Who's Responsible!

High incidence of crime against women has put the state of Haryana spotlight for the wrong reasons. 10 cases of rapes reported within the month of September has brought out the pathetic state of women in Haryana, which has already earned a negative reputation as the state with highest skewed sex ratio in the country.  DGP Haryana has remarked on the recent events that parents should keep a tab on their boys’ activities. I could almost hear collective gasps going up the air…how irresponsible…downrightly absurd…what can you expect of these good-for-nothing-policewallas! But before we vie for the poor chap’s scalp, what he is saying is not entirely untrue or irrelevant. I often wonder what could be the parent’s stance when their kids commit such a crime. Or are parents even aware about the lesser crimes their boys must be committing around like eve teasing, ragging, or causing deliberate inconvenience to their female counterparts in colleges or offices. We (as is customary in our society) play very alert parents when it comes to girls. Alas, in case of sons, our patriarchal sensibilities take over. More often than not the elders may be, well, shaping their boys’ insensitive and dominating behaviour by:

• Not paying due respect to the women in the family and in public places in front of their kids. 
• Showing that aggression towards women and not agreeing in general to their views is a mark of a man.
• talking in loosely north indian style!
• Not bothering about the whereabouts of grown-up boys (jawan bete se kya puchhein!).
• Showering them unnecessarily with  unearned, undeserved expensive gifts and money.

 You never know when your casual macho behaviour may be taken too seriously by your boys and leads them to take extreme steps in future. Making little genuine changes in our conduct and being a little more careful in front of our kids’ can go a long ways is giving right direction to our kids’ sensibilities. What you fancy, raising our children in way that we are proud of or end up doing rounds of police stations or courts trying rescuing them!