Do we have to live in fear of goons?

It has been reported that the Mangalore pub attackers have been let off on bail. In fact they were all being displayed on TV walking out of court in a cocky manner with a huge grin on their faces. Just goes to prove that women in modern India are considered subconsciously by one and all to be kept at home to cook and bear children. When will people realize that the modern woman walks shoulder to shoulder with any man and in many cases has the emotional quotient apart from the intellectual one to surpass man in almost all fields of endeavor. By letting these goons off, a message has been sent that violence against women will not be punished, with even the cops siding with the goons by not making an effective enough case for these jerks to be kept behind bars for a long time. The fact that letting off these people is just going to create more trouble can be seen by the fact that the Sri Ram Sene has already issued warnings against celebration of Valentine’s Day.

As the world has become flatter and various western customs have been adopted in India and vice-versa, it is a sorry state of affairs if a miniscule bunch of goons are going to force their “moral” values on the majority. Are we an evolving democracy or is our ancient culture so rigid that we cannot absorb these new customs with dignity? If these people do not like V-Day, then they should go the whole hog and demonstrate fully that they are Indian in values and culture. They could start by wearing “langots” instead of underwear, “dhoti/lungi” and “kurta” instead of trousers, shirts, neck ties, coats etc. There are a whole host of other western systems and mannerisms which have been adopted and are considered second nature by us and hence not considered western any more, which if we were to banish, living in the modern world would be difficult. For example – sending kids to a good English school, that is the basic requirement if you want your kids to have a good education and do well in life. If you see, most of these goons or so called right wing activists will have sent their children to the best convents and then abroad for higher education. This is the worst kind of double standard on public display by these characters.

I am not propagating promiscuity in public, but the children of today are subject to whole host of TV programs where public display of affection (PDA) is normal. We have a Rajasthan Chief Minister ranting against PDA and saying that pubs should be banned, we have Mr. Ambumani Ramadoss, the Health Minister pitching in with his two bits, saying pubs should be banned or ladies from pubs should be banned. So willy nilly we have all mainstream political parties saying pubs should be banned. So the right, left and so called center all want pubs banned. Great! Lets just stop the manufacture of liquor in the country and forego the excise revenue, won’t have need for pubs then will we? We had Renuka Chowdhary on Times Now yesterday ranting against the Karnataka government (BJP) because of inaction. But she did not have to say anything about the lady who came to investigate the case from her Ministry, Nirmala Venkatesh, who did not interview the victims and just made a statement that pubs should be banned because they could not protect the victims. Whose job is it to protect the public from a violent mob, the police or the security guards of pubs? The security guards are just ordinary human beings doing a mundane job, who have no guarantee of protection if they act violently against mob culprits. Just imagine the hue and cry if one of the security guards had hit and injured one of the mobsters! It would have become a national political issue! That is because we do not care for issues of national import, we like to indulge in vote bank politics for short term gains.

It is high time we stop this ridiculous moral policing by people who do not have morals or values – if they had they would not behave with such violence against women! The people should ensure that such bigots are kicked out of the public mainstream and the Governments of the day are made responsible for real policing, maybe then we may actually see a reduction in crime and terrorist activities. But that may be expecting too much – just see the profile of some of our Ministers, you will understand what I am trying to say!