A sexually confused India looks for balance.

If an IIT scholar can commit murder for arelationship, where is young India headed to?

EVENwhen Charles Darwin was penning his historical Theory of Evolution, he wouldn't have known the subtext -- that humans evolved from apes alright, but young girls and boys, in the 21st century, would evolve into sexually-aware individuals by skipping some vital years of childhood; that young boys and girls would grow into men and women much before nature ordained them to; and that this premature onset of sexuality would have serious implications on society.

We have seen the repercussions of this quirky evolution hit the western society -- and have felt ourselves insulated -- for long, but no more. The reality has hit us right in our homes now. Sample this: on September 10 this year, seven girls of a municipality-run school in Khajuri Khas, Delhi, were killed after molestation and eve-teasing had resulted in a stampede and rioting.

Just a couple of days ago, a 21-year-old student of Jamia Millia Islamia was molested, of all the boys, by those from a nearby school. And the most gory of them all has been the case of alleged murder of a 19-year-old girl from Manipur, Ramchanphy Hongray, by Munirka, Delhi, resident and IIT PhD scholar Pushpam Kumar Sinha, in the most heinous manner, just eight days ago.

Some or the other sort of minor or major sexual advance has been at the bottom of these three representative cases. The question that should be bothering all in the society now is that if an IIT scholar could resort to an act as odious as that, then what is possible at the hands of sexually curious yet puerile teenagers who are losing their innocence much earlier than what was the case even a generation ago?

A couple of years back The Associated Press carried a story on how 10 is the new 15 for kids, as more and more pre-teens look, dress and act older. The world over, there has been a trend towards earlier onset of puberty. However, India, a society in transition, is perhaps more vulnerable than the developed countries, according to Dr Amit Sen, child psychiatrist. "We are a society in upheaval, negotiating the change from tradition to modernity. Our children from early adolescence are faced with a deluge of images, constant stimulus and titillation, with half-baked knowledge which leaves them more confused than anything." He points out: "In India, in the middle of the afternoon, one can find explicit content on television which in any Western country.

would only run after 9 pm. But here, you have condom ads running in the day with no censorship laws in place." Take the case of 15- year old Aarshi Mehrotra, a student of a public school in Delhi. Her mother Vani says that the issues facing teens today are drastically different from her own generation.

" When we were growing up, life was simple. Our way of rebellion was to crank up the music. There was hardly any knowledge of the opposite sex, and none whatsoever of sex in general. But my daughter is growing up in different times.

Sometimes I feel, it is so difficult to be a parent in this age." All her daughter's friends have boyfriends and they have all had their first kiss. Some are preparing to take it to the next level. " I have always tried to be a friend and protector at the same time to Aarshi, so I'm lucky she's honest with me and tells me everything." So far, she's had no boyfriend, but that doesn't stop Vani from snooping through her daughter's phone and Facebook ID. After all, as she says, there are so many opportunities for casual hook- ups that it's almost impossible for parents to monitor it all.

YOUNG, SEXUAL INDIA

Five years back when the infamous DPS MMS case poked hot fingers into the eyes of all in the country, parents and educationists were forced, for the first time, to address the issue of sexuality in young India. After all, Indians have never been very comfortable discussing sex, even among adults, let alone children. But, things have moved on since the breaking of that scandal. If anything, they have become more sexually advanced than ever before, as the age bar for the end of innocence has dropped dangerously from teens to tweens.

Says Etishree Bhati, school counsellor and psychologist at DPS, RK Puram, " Sexual awareness is very high amongst children today. So many times, I've myself caught children with pornography saved on their mobile phones and they are so clever at hiding it. The issues I would discuss as a counsellor, say five years back, are very different from what I discuss now. In fact, it's one of the biggest issues whether or not you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

As counsellors, we cannot give them any moral lectures. All we can tell them is what is right and what is wrong, and the consequences of their actions." The issue that seems to crop up time and again is the importance of sex education. There has been a constant debate on whether or not to make sex education mandatory and all efforts to do so by various state governments have been met by fierce opposition by political parties, and also by parents and schools, on the lame pretext that it goes against Indian culture. According to child development experts, however, sex education is perhaps the biggest reform that can be brought in the country today.

THE IDEA OF SEX TALK

" Sex education is a completely misunderstood subject. It is not about learning about the male and female anatomy. Sex education, if implemented properly, teaches you about moral and psychological consequences of relationships with the opposite sex -- about being in a relationship, the consequences of it, the choices you can make, about honesty, trust and all important human values.

What we need is to introduce sex education with life- skills- based education as part of the curriculum. And it should start before children turn into teenagers and should continue till the twelfth grade," adds Dr Sen.

In most schools in India, sex education workshops are conducted sporadically and apologetically. According to proponents of sex education, children already have knowledge of sex through the Internet and television, what they need to be taught is about safe, healthy and acceptable sexual behaviour. The website for the National AIDS Control Organisation ( NACO) says: " Most young people become sexually active during adolescence. In the absence of right guidance and information at this stage they are more likely to have multi- partner unprotected sex with high- risk behaviour groups." In this complex debate, does morality play any role? Are we facing the embarrassing truth that there is a lack of proper role- modelling and moral guidance on part of parents and families? According to the principal of a prominent South Delhi school, who wishes to remain anonymous, " Children emulate from their parents.

Increasingly, in urban environments, we have nuclear families, with no influence of grandparents like there used to be earlier. Households increasingly face broken marriages and extra- marital affairs, and there are also singleparent households. Parents want to be lenient and open with their children and often look the other way, giving them license to get away with a lot." She adds: " While a generation back, stories from the Ramayan and Mahabharata were a part of our upbringing, children today grow up with violent and explicit movies, serials and video games. All this has a distinct influence on their value system."

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY

" I know that my son is in a relationship and I also suspect that he's physically intimate with his girlfriend, but how can I interfere in his life?" questions Mrinalini Goyal, the mother of Prateik Goyal, a 16- year- old from Mumbai.

" There's no way to stop him from doing what he's doing. If I try to, I'm sure he will go into his shell and stop communicating altogether. Besides, he's not the only one. Everyone his age is making the same choices," she shrugs. She mentions how her younger son, who is 11, insisted on watching the film Kambakht Ishq , because all his friends had watched the movie. " All our movies have sexual content and they are marketed as family movies. He's at a stage where he's curious about everything." Like the time when he saw an ad for iPill and asked her what it was.

Parents can play the part of friends for children, but they cannot actually be their friends, says Dr Avdhesh Sharma, a well- known psychiatrist.

" As children grow up, one has to constantly renegotiate boundaries with them. They have to be given a value system that they can adhere to and also have to be taught about consequences.

Even our education system needs an overhaul. We need to impart to children life- skills based education along with sex education, which helps them to deal with the challenges of everyday life and making the right choices," he elaborates.

With the way the word ' sex' is increasingly becoming an inoffensive part of our daily life, the going seems set to be tough for all parents and their growing children. The end of innocence, then, wouldn't seem just like a nice English phrase at all.

sunaina. kumar@ mailtoday. in

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