Yesterday, a friend staying in Paris and I went into a discussion on how unsafe India has become, the girls been dragged out of the cars and raped on highways, a woman been raped in a hospital just hours after delivering a baby, Nirbhaya case, etc., etc.

It turned into a heated argument, and I was in support of my country and told that every country has it flaws.

I won that argument, took pride, and snapped at him that running away from a country wouldn’t solve its issues and that India is transforming for good, it may take time, but it will happen.

But then, a small voice inside my head said, “But I don’t feel safe except at home with my parents around.” I ignored it at once. But it kept coming back, a little louder each time.

I tried sleeping, attempting to shoo away these thoughts. I woke up suddenly, with an accelerated heartbeat and soaked in perspiration. I had a nightmare. I dreamt:

Women with blood-covered faces, torn clothes, messed up hair, their legs and hands chained together, and a stream of blood flowing down from between their thighs. Slowly with much difficulty, they were walking with hands stretched out to me, and I was running away. I came to a dead end, and I had no place to go. I turned towards them and realized there were hundreds of thousands of women, teenage girls, young girls, and even some women were carrying bleeding newborn girls in their hands. They stopped and started crying. They were shouting at me and cursing me. A woman came in front and said,

“Why are you scared of us? We are not here to harm you. We all have been raped and by each passing second, our number grows. Someday you will join us too, and then, together we shall wait for the day when it becomes a safe land.”

All bodies disappeared but one. A girl was crying sitting in a corner with head between her knees. And then she lifts up her face, and I see me.

This dream stirred me from within.

It made me realise that we have locked ourselves in our ‘protected’ shelters and are waiting to get out when it becomes safe.

But will it ever happen? Will this shield protect us forever? Is this the only way to be happy and safe? Are we truly happy? Are we actually free in this free country?

The women have always been Victims of Violence, Reward for the Victories, and Objects for insatiable lust.

Pages of history chapters from school books turned before my eyes reminding me that whenever a land was conquered, the army was rewarded with the freedom to loot not only the gold and money but the women of the conquered territory.

Hundreds of news headlines flashed in my head shouting at me that the number of rapes has only increased with years and women have been molested, raped, killed, or forced to be quiet, strengthening the sick mentality of rapists.

And now when I read about girls being raped on Haryana Highway amidst the Jatt Reservation riots, I realize that it’s not the first time that females have been the biggest sufferers in the face of turbulent times in the country.

It has to stop! And it has to stop now!

We, the women of India, want to feel and be safe in our country. We demand freedom to be anywhere at any time, wearing whatever we want, roam with whoever we want to, use any means of transportation we want, in any state we want (be it drunk or sober), and travel solo or with group; without the fear of been eyed upon, groped, molested, or raped.

What we need is to stir the basic foundation of the rules, regulations, and ordinances that we have been living in since ages which make men believe that their gender is superior to women and they can exercise any and all form of control over women.

History cannot be altered, but what can be done is how it is represented. Teachers, experts, writers, and historians, must inculcate in minds of students and other people that not all what happened was appropriate and rightful. Also, history must now be taught with the perspective of gender equality i.e. how different the present scenario would be if the women were empowered then.

We, the youth of India, can make a change. Build a new foundation that shall ensure a new and safe future for all regardless of sexual orientation. India won’t transform by herself and nor can just government and the police of the country alone  warrant total safety and security. We have to work towards it from this moment onwards, to make India a riskless, safe and sound country.

Refuse to be a victim and be a fighter for the freedom much delayed to us!