The scenario of the Indian society has always been in the forefront for being one of the major countries with a high rate of domestic violence and abuse. Women have been suffering due to this since ages and the whole COVID-19 situation has made it worse for them. Violence does not necessarily have to be physical. Some other forms of domestic violence include emotional, psychological and sexual violence. The sudden COVID-19 outbreak has led to the prolonged period of lockdown which has further caused people to confine themselves into their homes for a lengthy period of time.

For many people home is a safe place which brings out a feeling of peacefulness and harmony but for hundreds and thousands of other less fortunate ones, home is a place that scares them to the core. These are the people who are victims of domestic violence. Some of them don’t even find the courage to take a step against it for they have already been habituated with the pain,accepted their fate and their rebelliousness often leads to further abuse which is even worse and scarier. Considering the promptness of Indian judiciary systems, it is not really that hard to imagine why so many people keep shut and never take any legal actions against the ill treatment they have to face constantly.

The prolonged lockdown period has made the victims more vulnerable as they rate of domestic violence gas gone upwards. Women from less privileged backgrounds suffer the most for they are not even aware of the legal actions that can be taken against their abusers. The only relief for many people has been going out for their work in the pre-lockdown period. However, the lockdown gas completely shut off the opportunities to go out and it has enormously led to the rise of domestic abuse.

Apart from causing physical scars, domestic violence can even cause long-term mental illnesses as well. Depression, anxiety, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorders) and sexual disorders are some of the very common consequences of domestic violence. Needless to say due to the total lockdown all the legal options have also decreased. Therefore people willing to take legal actions are also helpless. People who are initially exposed to domestic violence may also end up being abusers in future in order to gain a sadistic pleasure from being the superior one this time.

It is therefore quite visible how this whole situation has trapped those survivors who have to deal with such heinous crimes on a daily basis without any help whatsoever. This whole situation has increased the stress level, anxiety, job insecurity which has led to the rise of abuse towards children as well. Even they have to face the elders’ outrage helplessly. Perhaps the only way to make the situation a bit better is to talk about it more and more and reaching out to those who need help. Spreading awareness and its consequences is really important. A minimum moral support can contribute to the betterment of the survivors for they need to be reminded from time to time how precious their lives are no matter how difficult the circumstances might be.

-Suvasree Bandyopadhyay

The colonial Bengal saw enormous number of peasant revolution in the 19th century; one of them being the Pabna movement in the district of Pabna in Bengal. It was in the year 1873 when the Agrarian League was formed in the Yusufshahi Paragana of Pabna district, where the oppression of a few new landlord pushed the peasants to the thresholds of tolerance, as mentioned by the author Shekhar Bandhopadhyay.

In this area, the rate of rent was continuously increasing along with extra illegal cesses, known as Abwabs. But the main grievance lies in the fact that the landlords were destroying the occupancy rights of the peasants by denying them leases in the same plot of land, on a constant rate for last 12 years.

What Kalyan Kumar Sengupta stresses upon is that in 1873,the occupancy riots of the Pabna district struggled against their landlords to defend the right of occupancy granted to them as well as to the other Bengali cultivators by the Rent Act X of 1859. This agrarian unrest had an impact on the politics of Westernized urban elite of Calcutta and the seat of the 19th century Bengali Bhadralok culture.

It’s also pertinent to mention that the movement was actually non-violent in nature and remained within the fencing of the law, as said by Shekhar Bandhopadhyay. Later, the peasants formed an Agrarian League to raise money to take landlords to the court.

Now, the Pabna experiment was done on other districts of eastern and central Bengal where the zamindars resorted to high landlordism, as described by Benoy Chaudhuri, where they defied all the laws in the management of their estates, enhancing the rent at their will, imposing cesses and destroying the occupancy rights of the peasants. Moreover, agrarian leagues came up in Dacca, Bogra, Faridpur, Tripura and other districts. These were also the regions where the Feraizee Movement had large followers and Naya Miya, the son of Dudu Miya, himself actively organised the agrarian combination in Mohendigunge in 1880. As a result of this movement, the increasing tensions accelerated the functioning of the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885.

Whereas, RC Dutt suggested measures for the solution of the problems caused by the strained agrarian relations, Parbati Churn Ray, on the other side of the coin, defended tenent rights and tried to counter the landlords’ argument in favour of the enhancement of the rent.

Sunil Sen, another dominant scholar, further writes that the rich peasants and the Bhadraloks often formed the leadership of the rent unions, as in this revolt, the leaders were from the backgrounds of jotedar, talukdar, village headman and rich peasants, of course. To count on a few, the major ones were- Ishan Chandra Ray (known as Bidrohi Raja by the local peasants), Raja Sarkar, Shambhunath Pal and Khoodi Mullah (a Muslim jotedar) etc.

In these ways, the Pabna Movement got its momentum, leading to the formation of the Pabna Agrarian League, where the peasants were too desirous of becoming the Queen’s riots, as mentioned by sir Sanjay Ghildiyal. So, it can be said that the movement, which is obviously not free from numerous debated, had remained a major theme of a hot discussion in the history of colonial Bengal, where one can see an active participation of the rebellious peasants against the increasing harsh behaviour of the landlords hence.

Misogyny is one of the fundamental conceptions that plays a huge role in contributing to the breeding ground of patriarchy. In simple words, misogyny can be described to be an approach that involves degrading women in every possible way. The concept of misogyny is an intense one and it takes a long period of time for an individual to develop a misogynistic approach and then eventually reflect it to their behavior. No one takes birth as a misogynist. It’s our environment and the people residing in it which plays the most significant role in imposing their thought process upon these individuals since their childhood.

Since the beginning boys are taught that they deserve to be treated differently than girls as if they had taken birth with some sort of special quality along with them. They learn as they experience and watch certain people around them. They see people treating girls differently since their childhood and learn to reflect those approaches in their behavior as well.
Since childhood both the genders happen to be exposed to the preconceived stereotypical binaries that exist in our society and it goes on to affect both the genders in a huge way. Girls learn have an inferior attitude just because they are not boys and vice versa.

The concept of out society is extremely flawed. It enables people to cherish flawed attitudes for centuries without anyone ever questioning it for the negative repercussions it causes. Misogyny in an extremely harmful approach and a dangerous mindset that is imposed upon every individual which ultimately affects the society and the world in a microcosmic level. It is a dialectical process of how an individual ends up developing misogynistic behaviors as part of his characteristics and moves on to influence their next generation and other people around them as well.

Misogyny does not only confine itself into being a mindset that teaches to portray women in a less privileged sphere but it also contributes to the toxic rape culture. Molesters and rapists do not engage in such heinous crimes in a fraction of second. It takes a long time for their minds to adopt the toxic misogynistic and sexist culture along with other toxic character traits.
Women also play an important role in imposing a sense of preconceived misogyny towards children and the youth for they have been treated the same way and they have been given the same lessons by their elders as they teach them to the next generation.

Misogyny helps in the formation of an extremely toxic culture that not only teaches people to have hatred for women but also for transgenders, bisexuals and homosexuals as well. It teaches people to have and cherish a superior attitude and mindset that goes beyond all the moral and ethical standards of human existence and therefore it goes on oppressing everyone who dares to be different from what they are.

However, the only way that can make the situation better is the process of unlearning. We have to unlearn our previous set of stereotypes that teach nothing but misogynistic toxicity in order to bring a better tomorrow for us along with the upcoming generations.

-Suvasree Bandyopadhyay

Indian Government now are in the phase where there is a huge demand of workers for railways. The Indian Railways already had a huge range of workers in itself organization. But somehow we all know the reality regarding service of Railways to passengers. Indian Railways is the only sector who opens for huge vacancy every year. But now the scenario is may be going to change now.

Many recent vacancies have not been filled right now, and due to Covid 19, the situation is out of control, so for temporary basis some private contracts have been signed for maintenance of stations. But if we as a passenger think about it, we found that privatization of Railways really helpful in getting good service and maintenance. Also there will be no high load of economic factor on it too.

But from the side of Youth, it really heart breaking because in India Indian Railways is the only organization which opens huge vacancies through which they get government employee tags. But after the privatization the numbers of vacancies declined very fastly. And no other organization is that who can give that type of huge no of vacancies in government services.

For this we can say that privatization is a good thing but it must be go for too much numbers, govt should maintain the balance between it. And Indian Railways also go for hiring upto 75% ratio of ratio. And 25% workers can be hired from private organizations .The decision of Govt really matters for our youth…