A fictitious community

Enough is enough - back to reality.

As a member of the species known as "Indian Male", I am sorry to say that we are a bunch of losers.

Scanning news items in the Google newsfeed, I became violently upset on reading three news-items of rape in the last few days alone. We deserve our image - no country can ever hope to achieve anything of note if women are treated this poorly. Not only does rape happen, but it happens with such impunity that it makes daylight robbery seem tame. And to make it worse - noone is spared. Not even minors.

This is a cultural issue - beefing up security, teaching women the art of self-defence and imposing death penalties can only provide defence mechanisms against the crime. Prevention requires certain ruthlessness in getting the message across - this is a crime worse than murder, and will not be tolerated. While I'm not for one moment suggesting that lawlessness be dealt with by creating a "Wild West" where gunfights are a regular phenomenon, effective action by citizens will help deal with the issues.

But out of curiosity, what will it take to get the message across? In an interesting conversation with this gentleman who owns large pieces of land up North, I learnt that women often congregated to form economic units, units that look after the health of one another etc. Most men were involved in physical labour - tilling the land, chopping down forests for firewood, indulging in alcohol and causing mayhem. There is a sickness, a malaise that will simply not cause us to move forward - he summed up this malaise nicely, "There is no sense of community among men."

Our priorities are simply out of order. Yes, we need to create an economy that provides for employment and combats inflation. Yes, we need a nation with a thriving agricultural sector. Yes, we need to reduce all deficits - fiscal, trade etc. - and achieve this through our services and export sectors. Yes, we need to focus on infrastructure - Health Systems, Financial Services, Golden Quadrilateral etc. Yes, we need to foster secular beliefs. Yes, we need all this and much more.

But, let's drop all ambitions and first address a doubt: what will it take to ensure that the lowest common denominator is a responsible Indian?