What is killing our women, girls, gender minorities?

The silence. The nauseating one. The silence of the society. It traps them in their own minds. The silence envelops their needs, comforts under a plume of its dark smoke.

Why does everyone stay so silent? Were we told to keep quiet as soon as we were born? Were we told to look away when someone was violating an individual’s bodily integrity? Are we protecting those who hurt them?

The culprits who lurk around with a silent smirk of never having been discovered of their true beastly selves. These criminals sleep in our backyards. We provide them shade when its hot. Our silence relieves them.

Then later we are the same people who feel the pain when we see the tears in the eyes of Nirmala’s parents. We say ‘kathai’ (poor girl, what a pity!) But we never question the larger cause of this. The silence that protects the perpetrator and that kills the individual affected.

Who are the gatekeepers of this silence? Family? School? Our dilapidated justice system? The police? Our state? Confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements? The perpetrators themselves? The survivors and victims?

We humans are disintegrating from people who care about each other into those who need to just earn a living and are just surviving as an animal. Our world, more complicated it gets, it is churning out evil from greed, fear, bullying, etc. And in this world is our silence thriving?