Minding the Mindset

The people who are feeling that Nirbhaya was insulted by the documentary must be actually feeling insulted for themselves and are reluctant to accept that such kind of mindset is not uncommon in our over-glorified country. This whole episode of outrage over the making of the documentary — even before watching it — itself proves that those, who want this documentary off the lime light are wrong, as it has clearly brought back the issue into the public debate actually. Can any one deny that?

There are two separate things that are being questioned now: one is the need to interview criminals behind bars, which has so much to do with the mindsets of people in our country - especially in cases like Nirabhaya - which has to be checked; and the second is on whether the documentary can effectively convey the message for the betterment of our society or not, for which one has to see it first.

Now, the only criticism that can be attributed to the media that has aired part of the interview or at least tried to do so yesterday, is the usual sensationalization that can be found in everyday news. It did piss me off when they were putting each ugly remark that the culprit had made as a headline one after the other. But, I think our anger against the media or the foreign film maker is either misplaced or is a sign of our insecurity, as a society.

What can one say, when our Union Home Minister, seconds after telling that he was hurt watching those comments made by the culprit, questions the need to make such a documentary that has compelled him to make a statement in the Rajya Sabha on the issue in one way or the other. Some of our honorable intellectual members of 'House of elders' also took the same route, with few acknowledging the need for change of mindset.

And for those, who say and believe that the documentary is defaming us as it is only one rapist's mindset that can't be generalized, the documentary also includes the interviews of culprit's lawyers, who are as defying as the culprit in saying that the victim should be on road at that time and that she should have pleaded him for mercy or whatever. And above all, we have our own parliamentarians and leaders, who make almost similar comments frequently. Do we need more proof than that?

The government has just acted like a traditional Indian family, which wants to keep the secrets inside, regardless of how worse the situation is for half of the people in it.

Anyway, as most of us will gradually start paying lesser and lesser attention to the issue, hell with it, lets just block and ban everything that tries to make us think, and lets live in ignorance…