Unsafe.

Yes, unsafe, not by crime but by the justification.

Everyone seemed a little sad and disturbed (and no not shocked, it doesn't come as a shock at all) that India is ranked among the worst countries for women. A "little" sad and disturbed, cos it is as bad as it is, we  always knew, but by the regular Indian logic of things, we just hoped that there were a few countries that were a little worse so we wouldn't be "ranked" so high. Just like everything in India, how good or how bad you personally are doesn't count. All that counts is relativity. Even if we are pathetic, as long as there are people who are more pathetic than us, we are all happy. 

Ok. ok. Coming back to the topic of women. So India is a terrible and most unsafe place for women.Why? Aren't women raped and molested anywhere else? Aren't they attacked and their physical weakness preyed upon? Oh yes, they most definitely are. It is a phenomenon that exists all over the world. There are totally sick, crazy, deranged people all over the globe. They are incapable of thinking beyond the ecstasy of that particular moment. They are incapable of evaluating the consequences for everyone involved, and, they are completely incapable of feeling any kind of fear of the punishments associated with the crime (give due importance to the word "crime") when they are completely taken over by the power and excitement of that moment. They are just simply sick and deranged and criminals. Yes, admittedly these sickos exist everywhere. 

So what makes India so special? No, I'm not going into the high numbers and statistics, because even that is associated with this particular specialty. Cos India's specialty is that, rape and molestation is ALWAYS justified. In other words, it is NOT a crime enough.The people who do it are not momentarily deranged or sick. No. They are very intelligent, very decent citizens who commit these acts in an attempt to protect the morality and dignity of women and the values of a country as a whole. It is not a crime, no. In fact, it is the justified punishment for a crime that the women have actually committed by following a certain lifestyle or wearing a certain kind of dress. And if the "victim" (I'm not even sure if I can use that word considering they are actually being punished for their crime) happens to be a very "decently" and modestly dressed hapless lady, returning on the metro from her college or work or even a school student, then her crime is as simple as being out alone at certain hours in a slightly lonely compartment.

And the rest of us are all the same as the rapists themselves? Cos, those who give and the rest of us who buy this explanation are not only agreeing that it is okay to rape and molest a woman who is unfortunate enough to have to earn her living as a sex worker, but have made our conscience so non existent, that once we have convinced ourselves that the woman is "bad", then we can just as easily convince ourselves that the rape was justified and that "she asked for it". Nice. 

And yes, with that philosophy that it's okay to rape a "bad woman", in this great land, rape is , hence, justified.

Not just by the perpetrators, but even by the so called defenders like the police, the politicians and certain rather powerful ladies, like the chief of the National Commission of Women (I'm sure you all can sense the slight irony there somewhere). Yes. In India it is always the woman's fault. Hence, not only will you be raped and molested (Like what can happen outside India as well), but to top it, it will always be your fault for bringing it on to yourself. 

Hence, where, in any other place, rape is a heinous punishable act, no matter who gets raped, in our country, where we bow our heads to strong female deities, it is ok to punish "loose" women by raping them and the "not so loose" women for just being where they were. In other words, it is a totally justified act, no matter who gets raped.

I am not one for publicly bashing my country. In fact, through all the ups and downs that this nation has seen I have maintained and always will maintain that we have only gone ahead and gotten better from where we were a few years back and slowly all possible loose ends will more or less get tied, despite all the politicians and corruption. But this, not the fact that the crime exists in a certain statistics, more than other countries, but that one of the most heinous crimes in the universe can be so simply justified away by the law makers themselves, this makes me hang my head in shame in front of the rest of the world. Yes. We have failed. And how.