By Isheeta Sanghi

Last month, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the head of the Uttar Pradesh’s governing party, said he was opposed to a law calling for gang rapists to be executed. “Boys will be boys,” he said. “They make mistakes.””

Oh, you read it correctly. Boys will be boys he says. Whatever the hell that means. I swear sometimes I wonder if these people think before they speak. Actually, I wonder if they have daughters, if they have wives, if they have mothers. And God forbid if any of them were raped, murdered, and hung from a mango tree. Then would it be ok for boys to just be boys?

If you read the article below, you’ll see the USA Today reference where it’s reported that a rape takes place every 22 minutes in India. That’s three and a half rapes in the time of your standard lunch break. Think about that.

http://mashable.com/2014/05/30/india-rape-murder-teen-girls/

I know that it’s very easy for me to sit here in Silicon Valley and write about these things, and say change, change, change. But the thought depresses me that, even if I went there and tried to change things, chances are I wouldn’t be able to make a difference. I’d probably manage to make some TV show broadcast about how we feel for a month and then it would be on to the next hot political nonsense story.

So what can we do besides keeping writing about it, making the world more informed about it, and hoping and praying that one day Indian society will finally snap out of its mindset and realize that both men and women are equal?

I have such a love hate relationship with the country and its people. It’s a beautiful place, and the people are beautiful there – but dear God, some of them are also extremely ugly.

I also wonder if these politicians realize that when they make these bold statements, what they’re doing is endorsing rape. Because when you say “boys will be boys,” you’re pretty much telling all the young boys out there–if you eff up, if you rape a girl, it’s ok, I mean sh** happens. And you might get locked up for a bit, but when you get out of lock up you can do it again, don’t worry, you are still just being a boy, and we will again let you live.

This is the reality of the situation, the ridiculousness of the situation and the sadness of the situation. Again – I fully acknowledge that all I’m doing is writing about it and that if I really cared I would do something – but honestly what can I do? I’m not going to lie, I’ve thought about going and trying to make a difference and make a change, but I get scared off because I figure that not only will they try to squash my voice, they will most likely hurt me in the process.

This is a society that is so old, and so set in its ways and mindset that there’s nothing I could possibly do. It moves with the times – it has malls, it has metros, it has imported cars, but you know what? What lives in those malls, who shops in those metros and who sits in those imported cars? People who clearly have no hearts and no conscience.

Originally from the Bay Area, Isheeta went to India for her higher education.She studied and worked in Delhi and Bangalore, and now works at a tech company in the Silicon Valley (surprise surprise!) Though she would love to write regularly, most of her entries are left incomplete – she’s working on it though!