Bengaluru molestation: This video of a woman being molested should make you look inwards

Jyoti Singh Pandey’s brutal rape and murder in 2012 had kept the anger and outrage in India boiling for more than a few months. But, when it comes to crimes against women — violent or otherwise, the anger tends to die down quickly. Even believers get tired of angry women — ‘calm down’, ‘stop reacting’, ‘just walk’, ‘ignore it’, ‘I know it happens, I am on your side but…’ they say. Tired of repeating themselves over and over — No! — to harassers, and — believe us, fight with us — to the society at large, women get silenced. Just a day after the Bengaluru molestation incident, another video has surfaced showing what life as a woman in India is like. According to a report on NDTV, the incident took place on 2.30 am on Sunday and was brought to the attention of the police by the residents of the house with the CCTV that recorded the incident. In the video, the woman can be seen getting out of an auto and being accosted by two men on a motorbike — they appear to have been waiting. One of the men runs to the woman, forcing himself on her and drags her to his friend. The woman is only let go quite violently after she resists and slaps the men. Take a moment to re-read that last sentence. If it doesn’t perturb you, then the problem lies with you. Not with the woman, not with what she was wearing, not with the perfume she had on, not with the type (and amount) of alcohol she may have been drinking or cigarettes she may have been smoking, not her political affiliation, not with her possible preference for The Beatles over Rabindra Sangeet and certainly not with her character, whatever that is supposed to mean. Take that to heart.