Don't Forget the #

Seven Months ago, a girl was molested outside a nightclub by 10 men in Guwahati while the cameras rolled. How many of us remember what happened to her today? What she is doing, whether she got counselling or not and whether the men involved in that crime were punished or not?

We are angry, pissed off, livid, no conversations end without talking about her and two weekends have gone into protesting about her – the question is what happens when something else, newer, more outraging and even closer to home comes along? And that’s the scariest thing.

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Over the last year we’ve protested, demonstrated and tweeted outrage on Kasab’s hanging and the dilly dallying on Afzal Guru’s hanging, about the Israeli attacks on Palestine, Walmart’s FDI lobbying, North Easterners fleeing from Bangalore, Government trying to limit SMS usage to 5 a day and LPG cylinders to 9 a year, Pakistan Interior Minister’s insensitivity towards Captain Kalia, a power blackout, and the Kudankulam nuclear plant. We’ve been equally angry and we’ve spent as much time making placards, holding candle light vigils, throwing stones at the government and generating hashtags for each issue.

And that’s where it begins to come undone. Till last December, India and its future and the future of our kids hung in the balance with the Lokpal Bill, then Anna decided to put protestors through the acid test – would you protest against corruption at the cost of your New Year’s Eve party? As Anna played to a by-and-large empty audience, the Lokpal Bill that was scheduled for the winter session of parliament still continues to hang in limbo and we don’t give a damn about it.

In October 2010, Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of the rapist of 25-year-old college student, Priyadarshini Mattoo to a life term. But despite the fact that smartphone sales for the last quarter of 2010 increased by 295 per cent as compared to 2009, we remained quiet. There were no mass mobilisations, protests, hashtags, angry protestors or demands for hangings.

Our approach to these issues and I am afraid our approach to even the gangrape of the 23-year-old girl in Delhi last month has been that of the organisation that we’ve targeted the most last month – the Delhi Police. The Delhi Police very often conducts drives against particular things – tinted windows, drunk driving, not wearing a seatbelt, pollution certificate etc., so every time it embarks on a drive against tinted windows for example, you can drive around on the streets without a seatbelt with a car throwing out more exhaust than a brick kiln. Only we are a lot less subtle than Delhi Police and we deal with only one flashpoint and one hashtag at a time.

I don’t buy the promises that this time we will not let it be forgotten when we forgot Priyadarshini Mattoo’s rape case or the Guwahati victim. Probably the Priyadarshini Mattoo case is even more relatable for us – she was 25, a student of law, lived in Vasant Kunj and was raped and killed by the son of a Police Inspector General. In the 16 years since Priyadarshini’s rape and murder, nothing has changed and our appalling track record in forgetting issues is hardly promising.

Or maybe we don’t relate to her case because we can relate too much to her case – her rapist wasn’t someone who came from outside our society, or lived in a slum or rode around in buses. We needed something that was relatable, but from a safe distance and the case in December fit the bill. But the question is, will we see it to its conclusion or will we have found another flashpoint to not notice if the death sentence of her accused is commuted by the Supreme Court?

I am not too hopeful. In the chorus of protests, anger, screaming and ‘dismember the bastard rapists’ rhetoric – one thing is missing and that’s a ‘solution’. And that is the scary part. As I write this, the protests are yet to go through its ‘pick me or your New Years Eve’ acid test. Yet never before has our collective amnesia been as clearly on exhibition as it is right now. The tragedy is that we seem intent on not doing anything beyond the protests and the Twitter hashtags and the columns. Certainly us Urban Indians are far more equipped to deal with these problems and change this mindset rather than depending on the same government we are putting to the sword everyday. Maybe the start would be to start sensitisation classes for men. Not just men living in slums who travel in buses, but the rest of us who talk in English, drive cars and tweet. I for one would be very keen to attend.

From the January 2013 issue of FHM India.