Dear India, We’ve Become a ‘No Country For Women’

Dear India,

This is harder than I thought! This letter is addressed to a woman named India, whose power of control over her territory, and power of persuasion over her children has diminished.

Firstly as a woman, I am angry that the rate of crime against women is rising dangerously. The incidents of rape against women, poor women, Dalit women, young girls, children have become unstoppable.

A woman’s freedom to choose her husband, freedom to have children, freedom to work and freedom to live her life have come under threat. We live in an age where some of us are silent on the issue of ‘marital rape’.

I know of an India which abolished child marriages and sati, but this India has suddenly become a stranger. Why is India even regarded as a woman when the women in India have been reduced to dust and nothingness. Post the Nirbhaya case, women turned out in lakhs and lakhs to see the ‘change’ and better times for themselves, but what do they get in turn? This is not the India, which had been promised long ago, with endless possibilities for women to strive, to seek and to conquer. Despite that, India is fast becoming a ‘no country for women’!

Dear India, do you remember those days of crazy love for you? When our hearts would beat for you while we sang the national anthem, or when Vande Mataram would bring tears of joy at the freedom we possessed? There was sincerity, passion and true love for you. We were willing to bury differences, age old discriminations, hurts and insults for the love of you India. But today, you are no longer a country for ‘change’.

The farmers commit suicide for having to bear drought and flood all in the same year or bear unbearable bank loans and credit sharks with a poor harvest.

Dear India, please bring back some hope.
Sithanthi Alfred