Taking a stand

I came across this article on Facebook a little while ago. I don’t know how true the story is, but I suspect it is. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, and this was a good trigger. The article struck a nerve with me for a couple of reasons.

First, discrimination against women in India is a very serious, and real problem. Yes, rape, murder, “eve teasing”¹ and so on are serious issues too, but I think that discrimination is a much bigger problem. This sort of discrimination is already ingrained in many generations of Indian women. They don’t think it should work any differently. My grand mother is a great example. She is a moderately religious person. Her religion tells her that only men are allowed to perform certain pujas. Despite her caring a hell of a lot more about it than I do, she insists on me (or my father) doing them. When I tell her that she should just do it herself, she says that it’s only for men to do. There’s no reason for it, it’s just “that’s how it’s done”. It would be a travesty for more Indian women to grow up with this attitude. Things are changing, but they aren’t changing nearly fast enough.

This brings me to the second reason the article struck a nerve with me. Us Indians rarely, if ever, question things. In school, we’re told “Don’t talk back to the teacher”, “Don’t correct the teacher”, and so on. I’ve always held a lot of respect for most educators - they serve a crucial role in society and more importantly a few of them have had massive positive impacts on my life. When someone is wrong, and someone else is willing to correct them they should be happy and grateful, not pissed off. My professors at the University of Michigan never said things like this. In fact, they encouraged you to come talk to them, and suggest different ways of doing things. I think a direct consequence of this is the “adjust maadi”² way of life that we’re all so used to³. It’s so damn hard to not accept the shitty status quo and try to improve things. It’s so easy to just exist in the flawed system and play along.

Take something as simple as bribing traffic cops. There’s a signal near my house that goes from green to red in around 2 seconds. If you’re coming through at 40+ kmph, even if you see the signal turn and can react, it’s a bad idea to stop. There’s a good chance you’ll get hit by the person behind you. Of course, this leads to cops baiting you into a “signal skipping fine”. Forget for a moment the fact that there are hundreds of signals in the city that are widely accepted as “skippable”. What happens when this cop pulls you over, is that he threatens you with “should I file a case against your car”? Who knows what the hell that means? It sounds ominous, so you ask “is there another option”? Of course, he tells you to give him a bribe. If you pay him Rs. 100, you’re done in 2 minutes. If you insist on doing the right thing, you’re stuck there for 10 minutes while he gives you a receipt. He’ll harass you by asking for insurance, driver’s license, and a bunch of cockamamie bullshit that he really doesn’t care about. In bad cases, you may have to go to a police station or court to pay the fine later. It’s so much easier to just pay the bribe and move on.

This is why I’m not at all surprised by the fact that none of this young woman’s friends stood up for her. I probably wouldn’t have either. Going against the grain and standing up for what you believe in can only end badly. Nothing good ever comes of it. In a society where there is effectively no law, the bigger bully wins. I have no interest in becoming a bully. All I can really do is keep my head down and hope that I don’t catch the attention of a bully. Like the supposedly Japanese saying goes, the nail that sticks out gets hammered.

The situation desperately needs to change. Things have improved slightly over time, but like I said before, the change is nowhere near fast enough. Sadly, I have no idea how to fix it. I’m pretty sure that in the fight or flight scenario I’m the flight type of person. It’s not in my nature to stand and fight. Perhaps it’s time for me to change that a bit and take a stand on a couple of things that matter to me and deal with the fallout.