An infuriated India spent the last two weeks with one prayer on quivering lips — that of a speedy recovery of the courageous 23-year-old gang rape victim who has been virtually transformed into a rare rallying point for an otherwise divided and apathetic nation.
When the country was gearing up for year-end festivities, this young paramedical student, who breathed her last in a Singapore hospital endured the worst form of sexual violence in a moving bus running through the fortified thoroughfares of India’s capital city on the fateful night of Dec. 16 in the presence of her battered and gagged male companion.
The young girl was not only raped by six mindless people including a juvenile, her private part was also penetrated with an iron bar resulting in permanent damage to her lower abdomen. Confronted with this outrageous act of violence, an initially dumbstruck society witnessed an outpouring of spontaneous youth ire on the streets of Delhi. The young generation braved police onslaught to issue a clear ultimatum to the ruling class — that such callous attitude on the part of the government machinery will not be tolerated anymore.
Echoing the demand of Anne F. Stenhammer, UN women regional program director, they called for radical administrative and legal reforms that will not only ensure justice to the victims of such abuses but also usher a robust public service for effectively securing Indian women’s dignity. But given the political leadership’s inability to decipher the DNA strand of modern day apolitical protest and accordingly engage with a popular upsurge; one wonders whether the ultimate objective of creating a safe environment for women folk can be achieved at all.
The administration preferring to look the other way as a staggering 23,582 rape cases surfaced in 2011 alone is reason enough to doubt the government’s seriousness in dealing with this social crisis effectively. The harrowing data of a rape being committed every 23 minutes should have spurred the entire political system into action. When a total of 44 lawmakers facing grave charges of serious crimes against women are seen strutting around with impunity inside the premises of hallowed institutions like the Parliament and state legislative assemblies, can we realistically expect the same lot to put up a diligent fight against this scourge despite all the fiery and emotional speeches that can be found reverberating across the walls and portals of these historic buildings?
Unfortunately, confusion looms large all over the administrative structure with everybody in worthwhile position accusing each other and looking for scapegoats. The Delhi Police chief and the popularly elected head of the Delhi government are at loggerheads after a war of words erupted over the security apparatus’ brazen attempt to influence victim’s statement.
In the midst of this hullabaloo, five poor staff members of the official Doordarshan television channel were suspended from service for the goof-up in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s nationally televised speech seeking to soothe frayed temper. Above all, the Home Ministry entrusted with the power of supervising security in the national capital region is apparently engaged in a blatant attempt to discredit a section of the protesters by leveling culpable homicide charges for the death of a police official during the scuffle.
With Rahul Gandhi discreetly manipulating the daily affairs of Home Ministry through his loyalist R.P.N. Singh — the junior minister, one wonders whether the very technique of infiltrating this passionate demonstration with agent provocateurs was employed to minimize the damage caused to the projected prime minister’s teflon coated image?
Whatever the reasons, the deliberate ploy to reduce this public outcry into a “free for all” is aimed at diverting attention from the core issue. Worst still, the government riding piggyback on a secret intelligence report predicting large scale arson in case of an eventuality ultimately ended up hastening the expiry of the victim. No medical practitioner of competence will ever certify a modus operandi that entails high altitude journey for a critical patient whose cardiac ejection fraction has dropped below 50 percent.
By harping on “rarest of rare” capital punishment for selective cases, the government intends to target the circumstances and nature of the felony instead of the crime itself. A rape is a rape one must remember — whether committed by a civilian or a man in uniform and the letter of the existing laws needs to be reframed accordingly to plug all loopholes. The strategy to deal with this menace, head on, must be wholesome and multipronged. Past experiences suggest that capital punishment has never been the panacea for sexual offence. Instead, the state has used such emotional clamor to tide over societal pressure and get back to the slumber state once the hue and cry subsides.
From police to judicial reforms on one hand — for expediting trial of sexual offence cases and ensuring maximum conviction rate — to amendment of existing statute for incorporating provisions of rigorous lifelong incarceration, castration, bobbitization and inscribing tattoo on the forehead to stigmatize the offender coupled with stiff financial penalty in the form of cloaking the perpetrator’s asset for compensating the victims can serve as an effective deterrent.
In addition, the society must play a pivotal role in identifying the subtle preliminary sign of behavioral changes within an individual at home, educational institutions and workplaces. Last but not the least, the popular culture of using women as objects of desire in entertainment medium, which has bolstered a perverse mindset nurtured by the Indian patriarchal psyche for years together, must be discouraged by one and all. A storm is brewing and the tremor detected. The sooner the government realizes it, the better it is for the Indian democracy or else the simmering winter of discontent might get amplified into India’s future “Arab Spring.”
