With 356 million people in the age group 10-24 year, India has the world’s largest youth population. This mean we’ve the responsibility of handling the world’s largest population of the most tender age group. But the present scenario is a tight slap on our face, as the rate of juvenile criminal cases has shown a steep rise in past one decade, our laws define a juvenile as any child belonging to less than 18 year age group. But question is, is age the only relevant criterion to decide any youth as ‘juvenile’? I would out rightly reject this notion. Juvenility is related the ‘maturity’ and in today’s ‘advanced’ world even a 14 year child is mature enough. So in my view, the recent Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha which lowers the juvenile age from 18 to 16 year is totally justified.
Today, hearing and reading about incident like juveniles involved in robbery, rape, murder, cybercrime, drug abuse, terrorism etc. has become a daily chore. Millions of youths are destroying their lives & careers for some transient funs. A study revealed that in last one decade the rate of juveniles involved in heinous crimes has shot up from 1.77 incidents per lakh in 2004 to 2.58 by 2013. There is a 143% spurt in rapes by juveniles. This is an alarming data reflecting the grave crisis among youths of our country. But what are the reasons that these innocent children of our country have lost their paths and indulge in Crimes? Drugs, alcohol, exposure to adult world though internet and TV etc. Are not the sole culprits. These are the secondary reasons and in fact the primary reasons according to my criteriosation are lack of proper guidance increasing competition and academic pressure. Commercialisation of school, the lust for money and power in today’s world etc. Today parents have stopped spending quality time with their children. There is no proper check on the daily routines, their friend circle, values and morals of society are fading away day by day. The society needs to be restructured. The juveniles need to be guided thoroughly. Only then, this brigade of youths would be tomorrow’s assets. - Shreya Shandilya
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India- the land of believers and the believed; the land of mysticism and mystery and the land of some of the most remarkable ironies human society has to exhibit. This land of the faithful has a noteworthy section of people (mostly from the majority Hindu population) devoted to the idea of the divine they have named-the Goddess and even amongst those who do not ‘worship’ this divinity, there is a considerable veneration for the feminine. The Indian culture, in general, talks about a respected position for the womenfolk, elevating them to the position of divinities, but the same culture in practice shows a different picture for the real life goddesses of India. We come across reports of violence against women almost regularly, be it at their own homes or outside, some of them heinous enough to mobilise entire cities and towns to demand justice for the victim and punishment for the culprit; but how many times have we actually paused to contemplate the real reason behind people acting in such vicious manner? Mostly we satisfy ourselves with the information regarding the crime committed and focus our energies to either criticising the event or if we are a tad more active, we engage in mobilising popular support in seeking justice; but seldom do we attempt to unearth the cause of such behaviour. In one opinion, the reason is embedded deep in our culture itself. The culture that seeks to deify women has at the same time laid down stringent norms to cripple the very females in their freedoms, their capacities and their lives. This stringency stems from the ancient conflict for assertion and the idea to regulate the role of women, to control births and hence, their sexuality and confine them to the households while men or rather, the masculine assert their utility and position. But this stringency does not work merely through the establishment of such norms but through their active enforcement over time by using a variety of sanctions and punishments for compliance or otherwise. Acute socialisation that commands the compliance from even the suppressed sections has been well employed for centuries and even millennia to control, if not directly suppress the females. Violence against women has erupted mostly when they have raised their voice against the unjust nature of the norms that govern their lives and when they have tried to live on terms which the mainstream patriarchal society viewed as a threat to their structure. Such acts of ‘assumed defiance’ need not necessarily be ones of revolutionary nature but acts as trivial as wearing clothes that are termed ‘culturally unsuitable’, although calling something culturally unsuitable demands deliberation on the very basic tenets of the culture and the diameters it draws for whichever purposes. The violence against women has proved itself to be persistent enough to withstand the forces of modernisation and education. Generally it would occur to us that with the growth of literacy rates in our country and the spread of a modern outlook across all sections, such savagery should experience a downward trend. But the misfortune is that many a time, highly educated individuals engage in such heinous acts which render their entire education worthless and on being confronted with the cause; they shift the blame to societal norms. But what they, we and most interrogators fail to understand in this situation are two dual aspects of the same condition-firstly, we form the society and it’s flaws are our creation and secondly, the resolution to such a deeply rooted evil lies only in the spreading of the ideas of equality of the two genders and making people aware of the daftness of many of the differences upon which the patriarchal norms are established; not mere literacy. In an environment where males realise the importance and value of the females around them, be it at home or outside, will the real goddesses of India recover from their condemnable situation. - Suvayu Sengupta ([email protected]) Caste, not an unknown thing in India, is a highly influential factor in the society. It touches all aspects, be it education, economy, politics, religion or marriage. It is based on the Varna system that every person is assigned some duties by birth and it is mandatory to perform those duties. Modern day “dalits” are the lowest in this hierarchical Varna system. In the contemporary time, it is often said, that caste is not relevant and modern generations are not fond of talking about caste. But what happens when affirmative action comes into picture? This so called modern generation is the staunchest critic of such policies. Society is, even today, not ready to give dalits their dues. State policies are being criticized on the basis of “desert” or deserving criterion. People argue that upper castes are not getting jobs and admissions in state institutions. But why don’t they think of social justice? Social justice is not about snatching all six apples which one has but its more about giving three apples to those who do not have one. If the past was pathetic then how can present be good for survival and future be secured? Social backwardness and economic backwardness are parallel to each other. It’s a rigorous fact that one can change her class but not caste. People, who often say that they do not believe in maintaining caste system, are the ones who practice it by rejecting affirmative action. Here, one thing must be understood that the social being of a person is already determined by caste system. People cannot do anything about it, but what they can do is to understand the notion of social justice positively. Caste is a stamp over your head that you are a dalit and you cannot get rid of it, whether you are at the highest authority or a rickshaw puller. Caste is never abolished, it starts from your birth but does not end with the death. It is there forever. -Aakansha Rani ([email protected]) The air was blowing hot, slapping me across my body, sweat dripping down my neck making its way towards the valley between my breast, making me feel uneasy with the growing urge to reach the comfort of my home faster and change into a pair of fresh clothes. I knocked the door. The ringing of automatic locks opening, echoed in my ear louder than ever. I entered the house, the bag still on my back and my hair still in the messy bun that I made, feeling prickly in the sun with my voluminous hair.
I turned the knob on the door of my room only to be encountered with immense darkness. A sobbing voice caught my ears. In dysphoria I turned on the lights and was caught by the sight of my three year old sister sitting on the floor in one corner of the room beside the bed. All the uneasiness that, I had before entering this room vanished to some known place. All my attention now shifted to my little doll. I ran towards her, sitting cross legged, I sat in front of her. I took out my hanky from the pocket of my kurta and offered her. She was hesitant, she shook her head signalling a “no”. I asked her “why”? Her small little reply shook me from my core. She said “main aap ka rumaal nahi lungi, warna mai kali ho jaungi.” Dropping the white handkerchief there I stood up and went towards the vanity of my elder sister. Looking at my face in the mirror, I saw two black eyes, one pointed nose and maroon lips all surrounded by my wheatish brown skin. - Chand Mahal Ruby ([email protected]) As far the definition goes, honour killings are the act of vengeance, usually death, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonour upon the family. It is the homicide of a member of family by its other member.
But is this problem only limited to the content of its definition or do we need to look beyond? Well, in my view, it would be immensely unjust to term it merely as a ‘homicide’. In fact, it is like a social illness, a contagious stigma for our society, engulfing innocent lives on baseless and meaningless grounds. What defines ‘honour’? These are the unsearched questions lingering in our society. But ironically, the ineffective answers of these questions prevail in our society. Love marriage or mere falling in love with someone outside your caste, community or religion still means shame for most families. Widow remarriage, homosexuality, being a rape victim, girls pursuing higher education, dressing according to one’s choice, refusing to celibacy are seen as a ‘threat’ in our so called well-mannered and respected society, and honour killing its ultimate solution. In recent years, even after the spread of education to remotest parts of our country these orthodox beliefs exist. What adds to this awful surprise of mine is that even many of the educated ones entertain such irrational practices. The plight of honour killing is not just contained within the states of Haryana and Punjab but spreads to every corner of the country. The fact is that thousands of honour killing cases either go unreported, burnt, buried alive, love pairs beaten up to death, rape victims feared to discard the society or even killed by the society or just massacred by any other means. Does marrying beyond your caste and class lines or even being homosexual or widow remarriage really mean that you are bringing shame your family and community? Are the people doing so a stigma for the society? Well, no, not at all! This simply means that you are enjoying your birth rights- your freedom. This means that someone has tried to think above the orthodox irrational beliefs and these people need to be honoured, not killed. Just because someone has tried to be bold enough to defy the irrational principles and laws of the society doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong. These are the people who have tried to set the laws of morality disregarding the so-called ‘society’ laws. The issue of honour killing needs to be solved urgently. Killing people because of such adamant beliefs is an insensible act. The society needs to examine its laws and principles and change it for the better. The perspective towards class, caste, religion and community needs to be changed. We, on our personal approach, need to introspect. A place where brothers and father brutally murder their sisters and daughters is not an honourable but a ‘shameful’ society. There is no honour in honour killing! - Shreya Shandilya |
AuthorAditya Nayak Archives
February 2017
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