No. I am sorry if this offends you, but I will not celebrate.
I will not celebrate the punishment that the convicts of the Nirbhaya Case have received. I will not jump for joy, or feel at peace. Yes, justice has been served. Yes, the people who had lost their loved one have been done right with. Yes, many many people who could relate to the pain have felt the calm of closure. I am truly sorry for dampening the emotions that most of you must be feeling right now, but I am not happy.
I am a woman, and it is needless to say that I live in constant fear of being sexually abused. This could be in any form: physically, mentally, verbally, mildly or severely. Now, this is not to say, that men don’t face such situations. They do. We just don’t like to talk about it much, as a society. But that isn’t the point I have to make here. My point is, that I will not celebrate.
Such an unimaginably brutal crime, a crime against humanity, such a long wait, and finally the delivery of justice. I am not happy about it. Not because I did not want justice to be delivered, no. Not because I am above anger towards such crime, or because I am above the desire for revenge. Not because I did not shed tears when the incident took place, imagining the pain, the terror, the shame. Not because I felt like that crime had been committed against me, personally. Not because I feel the same vicarious pain every time I hear of another such case. Not because when a woman is raped and burnt alive, I do not feel my soul wither and die. No.
I am not happy and I will not celebrate because this will not undo what has been done. This will not change the thought pattern that people who commit such crimes have. I will not jump for joy because, for me, justice is not enough.
I will smile when, let alone a year, even a month goes by without a single woman being touched inappropriately. When no rape cases are recorded. When those cases of abuse, often child abuse, which are not even reported because more-often-than-not, a family member inflicts the pain, don’t happen. When office spaces are safe, when schools are safe, when the streets are safe.
The question however is, but how? Is justice, after the crime as already been committed, enough? Or is there something else that we are missing? Is the problem somewhere else that needs to be treated in a different way. Has fear ever been able to stop people from doing wrong?
Psych 101: Punishment isn’t the best way to change behaviour. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-punishment-2795413
I am not here to give any answers, at least not for now. I am here to ask questions. I am here to ask you, what is it that can be done to change the scenario, change how people think, change the social structure in a positive way? Let’s think about it, and let’s aim for a preventive social structure.
Because I am definitely not happy.
Alisha Phillips, the combination of psychology and writing. There are those who are appealing on the outside and then there are those who are appealing on the inside, she happens to be the latter. Don’t let her devil-may-care giggles fool you. She’s a cosmos of thoughts. An ocean of emotions and a novel of intellect.