The beef-banning soul of our country has fallen to certain lows, yet again, with a recent lapse in the law. After increasing the jail time for people found carrying beef, we went ahead and released two men, with just a warning, who certainly had all the makings of creeps-about-to-turn-into-rapists.
The two men, who allegedly filmed and photographed an Indigo airhostess, when she was bending to fix things, and a co-passenger who was breastfeeding her child, on an Indigo flight from Delhi to Guwahati on March 24, were detained by the police after a passenger complained about them and their offensive and possibly criminal behaviour.
They were arrested and we rejoiced. However, at that point we had no idea that the two men, Rajendra Milholia and Ashish Tripathi were both employed in the MP Revenue Department as inspectors. So of course, they were then let off with a warning by the Delhi police.
“We recorded the video for fun. There was no wrong intention and we deleted it when told,” the two men said in their statement recorded in the presence of their third companion, Bhind BJP MLA, Narendra Singh Kushwaha.
India law: 0. Women Empowerment: 0. Indian Misogyny: Well, honestly we’ve lost count.
Which man, from the ones who we know, will record a women breastfeeding her baby, for ‘fun’? The sick kind, right? The kind who will tomorrow go ahead and possibly molest a passenger on another flight just because, the first time around he got off with a mere warning. After being let off again he will possibly try his hand at rape, because Indian law is his biggest ally right? And if not him, then someone else will take cue from this incident and continue molesting women on their way to work, and ogling at the girl next door because the law clearly understands when you tell them that you did it all “for fun.”
Clearly the attitude here is: If the airhostess was wearing a skirt and then bending down, she was asking for it. The woman breastfeeding her baby, was asking for it too, because who exposes their breast in public?
We are no strangers to this attitude. This is what we tell all our rape, molestation and abuse victims too. We repackage the lines as per the crime, but we all clearly know that the person to blame here is the woman. Hell, we even managed to blame Anushka Sharma, a woman, for the Indian cricket team’s loss. This is a game which we clearly have mastered.
Rajendra Milholia, one of the accused, has his wife playing right into this game. “They are innocent. Their photographs have been flashed around airports as if they are criminals. There is not even a complaint, only unnecessary noise. They were excited to be flying to the North East and were taking pictures and videos. The passenger (Angellica Aribam) who took their photographs has in fact not even deleted their pictures, instead has gone ahead and uploaded them on the Internet. Is that not a crime?”she questions.
A society that yet again plays right into the hands of the Indian attitude of blaming the woman, and excusing the man, is also not new to us.
What will make us sit up and take notice is when the law nips such an attitude in the bud. When we put men like these behind bars and make an example out of them rather than letting them be the exception to the rule (because they did it for fun), allowing the to continue with their creepy, misogynist, cheap behaviour.
We are waiting for the score chart for women empowerment to change, aren’t you?
Image courtesy: BCCL
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