President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday expressed her heartfelt reactions concerning the unprecedented rate of crime against women where she asserted that it was time for India to wake up to the “perversion” of crimes against women and counter the mindset that sees women as less powerful.
Through the personalised article titled “Women’s Safety: Enough is Enough”, the president for the first time articulated her views on the August 9 Kolkata incident where a 31-year-old on-duty junior doctor was brutally raped and murdered at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. While commenting on the heart-breaking incident, the President told PTI she is ‘dismayed and horrified’.
"Enough is enough. No civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities", said the anguished president on crimes against women.
“The nation is bound to be outraged, and so am I,” she wrote.
Further emphasizing the need for societal changes to get rid of the crimes against women, Murmu said, "Society needs honest, unbiased self-introspection, ask itself some difficult questions", while adding, "In 12 years since Nirbhaya, countless rapes have been forgotten by society. This 'collective amnesia' is obnoxious."
Underlining the ingrained patriarchal mindset behind the unacceptable exhibit of hatred against women, the President said, "Very often a ‘deplorable mindset’ sees the female as a lesser human being, less powerful, less capable, less intelligent. Those who share such views then go further and see the female as an object… We owe it to our daughters to remove the hurdles from their path of winning the freedom from fear.”
"Societies scared to face history resort to collective amnesia; time now for India to face history squarely. Let us deal with this perversion in a comprehensive manner to curb it right at the beginning", she added.
Murmu in her article recalled her recent meeting with a group of schoolchildren on Raksha Bandhan. “They asked me innocently if they could be assured that there would be no recurrence of the Nirbhaya-type incident in the future,” the president said, referring to the brutal rape and murder of a physiotherapy intern in Delhi in December 2012.
"In the 12 years since, there have been countless tragedies of similar nature though only a few drew nationwide attention. Did we learn our lessons? As social protests petered out, these incidents got buried into a deep and inaccessible recess of social memory, to be recalled only when another heinous crime takes place", Murmu said.
President Murmu's stern reactions came at a time when the whole nation was still shaken by the gruesome rape and murder of the Kolkata doctor. While several nationally recognized associations of resident doctors announced cease work and strikes in protest against the heinous crime, people from different walks of life across the nation have hit the streets and raised their voices seeking justice.
