Warning : Explicit Content
“Women”—this word doesn’t just signify a gender, but it also signify sufferings, harassment, etc. which has been happening to them for ages. The society has reserved certain roles and behaviours for them. These include cooking food, taking care of children, remaining illiterate and unemployed, following commands of husband/ boyfriend/ father/ brother, etc., keeping the house clean, eating after men, wearing full-length clothes, etc. Whenever a woman does something out of this ‘zone‘, she is called a slut, whore, r@nd!, characterless and what not!
The same thing happened with a PhD scholar at Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) University, Safoora Zargar. She was arrested three weeks age, and she is three-months pregnant. She has been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)—why? For protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Wow! In ‘New India’, people get arrested for exercising their fundamental right of speech and expression!
Now, some people would say: she is a terrorist, why shouldn’t she get arrested? To them, my answer is, first of all, whether or not she is a terrorist would be decided by the court. We cannot decide who did what. And, there is a rule that a person must be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Until then, they are considered innocent. But, if you are blinded by bigotry and hatred, you will not pay attention to these rules also.
Right now she is just an accused. In our criminal justice system, there is a rule “Bail not Jail”. That means jail is an exceptional case. The fact of a woman’s pregnancy and the COVID-19 pandemic, and that too when there is a lockdown, did not satisfy the authorities to provide her bail!
What was the need to charge anti-CAA protestors under UAPA? Even if, for a second, we accept that was “necessary” and their acts were harmful to the “Integrity and Sovereignty of India”, why was it not applied to BJP leader Kapil Mishra, who gave provocative speech in Delhi and posted hateful tweets? Why was it not applied to the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur, who said “Desh ke Gaddaron ko” and the crowd completed the sentence by saying “Goli Maaron Saalon ko”? Why was it not applied to the crowds who chanted similar slogans? Why is the police being selective? Why, on the face of it, it looks like a targeted harassment of just one religion?
The worst part is, there has been a targeted harassment against Safoora Zargar. #SafooraZargar is one of the worst hashtags I have ever seen. The tweets are just disgusting. I cannot describe it in words because there is no word in dictionary which will give us an idea about their mentality. It would be better if you will see it yourself:
The last one is casteist as well!
Is there anything cheaper and dirtier than this? They have crossed all the limits.
SHE IS MARRIED. But, does it even matter if she is married or unmarried? Why can’t a girl carry a child outside marriage? Is there any law which says that she can’t do it? Then, why are people bothered about her personal life?
Some even went to the extent of saying that if she was pregnant, why was she taking part in protests? If she can take part in protests, why can’t live in a jail in her pregnancy? People who asked this are the weakest people on earth. They are beyond repair.
Why do women always need to prove that they are right? We all know what happened in Ramayana with Goddess Sita. We all know what people of Ayodhya did. This proves, it’s not about the dress or her behaviour. It’s about their mentality towards women. Sita didn’t wear short clothes, consumed liquor, took part in protests or raised questions to a political party, then why did she go through all that?
Ironically, those who are harassing Safoora are the boys who really sympathize with Sita. What’s the difference between these boys and those people of Ayodhya?
But, a boy in a random video was successful in bringing whataboutery in this argument also. He said “Nobody says anything to women. Sure, the guys should be whatever… Try be more like Sita, cover yourself a bit, and don’t dress like a ho (a prostitute) and maybe you won’t be treated like a ho.”
https://twitter.com/ar_yalone/status/1257412393761677317?s=21
After watching that video, seriously, my thoughts were, “Ooo Bhai, maaro mujhe maaro!”
This was happening at the same time when #BoisLockerRoom was also trending. And, most of the boys who trolled Safoora are also the boys who wrote “not all men”, “But girls also do this”, “Fake Cases”, etc. in response to #BoisLockerRoom.
Why do they bring up these issues only when girls start a movement—why not before or independent of it? This whataboutery only shows that they just want to suppress women’s movement, distract others and cover up/justify their disgusting acts. Problems exist, but is it the right way to bring it up? Bring it independently, and I believe every girl will be happy to support boys.
Also, most of the boys who trolled Safoora were affiliated to one political party and one ideology. This can’t be a coincidence. This shows there is something really wrong with their institutional upbringing, and somewhere or the other, they are encouraged by the leaders of that party as well because a lot of them follow most of these abusive handles. I don’t want to name names because it is pretty obvious, which person, which party and which ideology.
Basically, in Safoora’s case, two lethal things— rape culture and bigotry combined together to form a lethal combination.
Featured image credits: Impulsive Info.