RIP Rape

Hue & cry everywhere for a speedy trial in the Delhi gang rape issue. Inspired by the film she last saw (The life of Pi), apparently the victim tried to overcome her fate, but in vain. Everyone wants the 6 accused to be shown gallows asap. Quite interestingly, the Chief Justice of India has commented that a speedy trial should not be at the cost of fair trial. Government is fully convinced of a fast track court to complete the trial & to ensure justice for Amanat alias Nirbhaya alias Damini. Ajmal Kasab was able to lead a high profile, costly life for about 4 years, but we shall not give even 4 months for these accused.. No doubt that whatever she underwent is unimaginable & simply barbaric. But, will convicting & “killing” all the accused ensure similar incidents will not recur?

Aren’t we missing the bigger picture? Shouldn’t we put in systems & checks to avoid a repeat of what happened?

1.  After watching the film, the duo couldn’t get any public transport to reach their place. It was not a very odd time in the night & they are in the country’s capital. In our country, public transport is a meant only for the poor. When will government make public transport a preferred mode of transport & a reliable one?
2. They couldn’t even get an auto-rickshaw to reach their place. Whatever autos that came also, didn’t agree to take them. As per the registration conditions of an Auto, the auto driver is supposed to ply to any place within the registration limits at the prescribed tariff (guess, off-duty is the only exception). But in our country, we need to request the auto driver & we are at his mercy.. When will government concentrate on implementing their rules, rather than just spending time in passing?
3. Chartered bus – some of you may not know what it means. If a vehicle, say bus or maxi cab runs for a company, the vehicle will get something called “Private Service Vehicle” permit whereby it can only run for that company. If it is for general public, it will be termed as contract carriage & regular route buses will get Stage carriage permit. To maximize their revenue, it is a general scene that in almost all cities, chartered buses which are supposed to run only for their customers will take general public during off duty hours. This practice is so rampant & they are so cold-blooded to solicit passengers even in front of traffic police. Leave aside the huge revenue loss the government incurs in this out of road tax, permit fees, income tax, loss of revenue to government transport corporation etc. Safety, insurance etc are totally missing in such transport modes. In our rape case, this was the major reason & no one even seems to stop this menace of chartered buses taking general public. This issue is linked to point 1. Since the government is unable to provide adequate public transport, people go for other modes. If the accused had killed both of the victims & disposed off their bodies, maybe the deaths would have got added to the numerous “non-traceable” cases..
4. Just before the rape episode happened, a carpenter boarded the same bus & was looted. Am not sure whether he reported it to police or not. If he hadn’t reported, doesn’t it show the lack of confidence he has on the police? If he had reported, shouldn’t the bus be caught in the next junction? The bus had crossed so many police check posts before the entire rape scene was completed. More than speedy trial, isn’t speedy prevention of crime important?
5. Beyond all, what makes the culprits to commit this heinous crime? Are they psychopaths? NO. Are they habitual offenders? NO. It is not that a person who is committing a crime is ok for 7 years rigorous imprisonment & not okay for death penalty.. Should we blame it on our education system? I don’t know. But, we all will definitely agree the growing economic disparities between the powerful few & the disgruntled majority. Highly indirect effect, but nevertheless the future looks quite dangerous..

An item which is so abundant will not have any value & same is the case of people’s lives in our country. Being the second populous country, value for human life has become so cheap. Value for human life is not displayed by sending her to Singapore for treatment, deploying thousands of para-military men for security & by having VVVVIPs waiting in the airport to receive the body. Our Indian cities score much poor in the global liveability report published by various agencies (one solace is that the points are on rise, & score better than our east & west neighbours). Are our politicians & bureaucrats goaled on items like livability index, safety quotient, crime incidence, corruption levels etc? Didn’t our forefathers advocated democracy to ensure all of these stuff?

For the “Breaking news” hungry & competitive media, it was a good opportunity to increase their TRP & circulation. Just like the Anna Hazare episode, this too shall end after couple of months. Many of you will remember the fire incident in a school in tamil nadu where some 40/50 children were burnt to death & the carton towers fire in Bangalore, kolkatta market fire etc.. Are the reasons that caused these incidents addressed now? There are handful schools even in my own locality, which are not so safe, but what can we do? We choose to apply probability and say “it won’t happen to me”. We fail to address the root causes after these kind of issues & switch over to the next topic when we get bored. As usual government’s job is to make rules & our job is to flout them by feeding the hungry power holders. Maybe the accused may eventually say good bye to the world, but when will we be able to say good bye to rape incidents & other forms of crime?

I want to end this note with a highly controversial topic. What is rape? It is some kind of bodily pleasure which a person of 1 gender finds in the other against the wishes of the victim. Normally the person who motivates someone to perform a crime should get tougher punishment than the person who actually commits. The entire action of raping is due to god gifted hormones that gets added to the person’s ill-laden mind. Thus, is the crime having the urge to have sexual pleasures or the action of having forceful sexual pleasure? Definitely the latter, as the former is nothing but nature. So, if there are legal ways to satisfy the urge, wont it avoid the crime of rape? If you give rice or wheat at a cheap price, why will someone want to steal? May look indirect, but is very much direct. There is a positive correlation between legalising prostitution & reduction in incidence of rape. You may check in goggle about this, but believe me, it is a fact. My point here is to have prostitution in a controlled & legalised manner, which in addition to reducing rape cases will also help overcome spreading of STDs. Inspite of having rules against prostitution, we all know that is happening everywhere & we also know who is gaining out of that. Instead of having ineffective rules, we can as well slightly relax the rules & enforce whatever is really possible.. (when I spoke this topic with my wife, she was totally against it & I guess so many will do the same)..

Cheers,

Gowrishankar.