Killing The Messenger

I rue the state of Indian women.

All the punditry on India's exploding economic growth is superfluous and in my opinion, a great myth until the day society is truly free. All of India's social indicators languish at abysmal depths - education, health, emancipation of women to mention a few. Without education, the citizenry cannot shake off the feudal grip that politicians have over society (this is a huge problem in itself), women continue to be oppressed with the patriarchal slant of society reinforcing the over lordship of male apes (this constitutes another major impediment). It also has been the forte of Indian society to shoot the messenger who runs into town with the torch of liberation. The darkness just doesn't let go.

What else can you say about this -

A woman is continually harassed for dowry with increasing intensity by her husband and his parents. It peaks when she gives birth to a daughter. At this point, unable to bear the mental anguish (physical (?)) she leaves home and decides to rear her daughter as a single mother. She continues to protest her victimization and in one incident walks semi nude to the police commissioner's office via a busy road. I am assuming that none of her previous efforts have raised such a dust storm. And what exactly do the mindless jackasses who are part of this society do? take up her cause? think again. This is India and we are proud of our tradition of shooting the messenger - we character assassinate this woman and push the real issue of dowry and torture into the background (is it even an issue?) and debate the credibility and character of the victim. How many times hasn't the suspicion for rape fallen on the victim?

IBN has a [report], please make sure you read the comments. They illuminate the intellect of the cretins that infest Indian society. I shall reproduce a couple of them - I nominate these characters for the Indian edition of Hostel.

"Posted By Monit -

Despite being so many biased laws for females, she has resorted to such indecent ways."

"Posted By Ash

A girl with such daring could do anything, absolutely anything. So much so that she can threaten husband and in-laws."

Education will set free people's minds from the shackles of superstition and (I hope) break down traditional power structures that are designed to suppress different sections of society (women as a class, the poor and backward as a class etc).

That is my fervent prayer and I hope to see some of it in my lifetime.

Edit: Churmuri has another [report]

Edit 2: Both the pictures are disturbing - I am referring to the street trash that you can see in the photo on churmuri . They seem amused and are following her around to get maximum mileage out of it akin to the tamasha that attracts crowds on every street.