Was visiting my in laws today. I had just gone out for a smoke to the next street.
I heard a dog screaming down the road. I ran towards it.
The shopkeeper nearby had thrown a full gas cylinder on the sleeping dog. A gas cylinder weighs about 20 kg. He had let it fall on its head, for fun.
The dog’s skull was broken and the whole place was full of blood. It was running in circles, crashing, rising and then running around in frenzy. Its mouth had foamed. I think it had lost its sight. It was running around and hit a wall head on. It walked with a strange tilt. It was unable to balance itself. It kept falling every few paces and letting out a gut wrenching yelp.
The shopkeeper and a teenager were gawking and laughing at the creature. The teenager was shouting, “It’s a murder, murder”, with a smirk of smartness written all over his face.
The commotion had drawn a few people from around. They started asking the guys how it would feel if they had the same cylinder dropped on their heads.
They hung their head down, they were ashamed. One guy said, “It was only a dog”
One onlooker said, “If it was only a normal street dog, you could have chased it away by pelting a stone at it”
A lady on the top floor of an apartment kept cursing the shopkeeper, “You will be born a dirty dog in your next life. I will drop a TV from the third floor on your head”. This lady was making most of the noise.
A cop was riding by on his bicycle. He stopped to look into the row. He gave both the guys a good beating on the spot. Every time the baton fell on their backs, there was some encouragement from the people gathered around.
Everybody had forgotten the dog that had struggled and got away from the crowd. It was lying in a pool of blood panting its last breath in a gutter. It was choking and a few little boys were looking on. Only one of them had tears in his eyes. The others were, of course, learning their first lessons in inflicting pain. They were coldly poking at the dying thing with sticks. I had to shove them away.
The dog died approximately 10 minutes into its struggle. It will be carted onto a garbage tipper tomorrow and disposed of in an unknown dump.
I have felt the death of a man and the death of a dog very near me this week. But the dog’s death seems to have shaken me more than the man’s. In my travels, I have seen many gory deaths on the roads. But twice I have seen a dog beaten to death, and I can recall both to this day to the minutest of details.
A man has many variables to manipulate for his good. But an animal lives with more constraints than a man. It lives on faith and intuition.
To dump a gas cylinder on someone’s head is rank disrespect for life. A rage had built up within me at that time. I felt like puking a long time after I had seen the whole thing happen.
I think our children start throwing stones at dogs for fun, and to tune their aim. Some do family planning operations for lizards and frogs. Some experiment how many wings a dragon-fly can fly with. Some try throwing cats out of windows – cats don’t seem to die so easily from a fall.
How can there be fun in the suffering of another living thing?
Children get trained early on that someone else’s pain is not a thing to fret about, that if the situation permits and if there is the right company, inflicting pain can be fun.
Showing posts with label Abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abuse. Show all posts
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Monday, November 06, 2006
Law against violence on women
Its big news on the channels that are the mouthpieces of the moderate Indian. NDTV, CNN IBN, Times Now. It’s the new law against violence on women.
Advantages:
1. This is a civil law, hence no criminal procedures involved. No need to show bruises scars and other physical evidence, usually necessary to file an FIR
2. Law applies to women in general – the wife, any woman residing in a house and even a live in partner
3. Law applies to physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of intimidation and subjugation of a woman’s dignity
4. If the ruling of the civil court is not adhered to, then criminal action may be initiated by the complainant
Disadvantages:
1. The woman has the option of staying on in her marital home
2. How does one assure the woman of security other than rendering a threat of criminal proceedings, which is not working and hence has brought forth this law?
3. As is always the case, even our criminal courts are slow, civil courts have redressed/judged cases for decades
The channels are doing a stellar job by highlighting the law and actually urging women who are facing abuse to take advantage of this new enactment. The startling news is that woman abuse is not relegated to the lower strata of the society or to any other distinguishable stratum of the society.
I was shocked to see a career woman breaking down in front of the camera because her husband has abused her for 20 years, and she has nowhere else to go. She does not want to leave home because her son would get affected, and hence has not filed a criminal case against her in laws and husband.
I was further more startled to know that parents of even the abused woman usually take the part of the husband, and condemn the woman for bringing family issues to public. The woman is thus cornered, with no one present for emotional support.
Education to women is being promoted to make the Indian woman independent, to protect her against social evil, prejudice, abuse and to provide her with a means to sustain her dignity and livelihood, in case a marriage goes awry. A sound education is necessary to give women the confidence they need to face social injustice.
The reactions to this law, by what I have seen – that social abuse of women is more widely prevalent in India than what is believed to be correct, that is, contained to the lower social strata. And it also shows that our society is still male chauvinistic to the core.
A society is not male chauvinistic because men are dominant. Men are dominant, and will be. It is because women feel meek, helpless and hence resign to their fate of subjugation and daily abuse. Women are not vigorously protective of their rights. This is so because the elders of today still don’t believe in social justice for women. A woman is like this because she is merely a woman, is a simple reasoning.
Women feel weak because they are not being shown otherwise. Many women still prefer to be “home makers” to a career. What will happen if marital life is not a bed of roses ten years from now? Being a house wife is good for the family, but the average Indian house wife watches 10 mega serials a day, has her siesta everyday, has an assured three square meals package all in one combo dish, served in a platter. She forgets how to read and write. Forgets the accounts she studied in B Com. Her skills are focused on making a samosa with as little oil in it as possible. What will she do if marriage is not a bed a roses? She will live on, with the assured combo dish. Is stigma worse than being abused?
Exploitation will happen on the intellectually lazy in the guise of duty. The disadvantaged will always remain so, if they choose to. Walk out if your husband beats you, before he breaks you. The world is bigger than your home. Social revolutions are built on individual instances of courage and not on walls built by the establishment.
Advantages:
1. This is a civil law, hence no criminal procedures involved. No need to show bruises scars and other physical evidence, usually necessary to file an FIR
2. Law applies to women in general – the wife, any woman residing in a house and even a live in partner
3. Law applies to physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of intimidation and subjugation of a woman’s dignity
4. If the ruling of the civil court is not adhered to, then criminal action may be initiated by the complainant
Disadvantages:
1. The woman has the option of staying on in her marital home
2. How does one assure the woman of security other than rendering a threat of criminal proceedings, which is not working and hence has brought forth this law?
3. As is always the case, even our criminal courts are slow, civil courts have redressed/judged cases for decades
The channels are doing a stellar job by highlighting the law and actually urging women who are facing abuse to take advantage of this new enactment. The startling news is that woman abuse is not relegated to the lower strata of the society or to any other distinguishable stratum of the society.
I was shocked to see a career woman breaking down in front of the camera because her husband has abused her for 20 years, and she has nowhere else to go. She does not want to leave home because her son would get affected, and hence has not filed a criminal case against her in laws and husband.
I was further more startled to know that parents of even the abused woman usually take the part of the husband, and condemn the woman for bringing family issues to public. The woman is thus cornered, with no one present for emotional support.
Education to women is being promoted to make the Indian woman independent, to protect her against social evil, prejudice, abuse and to provide her with a means to sustain her dignity and livelihood, in case a marriage goes awry. A sound education is necessary to give women the confidence they need to face social injustice.
The reactions to this law, by what I have seen – that social abuse of women is more widely prevalent in India than what is believed to be correct, that is, contained to the lower social strata. And it also shows that our society is still male chauvinistic to the core.
A society is not male chauvinistic because men are dominant. Men are dominant, and will be. It is because women feel meek, helpless and hence resign to their fate of subjugation and daily abuse. Women are not vigorously protective of their rights. This is so because the elders of today still don’t believe in social justice for women. A woman is like this because she is merely a woman, is a simple reasoning.
Women feel weak because they are not being shown otherwise. Many women still prefer to be “home makers” to a career. What will happen if marital life is not a bed of roses ten years from now? Being a house wife is good for the family, but the average Indian house wife watches 10 mega serials a day, has her siesta everyday, has an assured three square meals package all in one combo dish, served in a platter. She forgets how to read and write. Forgets the accounts she studied in B Com. Her skills are focused on making a samosa with as little oil in it as possible. What will she do if marriage is not a bed a roses? She will live on, with the assured combo dish. Is stigma worse than being abused?
Exploitation will happen on the intellectually lazy in the guise of duty. The disadvantaged will always remain so, if they choose to. Walk out if your husband beats you, before he breaks you. The world is bigger than your home. Social revolutions are built on individual instances of courage and not on walls built by the establishment.
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