We all know about the horrific Delhi gangrape case [India] and the numerous cases that followed it or that took place before it - maybe not all of them, but at least the ones that made it to the headlines. Marches, protests and debates took place as the world was in a rage. The thirst to punish the culprits was at its peak as the society demanded answers.
We demand rapists to be jailed, beaten and hanged; demand them to get punished as severely as possible. Show no mercy. And indeed, they don’t deserve any. But then why do we punish the very same victim we’re fighting for, every day?
Say, I got hit by car and got admitted to the ICU, hospitalised for a month with five fractures in total and was confined to a wheelchair one month after getting discharged, then fast forward to around 10 years later. Suppose I was to get married and was on the lookout for a husband, would you refuse to marry me because I had been in a car accident? Would it be “impossible” or “beyond your capability” to marry me? No, it wouldn’t be. Then why reject a rape victim, and that too, in an era where people are in relationships prior to marriage?
We demand the law to do justice to victims, yet choose to do injustice to them on a daily basis? What joy does it give people to sprinkle salt on their wound? Or for that matter, keep opening it? To shun them away in shame for something they didn’t commit? Who are we to seize someone’s name and give him or her the tag of a rape victim?
A rape is a wound to the mind but you get wounds in an accident, too. However, like every other wound, it, too, can fill up. Maybe it’ll take more time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t heal. Then why stop it from healing? It’s a scar on the soul but accidents leave you with scars, too. Yet, like every other scar, it too can fade.
It instils a fear in the heart, just like you might find a person who got into a road accident have shivering limbs and hesitation to drive again. But that doesn’t mean they won’t ever drive again. And so, like every other fear, this fear too, can be driven out. Maybe it’ll take more patience, more therapy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t replace it with confidence.
- The reader is an Indian student based in Sharjah.
