Stop This “Braveheart” Nonsense: Give Rohtak Sisters All Awards But Not For Bravery

When the two sisters in the Rohtak (Haryana) bus were being attacked on Sunday, the obvious thing the bus driver and attendant should have done was to drive the bus to the nearest police station and hand over the molesters to law officers. There were several eye-witnesses, the assaulter/abusers as well as their victims were present in the same spot at the same time and it would have saved the girls the trauma of recounting their story to the police. The problem would then have been appropriately framed and shifted to the state authorities whose job it is to protect citizens. 

The Haryana government should have fired both the driver and his assistant as punishment (justice should be seen to be done) but more importantly as a confidence building signal that the state is not run by goons. 

Instead, we including in the media, have turned it into a road-show that will belt itself out on talk shows and outrage for a day (mindset must be changed, education must be included etc.) and then we will be back to business as usual. At the time of writing on Monday, there are news reports that the two sisters are tired of television interviews, 15 since the incident and many more have been slated. In addition to other questions, the sisters have also been asked by media if wearing jeans was more effective in self-defense compare to a sari. 

Once again, unable to deal with our reality we have called the two women brave hearts, like we did another young lady almost at the same time two years ago. The acts of protecting oneself from sexual assaults appear brave to societies that are steeped in cowardice and hypocrisy. Like cowards unable to face up to the situation that happens all around us every day – at home, in schools, in offices, in public places and transport – we assign names to them the crimes depending on the type of political correctness to associate ourselves with them 

Nirbhaya the fearless or the one who knows no fear sounds inspiring, doesn’t it? Nirbhaya who fought off six men or was it five as they pinned her down and inserted an iron rod into her vagina. Televisions cameras panned in on her mother’s face till she wept and waited when she couldn’t any longer. “How are you feeling” the grieving mother was asked in full view of the world. Fight unto death acquired new meaning – that was how cynical we were. There were petitions and laws and national debates and the inevitable candle-light marches. 

There was that other case of an infant who was found with bottles inside her vagina. Brave, too but there were no candles for this one because her body was found abandoned and we the creators of adjectives weren’t close enough to the incident. The Badaun sisters did not live to tell us what happened and now the less sinister but no less shameful Rohtak sisters will be hounded and feted till their true story becomes irrelevant. What will they face in their society where Khap Panchayats exist when the lights are switched off on them? Do we care?

There is nothing brave about a little girl who tells her parents she was felt up in school by the gym instructor. There is nothing brave about a woman who has to jump out of a running train or bus because co-passengers are harassing her. These are not acts of bravery. They are acts of desperation, of fear of survival of hope in a society too scared to converse with itself, too ashamed to find out the truth. 

It has been announced that the Rohtak sisters will get bravery awards on Republic Day 2015. That is doubly shameful, a further distancing of society from its own failure. Give them all the awards you want, but not bravery. That nomenclature is neither appropriate nor accurate. Brave people jump into death traps and fires to save others. They sacrifice their lives so others may live. 

Unless we believe that in India today going to school and traveling by bus is an act of bravery. If that is the case, our problems are far deeper than we think.