Shameless Mulayam: Rape of civility

When you thought that civility is returning to public space at last after the nationwide protests against the fatal Delhi rape and the brutal Mumbai rape, here comes the most 'Shameless' statement of all.  A visibly senile, politically beguile and intellectually infertile Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajvadi Party, now says - boys can make mistakes, suggesting that bestial rapists are just boys and the destruction of women's honour can easily be understated as mistake.  So, he nursed this obnoxious judgment all along in his mind and came out with it at a time when India is looking for change, a higher order of livelihood and an ascent on the ladder of civilization.  How could he say that?  And how could he nurse such thoughts?  And how could he be still a leader in our public lives?  Is this the so called 'Samajvad' that he professes?  

My mind goes back to 'Ramnagar Tiraha' incident of 1994 in Muzaffarnagar district, when Uttrakhand movement was at its zenith and the same Mulayam Singh was UP's Chief Minister.  The Uttrakhand activists were going to Delhi peacefully and in the middle of the night, Mulayam ordered the police to beat up young men, fire and kill the activists and rape women that were young or old.  From what he is saying today, all that happened in 1994 was just a small mistake.

In October 2013, Mulayam's boy Azam Khan unleashed his wrath in Muaffarnagar that resulted in a spate of mindless killing and rape.  Mulayam Singh did not even go the place till day before yesterday as he found it all just a mistake by his boys.  And at the help of affairs in UP is his own little boy, and some small mistakes of taking a few lives or raping a few women are not even noticeable by Mulayam.

Mulayam has exposed his grossly misogynistic male chauvinist mentality.  All those Heads of Khap Panchayats in Western UP and Haryana will now yell, 'didn't we always tell you that rape is just a mischief?  Didn't we tell you that it is always a woman's fault that she provokes men?  Didn't we also tell you that all women are liers and complain of rape just to teach men a lesson?'.  In one shot, Mulayam has brought back to life an era of jungle justice, turning all those beasts of men against women, with the large canopy of shameful protection he has given to the 'boys' of the world.

This speech is provocative, racist, sexist and a potential disruptor of public peace and social justice.  However high he stands on the political pyramid, Mulayam must be made to pay for this.  

This is a test of strength of Indian society.  Voting him out into an obscure political corner is the need in this election.

V K SAXENA
PRESIDENT
National Council for Civil Liberties

Ahmedabad