One more rape does not matter to our Indian conscience, pysche and sensibility, even if that happens in the capital city of New Delhi, with mute and passive bystanders bearing a silent witness. Silence tells it all, bespeaks of a society unable to stand up against brutish and bestial acts. So what happens? It becomes a news item, with much bravado the media highlights it, and the family of the victim suffers to no end.

Delhi is (in) famous for such stoic and reprensible silence. In the early eighties a college student from one of the leading Girls Colleges of Delhi was sexually assaulted in front of passengers in a bus. No one said anything, and the lady had to run out and cry for help, either in the college or somewhere else. History has repeated itself in a shade worse manner with the victim in a critical condition, even as I write this. Last week in Bangalore a women was affronted with the worst kind of lewd sexual gestures. Early this year a young woman in Guwahati, was assaulted sexually by a group of men. Most of them have been sentenced to imprisonment, but how does it help, how does it improve the sexist behaviour of such predators. Delhi is known for such crimes, leading newspapers bring out advertisements by the Police Department, cautioning them if they feel that they are stalked, and women generally feel unsafe in this city.

But why does the public remain silent? What is it that holds back the egos of males, is it that they feel that such depredations, are 'natural' and women should be objects of lust, and desire, or are they commodities with whom males can involve themselves with lustful actions- and that too in public glare? Is it a tacit approval by a morality which is sex centred, or for that matter, immorality? Why is it that in India male/ female relationships cannot be understood as a means to healthy friendships? Unless this kind of totally misconstrued and bizarre thinking goes females will always be considered as objects of lust, sexual greed and desire. It also points to the hypocrisy in our societies, on the one hand we seem to be visibly embarrassed to introduce sex education in the curriculum, but on the other hand we are a party to the worst forms of aberrant and bestial behaviour.

One incident will soon be forgotten but such an incident is a testimony to a total breakdown of morality and the law and order machinery in our societies. This moral breakdown and depravity is a viscious cycle. One episode takes place in one part of the country, and it is repeated shamelessly in other parts. And the worst part is people remain silently witnesses. What kind of moral turpetitude is this? This is sheer animality as worse as those beasts who have perpetrated it.

The India against corruption movement should seriously think of putting this in their agenda if they have a conscience. Everything does not revolve around money. It is also strongly associated with another lustful gain-sex and its most barbaric faces.

All I can say is shame, shame to the point of infinity. It is a slur on the nation.