Rape and Honour Killing - Is this the Nadir?

I wanted to write today about the plight of the six year old who was raped in an upmarket school in Bangalore.  But such is the state of affairs in the present day world that i read about worse things happening in the morning newspapers today that numbed my senses so much, that i decided to write about those first.

Just imagine reading headlines like ' 65 year old mom raped by 40 year old son', 'man badly mutilates a woman and left bleeding for 4 hours to die for refusing to allow him to rape her', '8 year old daughter raped by father' ....  Such pathetic news would have thoroughly disgusted us a few years back but now with a spate of such incidents, we have become so de-sensitised that they are being treated as routine crimes.  Surely they are not routine!! what's making these guys behave this way? what can the society do to stem this rot? But even such rotten news was nothing compared to the next headline from afghanistan - the one which numbed my senses so much and almost made me throw up  - '10 year old violently raped by maulvi in mosque, girl's private parts badly damaged, men in family want to secretly take the girl out of hospital and kill her so that family honour is saved' (I feel like throwing up even while punching in those letters now).  How sick can u get beyond this!! This must be the Nadir!!

Though honour killing can never be justified, there is still some kind of bizarre logic to it, if the girl has eloped or got into an affair with a boy from a family that her elders dont approve of. I am at no stage saying that honour killing is justified but only saying that in the conventional honour killing (sic), the girl atleast has a role to play.  Here was a 10 year old girl who was violently raped by a maulvi inside a mosque and admitted to a hospital in a critical state - How can you hold her responsible for what happened? She is just a little girl who would probably continue playing with her toys once the ordeal is over.  But will she be permitted to do that? 

If the family men so strongly feel about family honour - why not confront the perpetrator of the crime? why attack the victim? The investigation of the rape and subsequent judgement is beyond the scope of this post. That is for the law of their land to decide. But the important point is - how can the family hold the girl responsible? Just by killing her, will it erase the fact that she was raped or the fact that the family men have failed to protect her when she needed them the most!!

This is terrible news and we all must appeal to the good senses of the men of the girl's family who decided that family honour is more important than the girl's life. Please have some love and affection for the little one! Please let her live in the name of God!.

Apart from praying to the girl's family and hoping, we all must also do something to give hope and a fighting chance to the little one.  This event must not be allowed to pass as many others.  These are times that one needs to stand up and be counted and to prove that 'justice for all'  is not just a slogan for lip service.

Friends, I think the time to procrastinate is over and we need to act and act fast if we are ever going to make a difference to this little one. please take five minutes of your time and forward this to as many people as possible. You never know how it will work.  Somewhere someone down the line may be powerful enough to make a difference.  They could be a powerful individual or the UN or a country such as US of A or even India.  Let us try in earnest!!

I pray to God for her safety and i bestow upon her all the good wishes that i have accumulated over the years. Hope she gets back to a normal life soon!!

shiridi sai baba - needless controversy

jai shiridi sai baba

i wanted to recommence writing after visiting my favourite lord at his divine abode in shiridi but  as that could not happen in the last few weeks i prayed to baba at my home itself and started again. The needless controversy sorrounding baba due to the comments  of a holy man reignited the spark  to write but what actually brought in the urgency is the brutal rape of a six year old by two teachers in a school in bangalore. More about that later.

Coming to the comments on the favourite lord of many whose popularity is soaring by thousands with every passing day - i think its best if all the religions and faiths kept to themselves without imposing themselves on others and also by not trying to lay a claim on other's gods. I am an abject devotee of shiridi sai baba but i have also prayed to lord shiva (and many other gods including visits to churches n mosques) both with my parents and individually. 

We can love and pray to all our gods and godesses without needing  to mix them up or drawing comparisons. All faiths can have their own space and retain their beliefs and there is really no need for attempts to merge faiths!! May God help us in following our chosen faiths and beliefs in peace and harmony!!