{"id":3902,"date":"2012-12-30T08:03:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T02:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2012-12-30T08:03:29","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T02:33:29","slug":"dna-column-how-the-government-let-us-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/2012\/12\/30\/dna-column-how-the-government-let-us-down\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA Column – How the Government Let Us Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

My column in today’s DNA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

And she died on a Saturday. In a land far away. With her close family around her. A girl whose body gave up the fight against the brutality inflicted on it. A girl who was out for a 6 pm show with a friend in the Capital of India. A girl whose only fault it was to think that she was safe in modern India.<\/p>\n

In a country used to brutality against women in the house and outside it \u2013 she became a symbol. When she lay in hospital in Delhi, she became a lightning rod to attract protests. Those protests were as much about what was done to her, as they were about what women in the National Capital \u2013 and elsewhere face daily.<\/p>\n

It is not that it was the only brutal rape to take place in India \u2013 all of us who consume news daily read the litany of tortures inflicted on women. It was not even that it was the only gang rape \u2013 again we read every day the casual violence inflicted by a bunch of men on a single woman at their mercy. This simply was the tipping point of anger at being mauled, pinched, looked up, molested, harassed and assaulted with words, with actions, of rapes that are committed in the home and outside. Girls, their mothers, their sisters, their fathers, their friends, their brothers \u2013turned up spontaneously to tell the Government \u2013 hear us for we are in pain..<\/p>\n

No Government, anywhere in the world, no police force, no matter how efficient they are \u2013 can prevent a random, violent incident. What the Government and police force can do, when faced with a situation of public grief is to act appropriately. To provide timely information, to communicate and to reach out.\u00a0 \u00a0The Government of India is not an occupying force \u2013 it is accountable and answerable to the people of India.\u00a0 It cannot bluff its way through a situation. Unfortunately, instead of talking to the people, instead of reaching out \u2013 the Government put up the barriers, used violence against protesters and then to compound it \u2013 it lied.<\/p>\n

The ancient Greek Dramatist Aeschylus said that \u2018In war, truth is the first casualty\u2019. But, we aren\u2019t at war. It is not even a revolution \u2013 it is a bunch of concerned citizens worried about their safety and security. Battering them with water cannons and then tear gas \u2013 and labelling them all as lumpen<\/i> to justify the violence is positively Goebbelsian. If not for social media, and the fact that a number of protesters were active on social networking sites \u2013 this lie would have become the accepted version of events.<\/p>\n

It is the outrage caused because of the government attack on average citizens, and then their barefaced lie about it, followed by a game of pass the buck between Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Delhi CP Neeraj Kumar \u2013 that no one really believed the Official version of how Constable Tomar died. Finally, the moving of a critically ill patient to another country was greeted with cynicism on social media \u2013 and this was later was proven to be true. Her move to Singapore seems, now, to be a political rather than a medical decision.<\/p>\n

The great media critic A J Liebling \u00a0said \u2018Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one \u2013 the thing about social media is that each individual on it owns their thoughts. Those thoughts may be right or wrong \u2013 but they are independent. Unlike Main stream Media, Social Media is too diverse and fragmented to be controlled. It can neither be cajoled with advertisements, nor threatened with licenses being revoked. Ministries cannot send those on Social Media \u2018directives\u2019, nor can Income Tax raid millions of citizens to keep them in line. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Government is trying to stifle and restrict Social Media.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My column in today’s DNA And she died on a Saturday. In a land far away. With her close family around her. A girl whose body gave up the fight against the brutality inflicted on it. 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