Through this final episode of What’s Your Choice for this season we thank you very, very much for all your wonderful support, your encouraging comments and your determination to fight with us against social evils by intervening. This show has made it clear, when anyone asks an ordinary Indian – What’s Your Choice – you’ve answered categorically – step in and do something, act – do not turn away and say this is none of my business.
Watch:
What's Your Choice - Special Edition
May 09, 2015
What's Your Choice: Special Edition
Apr 24, 2015
Sexual Harassment, a Blot on Our Society
Apr 20, 2015
Why Girls Should Raise Their Voice Against Harassment
Apr 20, 2015
Dear Dr. Roy, its actually a good show that you have put up. I may have an idea for another social experiment. It’s about simple traffic rules such as stopping the car an the stop line and not on the zebra crossing. I live in Hyderabad and everyday I see these simple common sense things being violated. I always carry a small poster with me with the lines “IDIOT YOU ARE PARKED ON THE ZEBRA CROSSING” and I show it to the driver. Some react violently, sometimes by coming out of the car and screaming while a few of the others acknowledge their mistake. It would be glad to see if NDTV comes out with such a social experiment and record the spontaneous behaviour of the people who violates that rule which is more of a common sense rather than a rule.
Excellent job done by NDTV team. this is really a good to check what we (Indian) are thinking about girl and good response from people.
As we are saying that girl is like Laxmi (money) and everyone wants to it. Same way now people are accepting girl in family.
Good job.
Kudos on starting this initiative. The issue is multi-fold. Even amongst the educated, I see the preference for the male child in the form of a subtle undercurrent. Superficially saying there is no difference between sons and daughters and secretly wishing for a son has become very common. The mindset of the senior members of the family just rubs off. Given my personal experiences and limited exposure to this issue since i am from a big city, i believe the biggest root cause is dowry and the fact that parents of the girl are required to bear the exorbitant wedding expenses. As an immediate action point to fix this imbalance, I strongly think legal intervention is needed. May be a law that enforces no dowry(which is already existent but dormant 🙁 ), and making it mandatory that the grooms family shoulders an equal part of the wedding expense if not the entire wedding expense. We have to start somewhere. Let the law-abiding Indian be the torch bearer for this movement. If every individual can ensure that the next wedding in their family follows this, it would go a long way in breaking cliches and ensuring the fairer sex gets its due.
Good idea, but do you really think this is going to help in any way? Has it been effective till date?
Just try and understand a simple point – Indians still equate children with their money value (son means money coming in, daughter means money going out). You will never be able to put a tab on the dowry as people would claim that it is an infringement of their right to give gifts to their daughter. So in my opinion the only way is to counter the ‘money’ mentality with ‘money’ laws – get the groom side pay tax on the amount that the bride’s side spends on conducting the marriage. The tax would go to the government coffers and can be used for the betterment of the girl child in the country (scholarships, etc). Further, it would ensure that the marriage expenses (largely but not completely unnecessary) are brought down to the minimum.
Very soon thereafter, we would have lots of court marriages (no more noisy marriage processions and functions in our colonies – I would be able to get some better sleep), which in turn would be better for both the bride as well as the groom. As for the reception and other related functions that might follow, both the sides will have to submit to the court at the time of filing request for the marriage, a list of functions, the invitees and an undertaking that the expense is being borne by both the parties equally. This list of invitees will be helpful in the future and shall act as a proof in the court of law, in case there is any family dispute between the couple.
I saw this program and believe me, my heart swelled with pride when I saw people reacting so strongly to injustice happening in front of their eyes. I would have also reacted in same manner.
I have 10 year old daughter and I’m so lucky and blessed to have her in our home. She is the jewel of our home and is the one who lights up everything wherever she goes. I can never imagine treating her badly.
Congratulations to Dr. Roy and NDTV team for creating such a beautiful program. I look forward to seeing more on this.
Best wishes
Bhuvnesh
Just gone through your comment – no offence intended.
Nice to know that your heart swelled with pride by looking at the number of people who reacted, but if you look at the percentage of such people vis-a-vis the total population of the country (or even just the people who were witness to the episode), I’m sure your heart would implode.
It is good to know that some people are protesting to the injustice, but the idea of the program (as I understand) is to wake up the people who did not react, understand why they didn’t, and what it would take to make them react. It is only because of such people that the Indian society is the way it is today.
Thanks all for creating this program and showing the brighter side of the reality.
Two things : First, I would still like to see how all of us react if the number of observers are less as compared to a crowd observing the behaviour.Example, there is just one family sitting in the restaurant,who is observing such behaviour. Will we be courageous enough to raise our voice?
Second, the suggestion of whistle blowing is good. I would like whistle blowing to be the symbol of trouble.Why not use it as a medium to understand that someone is in trouble? Like, if a woman is being troubled by a group of men on a street and she starts blowing a whistle, that is a signal to all the crowd that there is a trouble brewing.Make it viral in the society that all women should carry a whistle and people should understand the signal as soon as they hear it. What is your take?
Thanks
Amit
Good idea