59. Rapes: An Unpalatable View

Rapes: An Unpalatable View

More than half a century ago when I was in the school, some of my class mates who either lived in  nearby  villages or because of distance, in a hostel, were married. The trademark was a shiny wrist watch. Sociologists agree that one of the reasons for child marriage in India is the lack of safety in the villages for young unmarried maidens, especially during the time of morning outings. Biologists say that man’s libido is at its peak at 18. In many gang rapes, the most violent acts have often been committed by a juvenile.

India is not like the western country where the sexual mores a little more liberal. Also there is  more free mixing of the sexes there than in India.

So is the Sharda Act the real villain? Do we have to do a rethink on the age of marriage which has now been increased?

In India the minimum legal age at marriage is 18(F)/21(M). Age of consent is 18. Statutory Rape is 15. The bill to reduce the age of consent to 16 has been vigorously opposed. Compared to India, the legal minimum age for marriage in Indonesia is 16/19, Iran 13/15, South Africa 12/14 and Turkey 14/15.  For  European countries, France 15/18, Germany 14/18, Russia 16/18, Spain 14. In the various states of US age of consent is 14 to 18 and age at marriage 16 to 18 years. In Australia the age of consent is 16, and age at marriage 18, although it can be reduced to 16 with one parent’s approval and a court order. In Britain age of consent is 16. No minimum age has been prescribed for marriage (female), and married couple allowed to have sex so long as female has reached puberty.

The average age of marriage in India and Pakistan where marriages are generally arranged by parents it 17 years, many brides are married as early as 15. My mother was married at 16, and so was my uncle’s daughter. Marriage for girls above 20 was looked at suspicion or was the result of loss of breadwinner in the family.

In spite of the marriage age fixed at 18/21 in India, how many parents or couples with ‘illegal’ marriages been actually prosecuted. News comes of mass marriages of one community or the other, sometimes even presided   over by political dignitaries, with charges of child marriages.

Looking to world figures, I think India has been a little hasty in pegging the age at marriage at 18/21. When The age of majority is 18, and voting age 16, are we justified in keeping  marriage age to be 18/21.

58.The Deluge in Uttarakhand

 THE DELUGE

My friend Rameshwar showed me this passage from Jim Corbett’s ‘The Pilgrim Road’ included in ‘The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag’. It is worthwhile quoting the para here:

‘Three days journey up the left bank of the Ganges and you  have reached the ancient capital of Garhwal, Shreenagar, an historic, religious, and trading centre  of considerable imporatance and of great beauty, nestling in a wide, open valley surrounded by high mountains. It was here, in the year 1805, that the forebears of the Garhwali soldiers who have fought so gallantly in two world wars made their last and unsuccessful stand against the Gurkha invaders, and it is a matter of great regret to the people of Garhwal that their ancient city of Sreenagar, together with the palaces of their kings, was swept away to the last stone, by the bursting of the Gohna Lake dam in 1894. This dam, caused by a landslide in the valley of the Birehi Ganga, a tributary of the Ganges, was 11,000’ wide at the base, 2000’ wide at the summit, and 900’ high, and when it burst, ten billion cubic feet of water were  released in the short space of six hours. So well was the bursting of the dam timed that, though the flood devastated the valley of the Ganges right down to Hardwar and swept away every bridge, only one family was lost, the members of which had returned to the danger-zone after having been forcibly removed from it.’

Were the Britishers more humane and better administrators than the Indians?

Not that the warning was not there. The Commandant of a Training Centre evacuated the entire School before it was washed away the next morning. Did he have some information that the District Administration did not have?  The  overflowing of Vasukital glacier lake hs an uncanny resemblance to the  bursting of the Gohna Lake dam. June 15 was enough of a warning before the real disaster in the morning of June 16. True, the weatherman’s warning often becomes a routine, but it was there. But it is easy to have a hindsight. 

#56. When You Grow Old

Snippets from a Senior Citizen’s Life

I have a suit length which was gifted to me in a marriage. For a couple of years I have been thinking of getting it stitched. At the onset of winter this year, I asked my wife for the piece so that I could go to the tailor. She hemmed and hawed, and the net result was that I was deprived of a new suit this winter also.

Then the other day, one of my friends from another town turned up, and over a drink he told me  a funny story. His father-in-law died sometime back. A few months before his death he had got a few clothes stitched. Maybe some shirts, trousers, pyjamas. After his death when my friend’s wife saw those almost new clothes her mother exclaimed, ‘I had told him what was the point of getting more clothes now when he could pop off any day!’ I got suspicious, and asked my wife who was nearby whether that was why she did not give me the piece. Her prompt reply was that I already had too many from before , so much so that there is hardly any place left in the cupboard to keep another suit. Then Gwalior has such short winter. I hope she was being truthful.

I remember one of my colleagues whose dress sense I had always appreciated. The other day I met him in the Gymkhana. He was wearing an expensive kosa silk bushshirt. It had seen better days, and true to the nature of old clothes, the fabric had ad gone smooth and shiny, losing the typical rough kosa texture.

Should we really stop going for new clothes when you grow old?

#55. WAMAN and poor Bali

Waman and poor Bali

Everyday when I open the newspaper with trpidation that there would be news about

 increase of price of some or other commodity. And most of the days my fear

is justified. I thought I would record such news from 9 January onwards.

In the week preceding that, PM hinted at further increase in the prices of

petroleum products, and support price of foodgrains was increased.

 In the last week of December 2012, when I sent my gun licence for renewal,

I found that the State Govt. have levied processing fees of Rs. 500 for 12 bore,

Rs. 2000 for rifles and Rs. 5000 for pistol/revolver. Somebody pointed out that a person

will have  to shell out as licence fee for a pistol or revolver during his lifetime more than

the purchase price. The basic licence fee is between Rs. 50 to Rs. 150. 

this steep hike was challenged in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, and whereas one

bench set aside the order of the government, the other upheld it. So the matter

stands as it is.

Thursday 10.1.2013

Petroleum Ministry is going to submit proposal to the cabinet that the diesel

prices be increased by one rupee per month till the loss is covered..(This was

later confirmed by the cabinet, and the price would be increased by 40 to 50

paise per month).

Friday, 11.1.2013

Jeewaji Unjversity Gwalior has increased the college and course affiliation

fees by 2 to 4 times. Ths will obviously reflect in the fees charged by the affiliated

colleges from the students.

Wednesday, 16.1.2013

1. Petrol prices increase by 40 to 50  paise per litre in some parts of the country.
2. Maruti Suzuki increase the price of their cars by about Rs. 20,000 across the board.

Thursday 17.1.2013

1. Metro prices expected to go up in Delhi.
2. Non-subsidised LPG cylinder price to go up by Rs. 47 to Rs. 1096.

Friday, 25.1.2013

Oil Ministry has proposed to the government that domestic gas prices be nearly doubled. This would push the price of gas-fired power by about Rs. 1.50 to 2 per of unit. Public transport

would also become more expensive due to cascading effect    on CNG/PNG prices.

Sunday, 27.1.2013

1. Onion prices all over the country increase by Rs. 5 to 10 per kg.
2. Rajdhani, Doranto and Shatabdi train fares to increase by about Rs. 15 to 20

because of increase in catering charges.

A couple of points:

1. Most of the price increases have been in the petroleum products which unfortunately have a cascading effect.

2. One has serious doubts about the costing principles which require so frequent changes in the prices. Do the companies add some costs (e.g. fixed costs# which they normally should not, or at least their weightage should be much less?

3. The tendency of the said companies to effect such price increases have emboldened several other agencies to increase prices which otherwise they would have hesitated, or at least postponed, or phased/spread over a period.

#54.Of Urdu, Sanskrit and Indian Classical Music

Urdu they say is a dying language, at least in India. Very few people write in it, and the spoken Urdu is so similar to Hindi or Hindustani that it is difficult to maintain its separate  identity. Recent;y Justice Markandeya Katju (Retired) known for his caustic comments came out with a statement in a TV programme that every student should learn Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit upto Class VII. In principle it looks fine, but you cannot escape adding English to the list, and you burden the young mind with four languages, all belonging to Indo-European group of languages (Hope it is correct for Urdu as well). That is worrying as the students are already overloaded. They study science, bio-sciences, mathematics and geography, history, and social studies  are a must- so how do we go about it? One solution could be to include Urdu in Devnagri and not Arabic script, with difficult Urdu words which are taken from Arabic and Persian explained in simple Hindi. This is not uncommon. Most of the Urdu Shairi printed in Devnagri script follow this. And many Urdu novels too. Sometime back I read Qurraatul-ain-Hyder's Kagazi Pairhan in Devnagri script where meaning of difficult Urdu words were given in simple Hindi as footnotes, and throughly enjoyed it. Then I purchased Aag ka Darya hoping to repeat the experience, but was sorely disappointed. The translator had changed the language to Hindi, and that was murder of the book. I heard a cynical view that the only reason why Firaq is not accepted as the greatest Urdu poet after Ghalib was his religion. I frankly don't know how to react to that. I have not read Urdu literature so deeply. But all said and done, the only way Urdu can survive in this country is by bringing some fundamental changes in the teaching of Urdu. And that brings me to the need for retaining the softness of Urdu. Softening the letters as in zang and Khoon instead of jang (which would change the meaning of the word) and khoon (with no softening of kh) is the real flavour  of the language which is absent in Sanskrit. We have adopted the pronunciation of toilet and pen in its originality in Hindi so why not the soft letters of Urdu? Of course it would make it a little more difficult for the  students, but if an Englishman can adopt the softness of French with a lot of nasal accents so why can't we do it for Urdu?

Something about the teaching of Sanskrit which I have felt so strongly. Have you  ever learnt by heart the conjugation of some word, like go-went-gone, and do-did-done? So why force the student to learn the roops of some word? Natural reading would instil the correct  usage of roop  and not mechanical mugging which has made Sanskrit the most hated subject in the school syllabus. The second drawback  is the weakness   of Sanskrit teachers for joint words (sanyuktakshar).
I feel that where possible, joint words should be broken down instead to make it simpler for everybody. I remember about a postman coming to famous Bengali novelist Sharat Chandra and asking him whether he knew somebody by the name of Machchhar Chadra. Sharaat Chandra asked to show him the envelope, and after seeing it said thoroughly embarrassed that it belonged to him. The sender had used the sanyuktashar for the three words: Shrimat Sharad Chandra! 

Speaking of classical vocal and  instrumental music of India may be a little out of place here. But if our masters  concentrate more on gayaki instead of the grammar, probably more people would be attracted to it. You learn the grammar of music to  make your gayaki better, so why in concerts we should hear for a long time the grammar followed by a short spell of the real gayaki? I know that I am venturing into a heresy but that is how I always felt.

#53. To Name or Not to Name

'Agle janam mohe bitiya na kije'. This is  how Ameeran (Umrao Jan) felt when she went to her village after maybe two decades. The recent molestation of a young girl followed by merciless and brutal beating which brought spontaneous rage and reaction 
from the public  brought the government to a standstill. One can now imagine how the French Revolution or the recent 1942 movement in India happened.
However, a very silly topic has drawn passions. One Minister twitted that her name be made  public now, and everybody had something to say. I say, why not. What is the harm? With or without the parents consent. And the     parents have already stated that they would not mind if the new  Act (or amendment) is named after her. Although  it was quickly followed by the Home Ministry saying that any government Act cannot be named after somebody. Well, only partly true. Nobody remembers the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 by that name. Everybody calls it the Sharda Act after Rai Bahadur Harbilas Sarda who initiated the bill. Similarly the Supreme Court Directives on the Sexual Harassment  of Women in Workplace  is better known as Vishakha case after the organisation which took the case to the Apex court. Now whether any amendment or addition to the IPC or CrPC can be named after the Braveheart is hardly a moot point.