00:00Kalyan Baisla is being charged with attempt to murder.
00:04But with what we have seen as a hit-and-run case coming in from Gurugram,
00:10should it just be read as road rage?
00:13Here are my two cents.
00:15Kalyan Baisla, who deliberately rammed his vehicle into a woman biker in Gurugram,
00:20has finally been arrested and rightly charged with attempt to murder.
00:24But we would do the greatest injustice to this case
00:28if we were to dismiss it simply as road rage,
00:30or as another hit-and-run incident.
00:33This was as much about male entitlement as it was about road rage.
00:37What rammed into Sia's bike was not just a vehicle driven by Kalyan Baisla,
00:42it was also, in a very real sense, a bruised male ego on four wheels.
00:47Sia refused to stop when she was allegedly demanded to.
00:51And that rejection, that refusal to comply,
00:54was simply too much for Kalyan Baisla.
00:58And that is why, viewers, we must look beyond the phrase road rage,
01:02because road rage explains the anger.
01:04It does not necessarily explain the entitlement behind it.
01:09We've seen versions of the same story play out before.
01:12Remember Manu Sharma, who pulled the trigger at Jessica Lahl
01:15after she refused to serve him a drink.
01:18Different circumstances, different crimes, actually different decades.
01:21But beneath them lies a disturbing and a very familiar idea.
01:26How dare a woman refuse a man?
01:29The belief, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt,
01:32that being a man comes with an inherent right to power,
01:36to authority, and to obedience.
01:38Many boys are taught these lessons from birth,
01:42that boys are tough, strong, aggressive, and have a right to anger.
01:45However, that girls are gentle, pretty, compliant.
01:48Even in the most balanced of families,
01:51little boys see these lessons play out in the books they read,
01:55the movies they watch, and the media,
01:57constantly feeding into their subconscious.
02:01Sadly, this entitlement is even reinforced through every religion,
02:05where by the sheer virtue of gender,
02:07men have long expected to be given priority,
02:11special treatment, and even voluntary subservience.
02:16Gender-based privilege and entitlement are not new concepts.
02:20But what can be new is our willingness to acknowledge
02:24and hopefully move towards correction.
02:27So let us today acknowledge this.
02:30Biker Sia did not simply face road rage on Golf Course Road.
02:34She faced the full force of male entitlement.
02:37And the fury of a bruised male ego,
02:40when that entitlement was challenged.
02:43This is not merely about one incident, one road, or one man.
02:46It is about a mindset
02:47that assumes that being a man
02:50automatically grants you authority,
02:53grants you priority,
02:55and grants you the right to be obeyed.
02:58And perhaps the first step towards changing that very mindset
03:02is to call it out.
03:04Because entitlement does not become acceptable
03:08simply because it has existed for generations.
03:11It becomes our responsibility to recognize it,
03:15to challenge it.
03:16And
03:16And
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