Celebrate Humanity, Celebrate IHD

Today is celebrated as International Men’s Day (19th November) annually to recognise and celebrate the achievements of men and to highlight the issues like discrimination against them in the areas of social services, attitudes and expectations.

International Men’s Day (IMD) is, however, not officially recognised by the United Nations, which ironically observes the World Toilet Day on the same day, i.e. 19th November to raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis, as if only men need this awareness.

Jokes apart, according to UNICEF and WHO, approximately 60% of the global population, or approximately 4.5 billion people, do not have toilets at home or do not know how to properly dispose of toilet waste.

To put focus on the crucial issue of sanitation, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched on 2nd October, 2014 and within five years, over 100 million toilets in rural India were constructed to declare all villages open-defecation free (ODF) on 2nd October, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Now coming back to the issue of IMD, we all know that International Women’s Day (IWD) is also celebrated every year on 8th March to commemorate the achievements of women and to highlight their issues like gender equality and violence and abuse against women.

But the question is, “Why IMD?” The answer is “Why not?” After all, they are also human beings and face several issues in and around society as protectors of the family.

The Day is, therefore, observed to talk about several important topics related to men’s well-being and health, promoting positive expressions of masculinity and also highlighting their struggles. That’s why this year IMD celebrates the theme “Helping Men and Boys”.

A reasearch study shows that in India, 70% suicides are committed by males. As males can’t freely share their feelings, they suffer from more stress related issues like cardiac arrest, heart diseases, hypertension and diabetes. There are more cases of prostate cancer than breast cancer or uterine cancer.

Both IWD and IMD are gender-related events to highlight issues considered to be unique to women and men respectively. This, to my mind, is not appropriate. Today is the day to ponder.

Men and women are not pitted against each other. Nature has made them complementary and supplementary to each other, the two sides of the same coin. Let it remain like that.

Just imagine a life without each other. Will it not be really boring and impracticable? Whether men or women, they should always be there to listen to each other, and listen without judging.

So instead of observing IMD or IWD separately, let’s arrive at a common day to celebrate “International Human Day (IHD)” with theme, “better harmony between men and women for a better world“.

Till the consensus is reached, let’s celebrate both days as IHD for better harmony, but the question remains, “If we can celebrate Human Rights Day (10th December) and World Humanitarian Day (19th August) together, then why not IHD?”

–Kaushal Kishore

images: pinterest

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