By Akhila Nagar:
The recent documentary on the December 16 rape case has created gasps and scowls. As if the rapist’s comments, calling for women to silently endure rape, weren’t enough, his lawyer could not resist making his own views supporting a highly patriarchal mindset, clear. This interview in the video below, however, takes it to a whole new level. When facts need to be twisted, Manohar Lal Sharma starts with the basics, claiming that it is nature itself that has made women weak. His basic argument rests on the fact that it is women who put themselves in dangerous circumstances and that it is their own responsibility to ensure that rape does not take place. What is shocking is that this statement comes from a lawyer, a person who (in this case wrongfully) took upon himself the mission of upholding the Constitution of the country, a Constitution that guarantees equality for every citizen.
The biggest problem with law and lawyers in the country today is that it is selective in who needs and deserves to be protected. It is due to lawyers like Manohar Lal Sharma that women cannot feel safe in their own city and country. Who says it’s only the uneducated that keep this country from progressing?
