By The Editor: Siddharth Sehgal

We have a weird history of honoring and dishonoring women in our country, people who bow to Durga and Kali often wake up to news of rape and molestation. The recent stripping, molestation and parading of a Tanzanian student brings out the gawking element of racism in our society.

 It is important that our authorities sets an example by severely punishing the perpetrators of this heinous act but all our efforts to right the wrong will never balm the wound that woman got at the hands of that ravaging mob. Road rage doesn’t give an excuse to lay the hands on the modesty of a woman be it Indian or African. The recent turbulence in political circles over Rohit Vemula’s suicide is totally absent now. Why not leaders from all the parties join unanimously with Foreign Minister in expressing their outrage, I’d put a question mark on other BJP stalwarts and ministerial rank and file too? We are not defending our country’s name by remaining silent but it’s our obligation to speak out. We claim Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam to be one of the pillars of our moral code than why we don’t treat women of other countries as we treat women of our families. I know majority of Indians are angered at such atrocity but shouldn’t we start pruning the wolves among sheep so that any Dushasan may think twice before thinking of “vastraharan”.

 Now addressing the elephant in the room, discrimination is not something our society is unaware of. Being at the receiving end at the hands of our British rulers we passed on the favor to lower sections of our society. People became untouchable because of their work, last name, caste and god knows what other twisted set of criteria. Later on after independence we grew strong, our economy flourished and we were all set to go ahead on the road of progress but wait. Now as things started changing for good, people started moving from one place to another. Forget people from other states, we found among our ranks people from other countries too. There is something about human psyche that raises brows at anything that doesn’t look like normal. We didn’t always perceive positively to people of other races. All white people are English, everyone with a narrow eye is Chinese and all black people are Africans. To be honest, we keep our distance from the foreigners with dark skin. We pre-judge a person without even knowing him and outcome sometimes makes the headlines. At my hometown it was very difficult for African students to get a decent house, nobody would rent them a room, they were almost a social pariah. Government has to take measures that we extend the courtesy of Atithi Devo Bhava to all visitors to India, may be featuring an Incredible India ad with an African theme may be a good place to begin with.

 We were outraged at the mistreatment of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in United states, shouldn’t we extend same level of sympathy to that 21 year old Tanzanian student. Indian or African, diplomat or civilian, women should be treated with utmost dignity and respect. We give our country the status of mother, we call it “matrubhumi” (motherland) lets not shame that mother in front of the world.