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The ghastly rape and murder of a young lady doctor on duty recently in Kolkata continues to haunt many people in and around our country, including this author who is a doctor and also a father of a teenage girl. Enough and more has been discussed and postulated all around without making any tangible difference, at least not yet. The supreme court will look at it soon, we will have to wait and see what steps it takes. But that is likely to be in the realm of administrative justice, which will be hopefully swift and stringent.
One cannot help feeling despondent at the pathetic sequence of events. We are unable to offer a semblance of security to a good half of our large population. Specific knee-jerk reactions after such events will never be enough as there will be more such waiting to happen in other settings. We need systemic solutions which can gradually steer us in the right direction and enable lasting changes. It is in this context that a FRESH approach is being proposed here.
FRESH is an acronym that promotes educating and sensitizing our boys and men to give five things to our women unconditionally – Freedom, Respect, Equality, Safety and Hassle-free Justice. As discussed below, these are in many ways inter-dependent and synergistic.
Freedom
Allowing women to choose what is best for them is unfortunately a distant dream even in many of our metros, leave alone rural India. This freedom also empowers them to find better solutions to their own problems. Boys have to be taught from a young age that girls or women are not any different when it comes to choices or decisions. The default setting should become the same for our boys and girls unlike what exists today. Our current patriarchal mind-set surely has to change.
Respect
A willingness to consider the opinions, desires and actions of women without an inherent male bias is lacking in men even in our twenty-first century civilizations, more so in our part of the world. True respect of women is when are able to accept women as they are without pre-conditions and stand by their convictions without imposing ours on them. This respect for girls and women also has to be ingrained in men from a young age, preferably as boys, both at home and in schools.
Equality
Inequality between the sexes is there everywhere for everyone to see in today’s world. The more the equality, the better off we will be in the future. There will exist some essential differences based on the gender and physical capabilities but they need neither be emphasized nor ignored but quietly accepted where necessary. But the aim should be to promote equality wherever and whenever we can. Which can mean mentally injecting a dose of masculinity in women, and if one may say so, also a dose of femininity in men, without any of the sexes feeling awkward about it.
Safety
As civilized humans we need to learn to ensure safety of our fellow humans, more so for our women. Their safety should be unconditional without depending on factors like personal or family relationships, professional equations or social standings. Only when there is a blanket safety for everyone by default without the need to pull any strings can there be true progress. Safety mechanisms for women should be in-built in all new undertakings, small or big, as a rule with strong deterrents in place for those endangering others’ safety in work places. The infrastructure and protocols for women’s safety have to be worked out in detail and made a standard all over. Two ready suggestions would be to make new-generation wi-fi enabled CCTVs (not expensive now) omnipresent and make Aadhaar Card and biometric readers mandatory in as many places as possible.
Hassle-free Justice
All the above four aspects require a perceptible shift in the pattern of behavior of citizens, particularly men. There are bound to be difficulties in building them up and maintaining them to the desired levels. Hence a good hassle-free system ensuring justice is meted out to those misbehaving with women is extremely essential to police people into the right direction. Well publicized examples of appropriately quick and complete punishment to the perpetrators in proven cases of crimes against women will go a long way in acting as deterrents to others with similar mindsets.
These suggestions no doubt call for a change in our approach in how we treat women but it can be instilled in everyone’s minds if this FRESH approach is highlighted and publicized by various individuals and authorities at various levels. The big question is – Are we ready to think FRESH and give this Freedom, Respect, Equality, Safety and Hassle-free Justice to all women?
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint