How do you like your selfie - rape, drought, or otherwise?
While Salman Khan is yet to apologise over using the term “felt like a raped woman”, and the National Commission for Women (NCW) has been demanding an apology from the actor, the enormity of the crime - rape - is lost on the NCW itself as its members sit for a selfie session.
A member of Rajasthan State Commission for Women on Tuesday clicked a "selfie" with a victim, a 30-year-old woman, who was allegedly raped by her husband and two brothers-in-law.
Like those sepia-tainted pictures of hunters from the 18th century standing with their arms akimbo, holding on to their guns as they stood on the “game” they just hunted down, the 30-year-old woman, who was allegedly raped and had expletives tattooed on her forehead and hand for failing to bring Rs 51,000 as dowry, was just like the slain game.
What's worse, she was propped for a picture not by those who harmed her physically, but the supposed rescuers, those who claimed to get her justice.
How? By asking her to look into the camera and smile.
What kind of a trophy is this? What kind of satisfaction does one derive from taking a selfie especially with someone who is physically, emotionally and mentally tortured and seeks help?
But as in Namesake, the movie based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel, where first-generation Indian parents settled in the US of the late 1970s lament about how their son refuses to accept his “formal Hindu name”, the father explains his son's choice by stating the obvious. He says, "When the president of the country is called Jimmy, what can you do?”
When the prime minister of our country takes selfies at every foreign visit, and assumes that keeping people busy with the task of taking selfies will stop them from killing the girl child, and make farmers feel less suicidal, it is expected that there will be people who would take cue from their leader, and look only for trophy photos in moments of crisis.
Maharashtra’s rural development, and women and child welfare minister Pankaja Munde of the BJP provided a stellar example when she took a selfie while reviewing the drought situation in districts of Latur and Beed in April.
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| Pankaja Munde taking selfie while reviewing the situation in drought-affected districts in Maharashtra. |
As thousands of reckless teenagers kill themselves trying to perch on the edge of cliffs or by speeding trains as they aim the camera at themselves, this epidemic has also plagued our dull politicians and activists who are all too ready to discard any sense of accountability by flashing a smile, surrounded by their "fans" or just drought-hit farmers or rape victims.
The selfie is the perfect shtick for a PR or an advertising agency using a celebrity to make sure its products or models get seen by the consumers. It doesn't befit a commission that seeks to guard the interests of wronged women.
So if we shake our heads at the perverse gesture of a man taking a selfie in a crematorium while the body of his relative awaits its final journey, Rajasthan State Commission for Women member Somya Gurjar who took a selfie with the tormented woman from Alwar, and the commission's chairperson Suman Sharma, who was also seen in the selfie, must also be slapped with a police complaint for harassing a rape victim.
Why not?
Perhaps the police station in Jaipur can provide them with a selfie stick to help them take a pouty selfie behind bars. After all, since it is the season to take pictures of the hapless victims, ek selfie toh banta hai na?