We the people

"We the people" is a show with difference on NDTV spearheaded by fluent and clear anchor in Burkha Dutt. The current affairs ranging across a wide set of topics will be discussed at length and a verdict of sort is derived by the end of it. The voices heard are relevent, refreshingly broad and free of hypocricy to a great extent. Seldom, the conclusions are drawn by the end of one hour show to issues of such magnitude.

Today's show discussed about "Legalizing prostitution". Some opined prostitution to be just another profession, some thought it to be exploitation and paid rape, while a few still wanted it to be continued underground. My few cents below.

India is nation full of parallelism. We witness tens of parallel societies around us day in day out be it on linguistic basis, caste basis or on the privilege ladder basis. The sex workers have been a tabooed section of our society of which half the people hesitate to acknowledge the fact that they have sex, this is truly parallel. Since, it's no legal thing to be doing it India, they are forced to run their trade undergrounds and continue to remain parallel.

We live in non-ideal world, where compromises(perhaps options too) are bound. They take place at different levels, some one compromised his US ambitions over Australia while the other chose truck cleaning over boot polish, some sex workers had to take it for a better living, the world's oldest profession. In pure economic terms, they sell what's in demand and tap that market. With no moral hats on, this looks perfectly alright as long as it's not of any inconvenience to others and the rest of the society. Most of the developed countries have already legalized it.

India definitely should legalize it as that will be the first step in protecting the human rights of the sex worker community and in controlling the HIV spread. But India may just not copycat the west by just legalizing, high taxes can be enforced and used in the betterment of the sex workers. The children of these sex workers should be a step above in the privilege ladder, have more options than their parents did and take up to something other than prostitution if they wanted to.