Disappeared women & girls / Speeches of leading political personalities in the past compared to the twits who rule today | Humra Quraishi

May 16, 2024

After we are over with celebrating mothers and daughters and sisters and aunts and nieces days, do take out time to read these shockers - shocking details to the missing women and girls in our country.

Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are the two states where the maximum number of girls and women disappeared from 2019 to 2021.

From Madhya Pradesh, 52,119 women in 2019, 52,357 in 2020 and 55,704 in 2021 went missing... In Maharashtra, 63,167 women in 2019, 58,735 in 2020 and 56,498 in 2021 went missing.

A total of 90,113 girls (those who are below 18 years of age) disappeared in 2021 with the highest from West Bengal at 13,278.

Collectively, a total of 10,61,648 women went missing from 2019 to 2021 across the country. Simultaneously, 2,51,430 girls disappeared during the same period.

Last year, 26 July 2023, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra had told the Rajya Sabha that - 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country. “In 2019, the number of girls and women who went missing was 82,084 and 3,42,168 respectively, while in 2020, 79, 233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing,†he said.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing, and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered.â€

Even before some more of these dismal figures come to the fore, several basic queries do hit: In what conditions are these girls and women recovered? What is their future? Are they reunited with their families or simply left at the mercy of State-run homes for the destitute? What are the follow-up details to these rescued women and girls vis-a-vis their mental and physical health? Couldn’t the kidnappings or trafficking and abuse of these women and girls be prevented? Can the police machinery be made accountable for these disappearances of human beings? Is there a nexus, because large-scale trafficking cannot be done without the involvement of the mafia with the Sarkari characters? Do these Sarkari characters get booked and with that booted out? What is the role of the politicians in these kidnappings and trafficking? Do the various government-appointed commissions come to the rescue of these women and girls, in their future upkeep and safety?

What is the ruling lot speaking about!

I shudder to think what’s in store if the ruling lot furthers its communal Agenda. Never before one heard such baseless, useless and provocative speeches during electioneering …speeches of the political Who’s Who fitted with such blatantly communal inputs, that it got hard to believe!

Where are we heading? What would be the future of the masses if this hatred and strife is made to spread out along well-calculated moves? What would be the end result of this ongoing vicious poisoning, unleashed rather too systematically? Mind you, by the very rulers of the day!

Alas, we have been reduced to such pathetic lows in the last ten years. Earlier, in the years passed by, the speeches of our leaders were fitted with the much-needed and much-desired inputs to nation-building, with nationalism at the very core Try reading these two books by academic Professor Rakesh Batabyal- Building A Free India: Defining Speeches Of Our Independence Movement that Shaped The Nation (Speaking Tiger ) and also The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Speeches (Penguin ).

After reading these two books you’d realize what the political personalities of the years passed by, had stood for …lived for. To quote from Building A Free India: “As the Indian independence movement progressed—from the economic critique of colonial rule by the early nationalists, to the unequivocal demand for Purna Swaraj and the immense moral authority of the Mahatma Gandhi-led resistance—the notion of an equal society that ensured dignity to all— irrespective of caste, class, gender or religion—came to occupy a central place in it. By the time the Constituent Assembly met in December 1946, not just civil rights, but the particular rights of women, of minorities, of the Depressed Classes and the Adivasis were being articulated and demanded, not as favours but as a matter of course… the effect of the speeches delivered by the leaders of our national movement was to focus ‘political action towards scripting an ennobling nationalism that would give us a just and equal society…’ â€

Yes, those were or rather are landmark speeches by personalities such as —Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Bhikaiji Cama, Lajpat Rai and Tilak, to Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Bose, Sarojini Naidu and Maulana Azad and many such committed citizens of this country, who spoke ever so passionately and genuinely and earnestly about our welfare in the actual sense of the term, amidst a truly democratic framework where quality and justice and secure well-being would hold high.

Ruskin Bond celebrates his 90 birthday on 19 May!

Leaving you with Ruskin Bond’s this verse, from his poetry book- titled - ‘I was the Wind Last Night: new and collected poems’ ( Speaking Tiger)

These simple things/
The simplest things in life are best- /
A patch of green,/
A small bird’s nest,/
A drink of water, fresh and cold,/
A taste of bread,/
A song of old,/
These are the things that matter most./
The laughter of a child,/
A favourite book,/
Flowers growing wild,/
A cricket singing in the shady nook,/
A ball that bounces high!/
A summer shower/
A rainbow in the sky,/
A touch of a loving hand,/
And time to rest- /
These simple things in life are best…