Sunday, January 10, 2010

Public activism ??

 Public has taken lots of matters in their hands lately. Sometimes by taking direct action like they did in Iran recently . Remember their street demo's  asking ' Where is my vote"?  They did not  find it , at least not yet. Sometimes Public uses a proxy like they did in Pakistan by using lawyers against the government high handedness . This time round they had limited success , since all that pressure was instrumental in getting rid of a dictator . It is another matter that his replacement is also not quite the paragon of virtue people would like him to be.

India is witnessing another such movement where public is using the media to put pressure on the system to respond. I am talking of Ruchika's case. Now without going into the merits of the charges against SPS rathore , one thing is certain that the system is so corrupt that it took an inordinately long time for the case to come to light. In that sense people are not only demanding justice for Ruchika they are demanding it for themselves too. She is a symbol of all the maladies that have taken root in the system. 

Human nature being such  that I do not think men will stop getting attracted to women anytime soon. Neither will they stop making advances ; at times inappropriately and illegally. However all  civil societies have rules regarding that and any crossing of lines is checked by these safety nets. First net is family, second net is your school or work place support structure, third net is police, fifth net is judiciary and the final net is the political administration. People which means the society has created these safety nets to check wrong doings. In a lot of instances these nets work and things are righted before   damage is done. Unfortunately for Ruchika her support structure failed her. I realize she did not have a mother but I am surprised that her school instead of being supportive at a very crucial juncture of her life decided to cut her loose.

I do know that Rathore is pleading innocence, claiming trial by media and is generally very remorseless about the whole episode, but as a society we must think how could we let any person wrong another person for years and still allow him not  to be even sorry.  When people are proactively taking such matters in their hands it shows that the systems have failed but it also shows that we are not going to sit  idle and do nothing about it. Which  feels  good!


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