It is but natural to seek an escape from trauma and turmoil. And as you keep trying to flee, the tribulation keeps trying you. At times, this is what it all feels like: your boat is wrecked and you must keep paddling to survive, looking out for the craft that might prove to be your ark, while even the sun, moon, and stars act swiftly and purposefully, striving toward a goal that is more than nebulous hope. How can you not feel powerless? What could be more frustrating and more threatening than a scenario where you cannot do anything to affect your own life? Suddenly, a quick escape is even more exigent, and there is only one way to fashion it: redefine the problem, simplify it to a point where a solution seems feasible and control is restored to you.
Could anything possibly trump the vicarious trauma from hearing and reading about the two teens who had been raped, killed, and strung from a mango tree? Summoned by the ghastly deed and sat, stood, and hunched round the tree were the villagers, seeming, in the photographs, incredulous and trying to reconcile with the grotesque posing of the victims. Photographs usually encapsulate a moment, but these seemed to trap something timeless. As the details emerged, the act was believed to be an assertion of caste hegemony, an act blessed by the local police, with the accused belonging to a caste that casts a significant share of the ballots in the state of UP. That the supremo of the ruling party had sought to underplay rape a few days before the crime, and the chief minister and other leaders were defensive, made the intentions and sincerity of the regime suspect, opening the door for conjecture on their complicity in the crime, if only by condoning the act and shielding the accused. Amid these intimations of lawlessness and social regression, news trickled in that the girls had been preyed upon when they had ventured into the fields after dark to answer nature's call. Suddenly, a lack of a toilet at the girls' home - a deprivation endured by millions across the country - was held responsible for what they had been put through. If they had had access to a toilet at home, the logic went, they would not have ventured out and would not have been raped.
I agree that there is some pragmatism in this assessment, but safeguarding someone by keeping them indoors is a measure that is redolent of a program to protect an endangered species, by holding the last in the line in a cage and coaxing them into captive breeding. In the human context, survival and living are not synonymous. It is not sufficient to not be dead, be fed at the right time, and be allowed to mate and sire progeny. What is life deprived of that basic human dignity of liberty, liberty to explore and experience existence? The evolved intellect, the ability to communicate that sets us apart from our primate cousins, and communicate not just the immediate and transitory, but the lasting truths harvested through reasoning and meditation, how would one exercise these defining traits in confinement? What would be left is a comatose existence that is barely human. What you should seek to secure is an opportunity for everyone to fully express their humanity. Access to a loo in the home, of course, is a need in its own right, one that need not be conflated with a safeguard against sexual assault. Sexual predators aren't necessarily hobos lurking outside one's own home.
Yes, it seems hopeless, but it is not something that can be ignored forever. There is a need to delve into what drives the perpetrators of these inhuman crimes, a need to spot, seclude, and stop them as they scheme. While solving the simplified situation may serve to soothe your angst for some time, you cannot forever remain deluded, because to know what is askew in your life is a prerequisite to bettering your life. And only when you know what is right and what needs to be fixed in your life can you be in control, avoid being awash in angst again.
Could anything possibly trump the vicarious trauma from hearing and reading about the two teens who had been raped, killed, and strung from a mango tree? Summoned by the ghastly deed and sat, stood, and hunched round the tree were the villagers, seeming, in the photographs, incredulous and trying to reconcile with the grotesque posing of the victims. Photographs usually encapsulate a moment, but these seemed to trap something timeless. As the details emerged, the act was believed to be an assertion of caste hegemony, an act blessed by the local police, with the accused belonging to a caste that casts a significant share of the ballots in the state of UP. That the supremo of the ruling party had sought to underplay rape a few days before the crime, and the chief minister and other leaders were defensive, made the intentions and sincerity of the regime suspect, opening the door for conjecture on their complicity in the crime, if only by condoning the act and shielding the accused. Amid these intimations of lawlessness and social regression, news trickled in that the girls had been preyed upon when they had ventured into the fields after dark to answer nature's call. Suddenly, a lack of a toilet at the girls' home - a deprivation endured by millions across the country - was held responsible for what they had been put through. If they had had access to a toilet at home, the logic went, they would not have ventured out and would not have been raped.
I agree that there is some pragmatism in this assessment, but safeguarding someone by keeping them indoors is a measure that is redolent of a program to protect an endangered species, by holding the last in the line in a cage and coaxing them into captive breeding. In the human context, survival and living are not synonymous. It is not sufficient to not be dead, be fed at the right time, and be allowed to mate and sire progeny. What is life deprived of that basic human dignity of liberty, liberty to explore and experience existence? The evolved intellect, the ability to communicate that sets us apart from our primate cousins, and communicate not just the immediate and transitory, but the lasting truths harvested through reasoning and meditation, how would one exercise these defining traits in confinement? What would be left is a comatose existence that is barely human. What you should seek to secure is an opportunity for everyone to fully express their humanity. Access to a loo in the home, of course, is a need in its own right, one that need not be conflated with a safeguard against sexual assault. Sexual predators aren't necessarily hobos lurking outside one's own home.
Yes, it seems hopeless, but it is not something that can be ignored forever. There is a need to delve into what drives the perpetrators of these inhuman crimes, a need to spot, seclude, and stop them as they scheme. While solving the simplified situation may serve to soothe your angst for some time, you cannot forever remain deluded, because to know what is askew in your life is a prerequisite to bettering your life. And only when you know what is right and what needs to be fixed in your life can you be in control, avoid being awash in angst again.
Comments