Every 20 minutes, a rape is reported to be committed somewhere in the country. What a testimonial for a nation claiming to be the world's largest vibrant democracy, besides a hoary, hallowed civilisation! We have female deities but we exploit women
Nothing has really changed since the despicable Nirbhaya gang rape over four years ago. A daily average of six rape cases in Delhi alone sends shivers down the spine. How often one is left to stare at screaming newspaper headlines narrating macabre episodes, one more gruesome than the other, of not only young girls but even toddlers brutalised by runaway youths, many among them juveniles, reinforcing pervasive public perception of audacity and fearlessness of morbid young minds, administrative inertia, effete governance, and the bankruptcy of social systems.
The National Crime Records Bureau reveals that, among India’s cities, Delhi registered 25.7 per cent of all cognizable crimes in the country in 2015, earning the sobriquet of India’s ‘crime capital’, ‘rape capital’, ‘stalking capital’. The crime data that Delhi Police has just revealed shows how perilous the nation’s capital remains, particularly for women, who make a distress call to the helpline every nine minutes on an average. Allegations of crime against women in the city include a molestation plaint every two hours, and a rape case every four hours. The city led the rest of the country with 1,636 incidents of rape in 2013, rising to 2,166 in 2014, 2,199 in 2015, and marginally falling to 2,155 cases filed in 2016. And now there are rape videos on sale.
Every 20 minutes, a rape is reported to be committed somewhere in the country. What a testimonial for a nation claiming to be the world’s largest vibrant democracy, besides a hoary, hallowed civilisation! We revere our country as Bharat Mata; we respect womanhood as nothing short of devi or mother. Instead, in reality, we remain guilty of horrendous crimes against women, shameful treatment of the girl child, in embryo and after birth. Undoubtedly a complex issue, it encompasses steadily eroding filial and societal norms and values as much as growing anomaly for and alienation from the state. The rape of these innocent women is, in fact, the rape of India’s soul and spirit; that’s how it occasionally galvanises men and women, young and old, in pain and anguish.
The rot runs deep. A complete subversion of means and ends has turned the life of Indian society upside down, to the point that there are acts which, although no doubt, criminal, are seldom condemned by the collective consciousness: kidnappings and rapes, smuggling and terrorism, thefts and murders, violation of laws and rules, criminals becoming public heroes, mafia gangs looming large with a halo of public acclaim. With strange impunity, cartels of avarice and extortion grow and prosper with uninhibited bravado, undeterred by the fear of the state or society.
India’s body social suffers from multi-organ failures. Its numerous rudderless youths remain bereft of any values imbibed at home or in school or from the vicinity; indeed, they learn a lot — how to exploit and extort, how to seek; not to strive. The Bollywood bonanza on the idiot box fuels this new-found urge among them to ape the celluloid hero and possess the artefacts of fanciful lifestyle; lurid films and songs add to the malaise. Good examples are the best teachers. But, what examples do we get from Government and Parliament, schools and surroundingsIJ The ubiquity and magnitude of scandals and scams has benumbed the people’s conscience, breeding cynicism and disaffection for the very institution of democracy — as practised in the country. Even khap panchayats, ever belligerent on community honour, remain inert. An image of an effete, confused, pusillanimous leadership endures.
The multi-layered governance leviathan remains immune; there is no clear accountability, no swift, deterrent punitive action. Shaken by the ‘high profile’ ghastly cases such as the Nirbhaya criminalisation, one believed the long arm of the state and the countrymen’s conscience would work as an effective deterrence against such barbaric acts. Notwithstanding the rape laws and conviction process rendered stringent, Delhi Police data reveal that only 29 per cent of the cases ended in conviction in 2015. Characteristically, the cases linger for long, each case taking an average of five years to be decided. It transpires that, of the 17,301 heinous crimes reported across the National Capital Region in 2014, chargesheets were filed in 5,346 cases and only 919 of the accused were convicted. The State Security Commission, overseeing such complaints, has not met for three years.
While there is no deterrence by way of swift, exemplary punishment for the culprits, the Delhi Government leaves an unfortunate impression of a largely narcissistic dispensation, remiss in providing assured remedial infrastructure such as robust public transport, installation of CCTV/GPS in buses, autos and taxies. Even after the police identified 2,177 ‘dark spots’, like south-west and south Delhi as most vulnerable to crime, and recommended provision of adequate street-lights, most of them remain defunct or non-existent. The judiciary procrastinates, the police is lackadaisical.
Delhi, with its adjoining areas for perceptible reasons, breeds cartels of depravity and decadence. For some days, many years ago, the perfidious Delhi Bagiya tandoor case was the talk of the town. A coincidence it was that a local leader was in the eye of the storm, an archetypal familiar figure strutting along in the capital city, signalling that the high and mighty, the nouveau riche and the political neophyte, the tough and the strong will get away even with gross savagery inflicted on the meek and infirm.
Bringing to the fore the travails of the Peruvian society, from which a parallel can be drawn for India, Hernando de Soto’s The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism, constitutes an indictment against the ineptitude and discrimination of the state in the Third World. The state as a rule legislates and regulates in favour of small pressure groups — what De Soto calls “redistributed coalitions” and discrimination against the interest of the large majorities whom this system punishes. Again, Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, in Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy, talk of the disgust and cynicism of Mexicans, which led to a standard formation of rescue brigades which later spawned grassroots political organisations.
A new paradigm of public anger, the ire and angst of the people, is a veritable powder keg, more so because it is sincere and silent. This catharsis of inner outrage implies that wages of sin will, in the end, permit no escape from retribution. The country’s mute majority is jolted by the young living with a profound sense of grief, reminding them of the insight from the American singer, John Gorka’s famous refrain, “The old future’s gone”. We may, or may not, yet be a failed state; with our decadent values, ethics, and mores, but we can’t deny we are a failed society.
(The writer is senior fellow, Asian Institute of Transport Development and commentator on social issues)
