Rukshana! What a brave heart this young girl has been, yet what a huge tragedy we have imposed upon her life. To live a life where you never know when you will become the target within the wars of another, or be held ransom and become fodder to fuel the dreams of the freedom of someone, is a burden not many may want as the price to be considered a national hero! As I saw this beautiful young woman's image being flashed on my TV screen through the day, I wondered how she must have felt having to protect herself by staining her own hands with the blood of an enemy that is faceless, yet omnipresent wherever she goes.
My India! I love the ring it has, yet what do I really know to be my India today? Do I weep the tears of the mother who watches her daughters body exhumed, just to prove a fact that all know too well to be the truth? Do I even remotely understand what starvation must feel like when crops fail and governments look the other way because the farmer's voice is already too feeble to be heard? Can I envisage what it must feel like to watch a beloved be thrown off a train and be crushed to death whilst the pregnant wife is raped, merely because an argument over a train seat occurred? And now I want to wash my guilt of apathy away once again and applaud this young woman who was obliged to protect herself by picking up a gun because "My India" is unable to figure out how to address issues of urgent need with solutions that offer answers.
Let's not allow the shadow of our cowardice be cast this far, where the terrorism of extremist politics has to be played out where the youth of our nation are forced to take to the gun. Where the discontent of a nations people start to be voiced through violent means as a method to survive. The suicides of diamond workers and farmers are only a recent past, yet Shahrukh Khan and Kajol being on the Vogue magazine cover, and Rakhi Sawant's break up with her fiance Elesh Parujanwala, occupies more coverage on T.V news channels! and is avidly watched by a nation with bated breath!
I commend Rukshana for her bravery, but that she was placed in a situation where a militant was allowed to target her is the issue that we should not be sweeping under the carpet. Something isn't quite right and we know it. Let us hope her act of bravery does not go wasted and that somewhere else a problem does not escalate where the consequences can be fatal.
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