The bonding between a brother and a sister is simply unique and is beyond description in words. The relationship between siblings is extraordinary and is given importance in every part of the world. However, when it comes to India, the relationship becomes all the more important as there is a festival called “Raksha Bandhan” dedicated to sibling love.
Raksha Bandhan is observed on the last day of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Shraavana, which typically falls in August. The expression “Raksha Bandhan,” Sanskrit, literally, “the bond of protection, obligation, or care,” is now principally applied to this ritual
Raksha Bandhan is a popular, traditionally Hindu, annual rite, or ceremony, which is central to a festival of the same name celebrated in South Asia, and in other parts of the world significantly influenced by Hindu culture. On this day, sisters of all ages tie a talisman, or amulet, called the rakhi, around the wrists of their brothers, symbolically protecting them, receiving a gift in return, and traditionally investing the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care.
The festival of Raksha Bandhan is observed as a symbol of duty between brothers and sisters. The occasion is meant to celebrate any type of brother-sister relationship between men and women who may not be biologically related.
On this day, a sister ties a rakhi around the wrist of her brother to pray for his prosperity, health, and well-being. The brother in return offers gifts and promises to protect his sister from any harm and under every circumstance. The festival is also celebrated between brother-sister belonging to distant family members, relatives, or cousins.
Origin of Raksha Bandhan
According to the ancient legend of Bhavishya Purana, once there was a fierce battle between gods and demons. Lord Indra- the principal deity of sky, rains, and thunderbolts who was fighting the battle on the side of Gods was having a tough resistance from the powerful demon King, Bali. The war continued for a long time and did not come to a decisive end. Seeing this, Indra’s wife Sachi went to Lord Vishnu who gave her a holy bracelet made up of cotton thread. Sachi tied the holy thread around the wrist of her husband, Lord Indra who ultimately defeated the demons and recovered the Amaravati. The earlier account of the festival described these holy threads to be amulets which were used by women for prayers and were tied to their husbands when they were leaving for war. Unlike, the present times, those holy threads were not limited to brother-sister relationships.
Krishna and Draupadi– Based on an account of Mahabharat, Draupadi, wife of Pandavas tied a rakhi to Lord Krishna while Kunti tied the rakhi to grandson Abhimanyu before the epic war.
How safe and protected are the sister’s in today’s world?
We celebrate Raksha Bandhan in our country where every brother pledges to protect his sister. But a woman who get sexually harassed, raped, and killed every single day is also somebody’s sister. Isn’t she?
Then why do such heinous crime occur, if every brother pledges to protect his sister then why do some of them forget that the woman who falls a victim to their inhumanity is also a sister to someone? If every individual play his role in society just being a human, so many innocent sisters would have been survived.
Being a woman is not easy and that too when you live in India. Because in India at every 20 minutes a girl is raped. And if we talk about the current scenario, India is not safe for women not even in this 21st century.
The persistent rise in numbers of the rape case and lack of access to justice in it is the reason behind.
If we recall back the heinous crime that occurred in the national capital of India, Delhi at Munirka on 16 December 2012 (Nirbhaya case). It is something that later became a nightmare for every girl, it still gives us goosebumps if we remember the barbarian crime done by those demons. It leaves everyone in trauma and left a dark stain on women’s safety and security.
She was a physiotherapy intern who had gone to watch a movie with her male friend and has been assaulted on her way back home. She had been Raped on a bus by six people in which she was traveling with her male friend. These monsters had crossed all the limits of brutality. This case got national as well as international coverage, but nothing had made a big change in the speed of justice of the Nirbhaya case as this high-profile case had taken 7 years to conclude.
Sadly, but on the same day of Nirbhaya, there was one more gang-raped happened in Meghalaya where a girl went to the Winter festival at William Nagar with her friends, and on her way back she was hit with bricks on her head and raped by 16 people.
Though it took 7 years Nirbhaya ultimately got justice but there are many such Nirbhaya whose cry even gets drowned, who never get justice.
Nirbhaya was not the sole rape case in 2012, as per the NCRB report it was one of the 24,923 recorded cases and even the report stated that in the same year more than 68 girls were raped every day.
A very recent incident of a nine-year-old girl from the Dalit community has been gang-raped, murdered, and forcibly cremated in capital New Delhi, her family alleges.
The girl’s family alleges a Hindu priest working at a local crematorium and his associates raped her and then cremated her body without their approval. It shattered the entire humanity.
After Nirbhaya, criminal law against women get amended, but that amendment does not stop the speed of rape in India.
Raksha Bandhan is a festival of purity, love, and unbounded care and protection like Shri Krishna performed for his sister and friend Draupadi in Mahabharata. Don’t be God just be a human and perform your duty, don’t let any sister become Nirbhaya again.
Happy Raksha Bandhan
