Our Duty to Morality

Abstract

Societal violence against children in general and sexual violence against the girl child are rising alarmingly. Seen as soft victims, neither multiple state legislations nor natural laws of morality have been able to keep them safe. The issue becomes contentious when violence is perpetrated along gender, class, and religious identities. The justice system is being co-opted to stand with the oppressors, intent on preventing the voice of support to the victims from rising, effectively shrinking and shutting down spaces for displaying solidarity and social dissent. A scene India witnessed in its horrific intent in 2018 in what came to be called the Kathua Rape Case.

Through the perspective of life writing, this paper will reflect on how an individual response to this heart-wrenching event developed into an organic community protest in a calm seaside town of South India, hundreds of miles removed from the mountains of Kashmir. When the State denied permission to assemble, fearing a larger discontent, the civil society demonstrated its resolve and coalesced to raise a silent voice against the violence and brutal molestation of an eight-year-old child. All this peacefully, without defying authority, and without breaking any rules.