Wednesday, January 2, 2013

#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.

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