Why Is It Difficult For Parents To Not Mentally And Physically Abuse Their Children?

‘Bachhe kitne bhi bade ho jaayein, maa-baap ke liye hamesha bacche hi rehte hain’ is the most endearingly uttered cliché around us. If you’re one of the few lucky people in this country, it manifests into your parents coddling and loving you like they did when you were a child. However, for most people, it means being treated like a small child, not allowed to take decisions for themselves and getting punished severely for going against their parents’ wishes. For 24-year-old Yashaswini, it means being wrongfully confined and thrashed by her parents. In case you live under a rock and haven’t heard of people abusing and even murdering their children over inter-faith or inter-caste love, you can start by following the story of Yashaswini who is being subject to cruelty by her parents right now.

Why is it so difficult for parents to consider their grown-ass children as individuals and respect their choices? Let me rephrase that – Why is it difficult for parents to not mentally and physically abuse their children? The only answer I have is that in this country, you might become a legal adult at the age of 18, but you never really become an actual human being in your parents’ eyes. You’re a vehicle meant to implement the wishes of your creators. You weren’t given a choice in being born, and you’ll rarely have a choice in how you live. Your creators also feel entitled to destroy your very existence, once it’s established that your life does not fulfil their purposes. And nothing reduces your value than loving someone outside of your parents’ religion or caste. ‘Family first’ really just means your parents first, and your harassed ass later.

If your basic freedoms are being denied by your family, you can approach the Indian legal system in order to get thoroughly disappointed. Yashaswini’s numerous emails and signed letters to the police and National Commission for Women, detailing the threats to her life have been of no help because her father is himself a Judge in Bihar. A habeas corpus petition filed in the Supreme Court has also been quashed. This is not the first time that our legal system has failed to protect adults from being tortured by their parents. No one abides by the principle of Vasudeva Kutumbakam better than the Indian justice system. If you go to the police against your parents, they will treat you like family by telling you what they think is best for you – overlooking their duties, your agency, and your rights. Even courts understand the importance of the familial bond. The Kerala High Court went as far as to annul Hadiya’s marriage last year, with a little help from its friends – the NIA. Additionally, her custody was awarded to her father, against her wish which meant that she had to go through months of abuse before the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court and she was finally ‘allowed’ to live and love by her own wishes. Hadiya won, but Yashaswini’s (and thousands others’ whose story hasn’t even reached us) fight has just started.

This is the age of technology, and I think everyone who has been forced to become an engineer by their parents can do something to curb this epidemic. Instead of sexbots, techies should get working on creating customised robot children. There is clearly a huge market in India for automated beings who do exactly what they’re told. I can assure you that Indian families would stand in a line for days to commission these robot children on the basis of their requirements. Pre programme them to make sure they eat, sleep, and marry according to their parents’ wishes. End this generations, long cycle of abuse and save actual living beings the pain of living and sometimes even dying as per other people’s whims.

Mitali Agrawal is an education researcher in a Delhi based think tank and tweets at @just_screams.