I am 17 and Fear What Happened to Rhea Chakraborty Could Happen to Me!
I’m 17 and scared. Scared to put forth my views, scared to reach for my dreams and honestly, scared to just exist in a society that refuses to give a woman a fair chance to speak and instead accuses her of a crime they have little knowledge of.
Your guess is correct. I am pointing to the Sushant Singh Rajput case. It looks like a scene right out of a Bollywood potboiler. A harried actress accosted and jostled by paparazzi, waiting for a pound of her flesh. Only, this is real life and the woman in question, actor Rhea Chakraborty, is under the scanner since the death of her partner and actor Sushant.
By now, all of us are familiar with the harrowing spectacle of Rhea being prodded and jabbed by media personnel to seek answers in the investigation. But how exactly did we get here?
When we reflect upon what has happened since the untimely demise of Sushant, there are quite a few things that draw our attention.
“Today, we are scared to just exist in a society that refuses to give a woman a fair chance to speak.”
The media has extensively vilified Rhea, spewing narratives that will strike an emotional resonance with the public to increase their TRP.
The disheartening facet of this drill is that the public has lost its ability to embody human sympathy. Most of them have given no second thought before jumping aboard the bandwagon of hating a woman, criticising her, abusing her and most importantly, denying her a chance to speak. Hasina, one of my friends, puts it aptly: “It’s absurd what the media has been up to, they are not even willing to give her a chance.”
Now is the time we reflect on what it represents for our nation.
In every context and aspect of the case, not once have we laid the onus on the late actor. We have found a way to connect to Rhea possibly every angle that led to his alleged suicide — it’s because she didn’t take care of him, it’s because she is a gold-digger, it’s because she made him do drugs and so on and so forth.
Not once have we acknowledged that Sushant was an adult, capable of making his decisions. For the many that did not understand the relevance of patriarchy in this scenario, this is what it is — how we blame a woman yet to be convicted of a crime she did or did not commit and use her as a scapegoat to squelch our doubts of a man being at fault.
Second, let’s address how in this whole stunt of vilifying Rhea, not once have we seriously addressed the issue that Sushant might have actually had problems with his mental health. Personally, I haven’t seen a single media report taking up the possibility, because, simply put, “he didn’t look depressed” or “he was not the type to be depressed”.
Now here lies our most concerning understanding of mental health; no one seems to have taken up the responsibility of understanding what depression is and the different ways in which it manifests itself. When we give credence to narratives of Rhea using ‘kala jaadu’ (black magic) and don’t acknowledge the possibility of presence of a mental health issue, it reflects quite poorly on India and the people who constitute it. “It’s so weird how we have completely disregarded that Rhea has feelings too. The verdict on whether she committed the crime or not has been given by us, who are in no way qualified, with preposterous reasoning,” adds a friend.
“Not once have we seriously addressed the issue that Sushant might have actually had problems with his mental health.”
The third and final issue to address is the fanfare that Rhea’s arrest garnered. Reasoning seems to have eluded people who had been entranced in the spell cast by the media vilifying the actor. They celebrated her arrest as though she had been convicted for murder when in reality she was arrested for the alleged procurement of drugs.
Many fail to understand that by celebrating Rhea’s arrest, you are not celebrating the arrest of a ‘murderer’ but the downfall of venerable journalism. “People are so consumed in this fiasco that they have neglected pressing issues like our economy’s decline which is a cause for concern because it reflects very poorly on where we have set our priorities,” says a 17-year-old observing the media circus.
It is imperative we understand that what is happening to Rhea is a Sword of Damocles hovering above all our necks that threatens every woman that dares to live rather than exist. Today it’s Rhea, tomorrow it could be you.
This article is authored by Ranjekha, 17, part of the Own It Tribe. Ranjekha is constantly analysing the world around her, its developments and their implications and gives supreme importance to awareness.
