So, here is the sordid tale that’s being played out in the national media over the last month or so. There was a woman called Fijan Khatoon who we now know as Munni. She was married to a guy called Shah Hussain. They had three children, a boy and two girls. Shah Hussain decided to abandon Munni . If Munni’s parents are to be believed, Shah Hussain sold Munni and their three children to flesh traders. Munni, not very old and with no real skills or education, was left to fend for herself. It is unclear whether she fell prey to flesh traders by chance while trying to fend for herself or this path was thrust upon her by the pimps her husband sold her to. Enter a few other devious characters. They want to sell Munni off as a “bride”. However, in order to marry her off and pocket a few lakh rupees, Munni would have to be pitched as a childless virgin. So, what then would they do with her three children? Munni is promised that her children would be taken care of. What really happened was that her hapless children were scattered all over India. The son found his way to Delhi. The second child, a daughter found her way to Muzaffarpur and the youngest, a two year old girl that we now have come to know as Falak, found her way to the ICU at AIIMS. She came in with both her arms broken, her little skull bashed in, her plump cheeks bitten and branded. She is put on life support apparatus immediately. Soon a band of over 20 doctors and over 50 support staff and nurses swings in to save this child.
At some point, someone realizes that all this trauma could not have been caused by the child simply slipping in the bathroom. A search is mounted for the person who brought her to the hospital and leads to a 14 year old girl. Everyone concludes that the girl must either have been raped or must have delivered an unwanted child that she was now disposing off. The tale gets more sordid. The 14 year old turns out not to be the mother after all. She was handed the baby by one Rajkumar who by now is being called the 14 year old’s ‘live in boyfriend”. Rajkumar in turn, is known to have got the baby from one Laxmi who is in fact the woman who is supposed to have helped the child’s mother get married in the first place! It seems Rajkumar wanted to keep the baby but his wife wouldn’t let him. So he decided to hand her over to the 14 year old minor who he was sexually exploiting! The 14 year old girl turns out to be an abandoned child herself who was physically abused by her father and step mother after her own mother passed. She spent some time in an orphanage where it turns out sexual aggravation was rampant. It seems that on one fine day, for a period of about five hours, she tortured the little baby girl as she just could not deal with being a care giver anymore. In the meantime, Munni is traced to Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan where she is living the life of a married woman with her new husband Harpal who has no inkling that his paid for bride is from another community, previously married and a mother to three children! He bought himself a wife because most likely, in his village, girls are killed in the womb or right after being born and they are also killed if they dare to marry outside their community. As a result, villages and districts and entire states like Rajasthan and Haryana have a gender ratio so skewed that there are no longer women left for men to marry!. Brides are being bought from all parts of the country because, mother of all surprises - you can kill an unborn girl child but you still need a woman to produce sons!
In the meantime, little Falak, the helpless two year old has been on a ventilator for several weeks. The doctors keep draining out the fluid from her brain and lungs to ensure that she lives. They’ve spoken of how she may never be able to lead a normal life due to her injuries, provided, she survives in the first place. The entire nation is glued to her news. People are praying for her to get better. Prospective adopters keep growing in number by the day. Donations are being made regularly for the child’s treatment. People who would normally ask for perpetrators of such crimes to be hanged or killed or stoned, are unable to say so unequivocally in this case as everyone seems to be a victim. So what really happened here? This is a case of systemic rot and apathy that has gripped our society. There is no doubt that poverty lies at the heart of this cruel and sad turn of events. A family probably so poor that it couldn’t hold itself together. A mother made so helpless by her circumstances that she is forced to give up her children and start a new and ostensibly happy married life with a new husband, albeit built on a lie. A young girl so out of touch with hope and possibilities at such a young age that she pulverizes a two year old child but still brings her into the hospital perhaps because she knows she has done wrong or perhaps because she identifies with the victim as only a victim could. Maybe she was battered, raped and thrown away to fend for herself and no one came out to help her. Maybe she didn’t want the little girl to not have anyone to come out to help. In some twisted way, this was the 14 year olds subconscious way of redeeming herself.
So here is what happens. You kill girls in the womb because you consider them a disposable commodity on which you exercise entitlement. You let them be born and give them less to eat than your boys, send them to till your fields and never give them an education because they are a disposable commodity. When you get them married you are doing kanya dan or giving them as alms to a husband, because they are a commodity. When their in-laws burn them for not bringing enough dowry or being unable to bear a male child, they can do so because they are a disposable commodity. When you rape them you can do so because just like a commodity, it is your belief they can be used for your consumption. Being that rape is not so much about the sex but more about proving your hold via sex with a person who is vulnerable and cannot oppose you, you are in one shot making them marginal and using them as you would a consumable. When you run an orphanage and sexually exploit children as young as four and five, you are confirming that you are superior in the pecking order and that children carry no real value. When you pluck little babies from their mothers and scatter them along the way to whoever will take them, you are saying that their lives and emotional needs carry no real significance and their mother is so stupid that you can trick her into abandoning her children without ever holding anyone accountable. What is it that makes men and society in general so insensitive towards females and children? Should we all start subscribing to the theory that we are after all an animal species and when left untutored and free are capable of inflicting the worse kind of cruelty upon others? If we don’t subscribe to that view then what sort of society is this where there are no laws to safeguard our children who are the most vulnerable amongst us? We hit them and punish them and make them feel small in schools. When they go missing, our records show how abysmal the rate of recovery is. When women go missing, the first snide comment to you will likely hear from the police is that she must have run away with a man. Why such scant respect for women and children? All I can think of is that somewhere along the way men have become a species unto themselves. Women and children, it seems are relegated to being subsumed within this species. Society has also become male centric but if families and an integrated system of social cohabitation is to work effectively, our children and women must be protected at all costs.
Village upon village in Rajasthan and Haryana can be found with men in their forties who have not married because there are no women left to marry! Casting away women and children like commodities is an act of entitlement. Crimes against men are often violent, devious and testosterone driven. Crime against women and children is all of these and is also wanton. This rampant and sick idea that you can get away with doing almost anything when it comes to women and children can only be defeated if punishment for such excesses is in excess of any punishment meted out thus far. Someone needs to be made an example out of and very soon.
At some point, someone realizes that all this trauma could not have been caused by the child simply slipping in the bathroom. A search is mounted for the person who brought her to the hospital and leads to a 14 year old girl. Everyone concludes that the girl must either have been raped or must have delivered an unwanted child that she was now disposing off. The tale gets more sordid. The 14 year old turns out not to be the mother after all. She was handed the baby by one Rajkumar who by now is being called the 14 year old’s ‘live in boyfriend”. Rajkumar in turn, is known to have got the baby from one Laxmi who is in fact the woman who is supposed to have helped the child’s mother get married in the first place! It seems Rajkumar wanted to keep the baby but his wife wouldn’t let him. So he decided to hand her over to the 14 year old minor who he was sexually exploiting! The 14 year old girl turns out to be an abandoned child herself who was physically abused by her father and step mother after her own mother passed. She spent some time in an orphanage where it turns out sexual aggravation was rampant. It seems that on one fine day, for a period of about five hours, she tortured the little baby girl as she just could not deal with being a care giver anymore. In the meantime, Munni is traced to Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan where she is living the life of a married woman with her new husband Harpal who has no inkling that his paid for bride is from another community, previously married and a mother to three children! He bought himself a wife because most likely, in his village, girls are killed in the womb or right after being born and they are also killed if they dare to marry outside their community. As a result, villages and districts and entire states like Rajasthan and Haryana have a gender ratio so skewed that there are no longer women left for men to marry!. Brides are being bought from all parts of the country because, mother of all surprises - you can kill an unborn girl child but you still need a woman to produce sons!
In the meantime, little Falak, the helpless two year old has been on a ventilator for several weeks. The doctors keep draining out the fluid from her brain and lungs to ensure that she lives. They’ve spoken of how she may never be able to lead a normal life due to her injuries, provided, she survives in the first place. The entire nation is glued to her news. People are praying for her to get better. Prospective adopters keep growing in number by the day. Donations are being made regularly for the child’s treatment. People who would normally ask for perpetrators of such crimes to be hanged or killed or stoned, are unable to say so unequivocally in this case as everyone seems to be a victim. So what really happened here? This is a case of systemic rot and apathy that has gripped our society. There is no doubt that poverty lies at the heart of this cruel and sad turn of events. A family probably so poor that it couldn’t hold itself together. A mother made so helpless by her circumstances that she is forced to give up her children and start a new and ostensibly happy married life with a new husband, albeit built on a lie. A young girl so out of touch with hope and possibilities at such a young age that she pulverizes a two year old child but still brings her into the hospital perhaps because she knows she has done wrong or perhaps because she identifies with the victim as only a victim could. Maybe she was battered, raped and thrown away to fend for herself and no one came out to help her. Maybe she didn’t want the little girl to not have anyone to come out to help. In some twisted way, this was the 14 year olds subconscious way of redeeming herself.
So here is what happens. You kill girls in the womb because you consider them a disposable commodity on which you exercise entitlement. You let them be born and give them less to eat than your boys, send them to till your fields and never give them an education because they are a disposable commodity. When you get them married you are doing kanya dan or giving them as alms to a husband, because they are a commodity. When their in-laws burn them for not bringing enough dowry or being unable to bear a male child, they can do so because they are a disposable commodity. When you rape them you can do so because just like a commodity, it is your belief they can be used for your consumption. Being that rape is not so much about the sex but more about proving your hold via sex with a person who is vulnerable and cannot oppose you, you are in one shot making them marginal and using them as you would a consumable. When you run an orphanage and sexually exploit children as young as four and five, you are confirming that you are superior in the pecking order and that children carry no real value. When you pluck little babies from their mothers and scatter them along the way to whoever will take them, you are saying that their lives and emotional needs carry no real significance and their mother is so stupid that you can trick her into abandoning her children without ever holding anyone accountable. What is it that makes men and society in general so insensitive towards females and children? Should we all start subscribing to the theory that we are after all an animal species and when left untutored and free are capable of inflicting the worse kind of cruelty upon others? If we don’t subscribe to that view then what sort of society is this where there are no laws to safeguard our children who are the most vulnerable amongst us? We hit them and punish them and make them feel small in schools. When they go missing, our records show how abysmal the rate of recovery is. When women go missing, the first snide comment to you will likely hear from the police is that she must have run away with a man. Why such scant respect for women and children? All I can think of is that somewhere along the way men have become a species unto themselves. Women and children, it seems are relegated to being subsumed within this species. Society has also become male centric but if families and an integrated system of social cohabitation is to work effectively, our children and women must be protected at all costs.
Village upon village in Rajasthan and Haryana can be found with men in their forties who have not married because there are no women left to marry! Casting away women and children like commodities is an act of entitlement. Crimes against men are often violent, devious and testosterone driven. Crime against women and children is all of these and is also wanton. This rampant and sick idea that you can get away with doing almost anything when it comes to women and children can only be defeated if punishment for such excesses is in excess of any punishment meted out thus far. Someone needs to be made an example out of and very soon.
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