Citizen's Social Responsibility

We need to intervene any time there is a rape, and not rest till there is swift punishment for rapists

- Anuja Chauhan

I love purple and yellow. That very particular shade of vivid purple, which is the perfect background for gaily scattered rosebuds of a happy, sunshiny yellow. It is a print I have seen often on those gaily swirling boho skirts—the Banjara-inspired ones, which sell for vulgar sums of money in high-end fashion boutiques. Or, on the inner lining of kitschy leather totes and iPad cases so beloved to college-going girls. “Bahut yooneek combination hai, ji,” gush the fabric sellers at Nehru Place and Lajpath Nagar, whenever I linger over a bale of it. “Ekdum differaint! If you ware it, everybody will notice! Sabko yaad rahega!”

They were quite right. In the last week, that bright purple-n-sunshiny-yellow print trended across India, even the world, and everybody noticed. It featured in the headlines of national newspapers, on social media updates, on candlelight-illuminated placards, and in the nightmares of every Indian who still has a shred of decency left. The eight-year-old girl, who suffered horribly and died in her prettily printed purple-and-yellow salwar kameez, is in a better place, one hopes.

But, where are we? As a nation and as a society? Why does this keep happening to us? Young girls and children raped, tortured, dumped and dead? Their rapists roaming free, grinning and smug and unrepentant, or chastised only half-heartedly? How could this happen again, six years after we thought we had hit the nadir with the horrific gang rape of Nirbhaya in Delhi? How could our nation throw up something even more monstrous, so soon after we swore to ‘Remember, Remember, the 16th of December’ for the rest of our days?