Gender discrimination runs in the blood

Male chauvinism expresses itself in many forms and subtleties. In educated societies it is subdued but not absent at all. Below that level it has its cruellest of expressions. How barbaric and horrifying it can be is often highlighted by stories pouring from different corners of the country into the media -print or electronic but mostly print. The other day a story was carried in a few newspapers accompanied with a picture. A cursory look would have given the mistaken impression that it would be one of the scenes from a Dhaliwood fictitious film. One reason was the red kameej the young woman in the picture was draped in.
A closer look and the screaming headline of the story though did not allow a moment to entertain that thought. For now it is clear that the woman has been tied to a tree for physical torture. She is supposed to be the wife of the man in picture, a member of the armed forces, who came home on leave. The young woman, still pursuing her higher study, claimed she was the wife of the man and accompanying her mother went there. But the serviceman and members of his family brought charges of theft against the mother and daughter.
Clearly, there is a story behind the story. Whatever it may be, is anyone vested with the power to mete out such a summary punishment to any one -let alone a girl continuing her higher studies? Gender inequality has been at work behind tying the girl with a tree. The sense that she is hardly a human being, a person who deserves respect and at least has the right to legal protection did not for once occur to the army person.
Denigration of women is so pervasive that the men in uniform are found to be insensitive to the matter. It is because the police chief of the country can speak so naively. He is on record saying that a group of four or five 'naughty boys' were harassing one or two girls in front of hundreds of people. What did those many hundreds did to stop the errant four or five? He seems rather to accuse the members of the public. He completely forgets that Liton Nandi, a Chhatra Union leader, had one of his arms broken in resisting the assaulters.
If this was not enough, then let the focus be directed on the members of the police who swooped on a frightened girl who hid behind a tree to escape police wrath who swung into action against protesters bringing out a procession to protest inaction against the Pahela Baishakh's culprits. One dragged her by the hair another thought it not at all demeaning to land a kick on her bottom. This is how the law enforcers' attitude towards women is smeared with disdain and a sense of inferiority.
If the protectors themselves display so much rashness and insensitivity, uneducated and unrefined men are likely to take cue from them for growing even more repressive. This exactly is happening. One of the few earliest horrific rape cases involved none but the men in uniform. Yasmin rape and murder case was the first such incident. It was followed by Seema rape and murder case. Society has now been struggling to grapple with random cases of rape and murder all across the country.
People in uniform have to be responsible in their utterances and behaviour. Politicians are giving no better an account of themselves. The result is that the country's moral parameter is dipping fast. There is no knowing where it will land the country. Alarming increase in sexual crimes in neighbouring India is certainly not helping the cause. Anything short of a social movement against such perversion will hardly be able to arrest this mental degradation. Law has failed because of its custodians' despicable attitude and also because of the absence of its application against the criminals in question.