

Social responsibility calls upon the nation to see women as equals. We need to restructure our social responsibility in ways that the woman can be a productive earning member of the family. She should not be the only one sacrificing her working hours to nurture a family. She must not be the only one putting her career on the line in case of family crises. Men must give equally in sacrifice as do the women. We need to establish equal opportunities.

Crime against women will stop only when we represent ourselves equally in everyway; in numbers in the Lok Sabha, in numbers as in the moola we bring in, in numbers as in the employment percentage we share with the men, numbers as in education, and profession, there should be as many female neurosurgeons as there are gynecologists, there should stop being this sexist division in profession-in all walks of life.

The belligerence of the male ego needs to be humbled with education, social awareness and social responsibility, for which we need systemic change, which can be enforced in the true spirit, when women are equally represented. We are largely represented by men in the politics, in legal field, and amidst the police personnel.

Hence logically to expect a very pro women social stance and protection is to hope for too much. We need to change the imbalance with more women playing significant roles in society and the government must ensure that this happens very quickly. Into a world of women power let my country awake!