The Moral Meltdown Year

With the Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, matters of sexual identity captured public imagination once again

And as the year draws to a close and the great velvet curtains of the almanac fall down on 2013, here's a laundry list of ayes and nays, bouquets and brickbats, thumbs ups and thumbs downs for all that the year brought in for us.

But first let us see if the year can be given a name. 'Annus Horribilis' has been used before and to great effect; but despite flash floods and meteoric explosion, typhoons and the rupee meltdown , the Boston killings and violence in Egypt - the phrase cannot be borrowed to hang the year on.

For me, 2013 was the year of great gender battles and overarching moral dilemmas.

Bracketed as it was between the Nirbhaya rape in December 2012 and the Supreme Court judgment recriminalising homosexuality in December this year, the questions that the year posed most pertinently were those that addressed what lay in our hearts, and between our legs.

The growing divide between men and women, the widening chasm of confusion between Mars and Venus, and the nub of rage, disillusionment, blame and dismay that our sexuality seems to foster, were the issues that ran away with the year.

It could be said that if the questions that were going to engage people in 2013 were being decided in some cosmic office in the sky, it would appear that 'gender and sexuality' had made it to the top of the ledger.

Tarun Tejpal's infamous act in the lift, the horrific Mumbai gang rape of a photojournalist, the Jiah Khan suicide, the Aarushi Talwar- Hemraj double murder court case, regressive khap panchayat judgments and Justice Ganguly's alleged moves on a hapless law intern gave rise to endless debate, argument and editorials on matters of gender, sexuality and the place of women in our society.

And even before the dust had settled on them came the Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, and matters of sexual identity captured the public imagination once again.

The other overarching theme of 2013 was that of morality. The rise of Narendra Modi and his projection as Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate despite questions of his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party on the anti-corruption plank, the departure from the world's stage of two different, but moral icons - Sachin Tendulkar and Nelson Mandela - the incarcerations of Lalu Prasad and Sanjay Dutt, the revelations of ever increasing graft, cynicism and opportunism within UPA, corporate India being brought to light, and the appointment of Pope Francis at the Vatican - all brought home to me the great moral crisis that the world is facing and its yearning for moral heroes.

So what will it be, my name for the year gone by, the year that brought with it so many challenges on matters that lay so close to our hearts and souls? The year when we thought more about what it means to be a man or woman, sexual predator or victim, saint or sinner, miscreant or savant than any other?

The year when things were unearthed from under the carpet, retrieved from within the closet and when finally the elephant in the room was named and shamed?

Maybe we should call it the year of reckoning or the year of redress, the year of accounting and accountability?

A ruling party trounced, a crusading editor jailed, a judge shamed and the highest court in the land challenged for its thinking?

No two ways about it: 2013 was the year of the great moral meltdown.

Let's see what 2014 brings in.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com