PAEDOPHILES AT HOME

One more horror story has just tumbled out from our so called family oriented Indian household; that of a father, brother and an uncle raping a girl child for over two years in a small place called Dharmadom in north Kerala’s Kannur district. Today, she is thirteen, so when they started she was only eleven. Those who should have been her protectors were actually her predators. I believe none of us can even begin to imagine her trauma. Shattered for life she has been terrorized into bearing this abuse silently; even going about her daily life, as if nothing had happened. But, a human being can bear only so much that too at such a tender age. Finally, the barrage did break. It is creditable that for once the teachers in our not so observant schools actually noticed her crying and tried to get to the bottom of her misery.

What has come to light further is that her elder sister had committed suicide. One can only guess that she too had fallen victim to the horrendous acts of the trio. The mother has claimed ignorance which is highly unlikely but can only be explained by the fact that women in Indian homes are powerless against male members, howsoever, brutish they may be. She obviously has lived in terror herself, a voiceless person, with perhaps no income or standing of her own.

As per the statistics provided to the press by the Kerala Police’s State Crime Records Bureau, on an average, three rape cases are being registered in the State everyday while at least one minor is raped a day. Twenty cases of crimes against women are registered in the police stations of Kerala each day.

It is shocking that these things are happening in Kerela called God’s own country; a state with a matriarchal society, a high male–female ratio (for every 100 men there are 109 females) and high level of literacy. Clearly none of these things matter. The men will always rule the roost. They will, on the basis of sheer physical strength shown over centuries, continue to abuse women not sparing their own offspring even. This is not an isolated case. Such stories have been tumbling out of homes more and more frequently. What it means is that it has been always happening only more people are gathering the courage eventually to confide in some outsider who helps them report the case.

What kind of a creature is the human male? Not different at all it seems from the male species in the animal kingdom. At least he seems to be getting there.

How do we save our children (boys are not spared either) from such monsters? Clearly, the social support systems have disintegrated and the state has not been able to fill the gap. Whatever little is being done is being done by the non-profit sector with some help from media whenever such a case comes out in the open. The police are insensitive, doing shoddy investigation, the courts take years to convict and justice never seems to be done. Often, the perpetrators of such crime go scot free if they are influential. That is why there is no fear in doing such deeds. The classic example of the man, who raped Nurse Aruna Ram chandran Shanbaug in a Mumbai hospital, strangled her with an iron chain and left her to die, is today married and has even fathered a child after spending only seven years in jail. While, she has been in coma for the past 38 years ever since. Is this justice? If these are our laws they need to be changed immediately. Nothing short of life sentence should be given to such people. And life sentence should mean full life till death and not just 14 years.

India Today: Brutal, Savage, Perverse

I have been addicted to the morning newspaper. But, of late I open the pages with fear and trepidation. The sordid and morbid stories turn ones hackles. I shudder everyday in anticipation. Even though I have devised a method of reducing my agony by not reading the body of the news item carrying stories of violent crimes, the headlines say it all. And if you have successfully escaped the gory details in print, the TV channels will scream and bombard you with horrific images all day long till you are pulverised into such revulsion, you can hardly think straight. I am tired of grieving. The irony is, the average Indian is exhausted and cannot keep track of the gang rapes, lynchings, sexual assault and murder of little children, bride burning, honour killings, atrocities on dalits, bludgeoning of senior citizens, etc, etc. The things that are happening day in and day out with such sickening regularity makes me wonder if we are fit to be called human. Such barbaric acts of violence, such perverse  acts of sexual abuse.

Just yesterday a 17 year old boy was tortured and beaten to death for a mobile phone. A teenager in Pune kidnapped and killed a five year old because he needed money to buy a motor cycle. School kids are killing their friends for ransom. Is this what we call price of a human life? Cheaper than a material object. What have we come to? Few days ago a step father who subjected his five year old daughter to unnatural sex beat her to death or perhap suffocated her during the act. Another seven year old child died after being raped by her father's friends. What has happened to the Indian male? Is he so sexually frustrated that even 18 month old babies won't be spared. If his need is so great why can't he go to sex workers. And then the phenomena of gang rape which is so unique to India, especially north India where Haryana takes the pride of position. A state which has the lowest female/male ratio. First kill the female in the womb and then rape whoever is alive. Also, kill her after that.

We are a nation with no role models, no leaders, no ideals, no moral compass. Everything is chalta hai. Our heroes are bollywood stars who have glamourised violence and taken home pots of money for that. The others who attract a following are politicians for making quick money. Who are the children going to look up to ? They aspire to be what they see. They want to become rich and famous by the shortest cut. And being rich is the only yardstick of success and human worth. If in the process you have to commit a couple of crimes including murder--thats okay!!!

SIVAKASI : A TINDERBOX

The recent episode in Sivakasi, the city which makes 90 percent of the country’s firecrackers, is nothing new. Many such incidents have taken place in this tinder box in the past. Only the number of those dying keeps increasing. But death, even in such large numbers is not news in this country, where people die every day from all kinds of manmade reasons. The common factor in all these is always callousness and negligence, underlined by poverty on one side and power on the other. Be it money power, muscle power or position power. Those who die are invariably the poorest of the poor; basically nameless and only a number.

After every such incident, whatever the cause, compensations will be announced, enquiries constituted and then forgotten. Why, because, another major disaster would have hogged the headlines. After 38 people were killed in the recent series of explosions, the almost hilarious statement by government agencies was that they were kept in the dark about the cancellation of the factory's license by the deputy controller of explosives, who happens to be a central government official. The license was cancelled a day before the accident after an inspection found the unit overstaffed and stocking excess explosives. Weird!

Sivakasi, which is the capital of India’s firecracker industry, with about 8,000 factories has a turnover of Rs. 15 billion growing at the rate of 10% per annum.

These fireworks factories give direct employment, as well as, indirect, such as paper tube making, wire cutting, box making in the country side. They also produce military weapons, which are used for training in armed forces. Some airports are using Sivakasi rockets to scare away birds. Beside fireworks, it is also a major hub of printing presses and in-house studios, producing a variety of posters and calendars.

Sivakasi today produces 80% of India's total safety matches, 90% of India's total fireworks, and 60% of India's total offset printing solutions. It is one of the highest sales/excise/customs duty paying towns.

One would imagine a city which has returned so much to the exchequer, would deserve at least a single decent sized hospital, with a dedicated burns unit. In a place which has seen so many such disasters, the state government would have given the poor labourers’ working in this hazardous industry at least this much.

When such accidents take place in Sivakasi the severely burnt are driven in make shift ambulances 75 kms to Madurai.  Sivakasi is sitting on a volcano which erupts every now and then. And yet the roads are so narrow and bad that fire tenders cannot reach them.

Child labour too has been a major problem, but sustained campaigns by human rights activists have seen that practice come down drastically. However, with rising costs, the employment of children is re-emerging in a different way, according to social workers in the area. As per a press report, the practice of home-based firework production has started. This is done through a network of contractors and sub-contractors, which is not just creating fire hazards at homes, but also pulling children back into the industry.

According to a 2005 survey by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan—Virudhunagar district, where Sivakasi is situated, has the highest percentage (45%) of families with out-of-school children.

The violation of safety norms—which has caused around 1,000 deaths in the last 10 years according to some NGO estimates(the official figure is of course much, much lower)—continues unchecked due to insufficient government regulation of the industry.

Firms say rising costs and irregular labour availability has lead to home-based production, but only of non-hazardous kinds. NGOs dispute these claims. Production of fireworks in homes is not permitted, but those who do generally go unpunished because it helps the locals make a living.

According to a recent report, the tehsildar is the only officer in the entire state in charge of inspections for the matches and fireworks industry, and operates with just one assistant.

There have been an alarmingly high number of accidents in the fireworks industry despite tall claims made by the State government about the implementation of the Factories Act, 1948.

The labourers employed in the cracker units are forced to work under tremendous stress in order to meet production targets, especially during festival time like Diwali. Piece-rate work adds to their miseries.

According to another press report, scarcity of labour has led contractors bringing in untrained recruits despite the fact they have no the technical knowledge of the job, particularly chemical mixing, filling, fitting, drying, braiding, and packing. This has also resulted in fatal accidents. Unhealthy competition among manufacturers has led to the introduction of new varieties. This and the absence of proper training to workers and safety mechanisms make a deadly combination. In almost all the recent accidents, explosions occurred while handling chemicals.

Safety norms are blatantly violated. Instead of the permitted four people working in a room with four doors, 10 people are made to work. Some registered units do not have equipment such as copper plates to earth static electricity, lightning arrestors, or even protective masks. Fire control equipment is totally absent in most factories.

Also, buildings are not explosion resistant. Experts say the deaths are not just because of the blasts, but also because of the buildings disintegrating.

Recently, the mushrooming of illegal cracker units in the villages has made the workers even more vulnerable. According to reports nearly 100,000 people depend on the unlicensed sector whereas the licensed factories employ around 130,000 persons. Poor wages offered by the contractors of the licensed units was one of the reasons why labourers switched to the illegal sector.

These illegal units were actually started by the licensed companies, to outsource work. But the illegal sector got the support of dealers, raw material suppliers, and truck operators because they got better deals. The practice apparently still continues, in fact some licensees even lease out their manufacturing sheds.    Also, entire families including children work out of residences. Accidents occur every now and then, because cooking is done in the same room where combustibles are stored.

Finally, we heard the owner of the factory where the recent blast took place was arrested. As expected he turns out to be a member of the AIADMK. Such, blatant violations cannot take place without political patronage and an indifferent and corrupt administration. It does not matter which government is in power, they are all the same. Workers must realise individually they can be crushed but collectively they may have some voice. The NGOs working in the area can only show them the way towards collective bargaining or nothing will ever change. The media too takes notice only when there’s a disaster. Why don’t they run a relentless campaign against the pitiable condition of those workers? Or it is only a matter of time when another lot of people will be roasted alive.

Review-GANGS OF BOLLYWOOD

Finally, I got to see Gangs of Wasseypur. After hearing so much, I decided to dekho Anurag Kashyap’s much talked about magnum opus; at least, the first half of it which has been released. My children had repeatedly warned me against seeing it, telling me about the violence, both physical and verbal. But, I decided to see it nevertheless.

After all, with reviews such as brilliant, amazing, standing ovation, four stars; how could one ignore it? It could not be just hot air. So, I did go and I did see the Gangs of Wasseypur.

And believe me, despite some brilliant performances, excellent casting, fantastic cinematography, Bollywood has hit a new low.

Actually, this was started by Vishal Bhardwaj in his film Onkara; where in the opening scene he makes Saif Ali mouth the “ch” word.

But, Gangs of Wasseypur, from the word go establishes profanity as the medium of communication. The filthiest, sexist, incestuous abuses, which are not new to mankind (read men), are used generously, something which was never done in mainstream cinema. Not just here in Bollywood but also in Hollywood.

The argument put forth these days is that this is hard core reality. But, this terrible reality was always there, from time memorable. But, good movies like good books didn’t need to use such expletives to convey crudeness of the rural hinterland or the urban underbelly. Some things were left to the imagination of the viewers, which is quite fertile anyway.

Blockbusters based on dacoits like Sholay and even Ganga Jamuna did not need to use such language to show roughness or brutality of the people mouthing them. Even more shocking was Rani Mukherji using similar language in ‘No One Killed Jessica’. Firstly, Bollywood perhaps doesn’t know that women in media who work for English channels are too uppity to use the desi profanity the kind used by Rani in the role of a journalist she was portraying. The script writer got it all wrong.

Secondly, is this what you call emancipation? Is this women’s liberation? Doing and saying the terrible things men have been doing for centuries; in fact, trying to outdo them to prove that women can do it even better. Bollywood seems to have lost its compass.

Coming back to GOW, the lyrics are even more revolting. Is this music? With all kinds of sexual innuendos and double meanings it makes one cringe. The English song sung on the train by a bunch of hippies is downright vulgar. Is this what you call cinema coming of age? Is this what you mean by saying the audience has matured?

And, what about the blood and gore. It gets more and more perverse, symptomatic of the sickness prevailing in our society today. Glorifying murder! No wonder killing in this country has become a national sport. It is not right to say that movies do not impact the minds of viewers. They do in more ways than we would like to accept. We all remember how when we were young we often followed fads, fashions, thoughts, behavior after seeing some hit movie. Yes, most of us grew out of it. But, we too held many a star as role models. But, then those were the days of idealism. Maybe, this is today’s idealism.

Like all other professions, cinema too has a social responsibility. You cannot live in a bubble of money and fame only. It is a very powerful medium to be used with extreme care.

And what about the women in this movie? The young actresses, who are very articulate these days, came on talk shows while promoting the film and talked about having strong female roles. Really? Their only role seems to be of cooking, cleaning, procreating and providing physical gratification to the macho men who go about shooting and killing people happily with smiles on their faces. Aren’t both, the wife and mistress, abandoned by the man, they choose to live with, at different points of time.

So is killing always heroic? Apparently in movies it is, especially, if some injustice has been done to you by anyone at any point of time. Go out and kill that person and a few more on the way. The only killing to my mind one accords respect albeit with sadness is when a nation goes to war.

But, what is this we see in most movies today. Bone crunching, skull breaking, mindless violence and horrendous forms of torture that too done by our heroes. If the good guys are doing all this, then what should be the conduct of the bad guys? No longer, the simple dishum-dishum, of the hero versus the villain, like in the good old days, when the villain was rarely killed. At the end of the movie, after the hero had thoroughly thrashed him, he was invariably handed over to the police for the law to take its own course.

Vigilantism, I believe has found inspiration to a great extent from cinemas. It has attained cult hood with huge amounts of social sanction. Sometimes, one wonders why our male lead actors like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Amir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, who are mostly in their mid forties with kids at home do these so called action movies with huge doses of sickening violence. How do they justify their bad acts in movies to their children?

GOW made me cringe at almost every sentence. Maybe, I am old fashioned and not in sync with the times. Maybe this is today’s value system, if you may call it value. Maybe, gentility is passé. But, one would like to tell this new breed of directors and script writers that ma behan galis and other abuses using various parts of anatomy have been a part of vocabulary throughout India, more so, in the Hindi belt always. But, it was never condoned or considered good to use it in mixed company. Can we ever imagine Javed Akhtar writing something like this in his movies?

Everything about GOW is in your face. Nothing is conveyed in a subtle manner. To be gross is the new mantra to rake in the moolah. Some scenes are deliberately bloody; the abattoir, the carcasses, the river of blood flowing, and men conversing indifferently in that gore.

Just a day, later I saw Paan Singh Tomar on TV. It is also about vendetta, injustice, and a man becoming a dacoit when no options are left. But, the movie is humane. There is honour, value, love and brotherhood in it. To a great extent it is heroic. There are a few abuses in it also, but not of the kind in GOW. Also, killing is shown as a last resort done with regret. Not mindless, irreverent and timepass like in GOW.  I would like to remember Manoj Bajpai of Shool and not of GOW.

Lastly, just a small question: what’s with the gamcha worn by the entire male cast for all interviews and Cannes. It wasn’t as if it was some signature garment worn throughout the movie. Manoj Bajpai is seen donning the ubiquitous raiment only once after his bathing scene.

And reinforcing this gun totting culture fast emerging in Bollywood as cool, was the bash thrown by Anurag Kashyap to celebrate the success (box office revenues) of his film GOW where the entire cast was brandishing guns for the cameras. No cops watching?

MAHI IS DEAD

‘Mahi is dead’, was the one liner which one of the leading news channels gave soon after the hapless child was pulled out of the bore well in which she had fallen into 84 hours before. Not the first child to fall in and not the first to die. Ever since, the widely televised rescue operation of ‘Prince’ was covered live, many more have fallen in, only to come out dead.

The public is exhausted of the nail biting suspense of watching and hearing of such agonizingly long operations and their subsequent failures. They are tired of grieving and they are tired of helplessly wringing their hands as by-standers. Like one of them, I too had tried to block my mind by switching off the TV, only to toss and turn all night and getting up in the wee hours of the morning to once again switch on the idiot box in the wane hope of hearing a happy ending. But, it has almost always been sad news.

But more than grief, now it is outrage and anger; anger at the abuse and callousness that we as a nation and as adults show to our children, especially poor children.

Is there never to be any accountability? And what is this entire hullabaloo about havans and yajnas being performed all over the country by a generally apathetic citizenry and the vulgar compensations doled out by equally unsympathetic governments?  Money to shut the mouths of victims groveling in poverty! A small price for children they can anyway do without!

Is that all we are capable of? Will the laws and law makers of this land always let the perpetrators of such crimes go scot free? Will those responsible never be hauled up and their faces never shown to the public? Will criminal charges never be pressed against such offenders, whether individuals, organizations or governments? Why don’t the media follow up after the child is dead? Why don’t they expose such criminals?

Because, most of the victims in the past have belonged to the poorest section of society. Their parents are daily wage earners; labourers who toil all day and their children, wallow by the sides, in heat, dust, rain or cold depending on which time of the year it is. No crèches, no day-cares, no ayahs or helps to watch over them while their parents toil to earn a few rupees to put food in their mouths at the end of the day. Parents, who can perhaps only watch from a distance and the corner of their eyes, as they dare not antagonize their contractors.

Are we to blame the children then for straying away and falling into death traps? Or are we to blame their parents for not taking good enough care of their wards? Can we even begin to imagine what it would be like for a toddler to be stuck in an eight inch diameter hole, in the darkest possible pit deep in the earth without light, food water; even without the familiar faces of those who love him/her?

And what about the huge cost involved in extricating these children? Who will bear it? Not the culprits we can be sure. And what about the loss of innumerable man hours, of the common and not so common people? People who include locals, government officials, doctors, engineers, army men and not to mention the media, watching these spectacles. And not to forget the man hours wasted by millions of viewers who sit glued to their TV sets, unable to do anything else because they just can’t get the distressing images out of their minds. And what about those who even get badly injured in doing these risky operations? Who will bear their pain?

And what about the huge amounts of equipment which are moved to these sites from other assignments, like cranes, earth movers, ambulances, trucks, army vehicles, staff cars etc, etc. Who will bear the cost of these?

No one in particular, but, everyone in general! At that moment of course, everyone wants to wear the Good Samaritan halo and enjoy even a little bit of glory; like the administrators who bask in media attention, giving sound bytes to a hungry media.