The entire nation has been rocked by the horrific gang rape and mutilation of a girl in Delhi, who boarded a bus after watching a late show of a movie with a male friend. The incident in all its gory has been detailed across the media and I'll spare you that. There has been an outrage, justifiably so, against the disgusting event and you see a case of people wanting to seethe against something. The anger is all over the place not unlike someone grasping for any support when trapped in a room without light. You want to reason, you want a narrative with a villain who can be caught and punished. Only in this case the perpetuators have been nabbed and the police were very efficient is getting hold of them within 48 hours of the incident. The administration has promised to move the case through fast track courts and it has been suggested that they might argue it as an 'Attempt to murder' charge and plead for the highest penalty.
But somehow, it still doesn't feel satisfying. Maybe, if the rapists had been on a run for a while and then been caught, it would have given the media and everyone sense of closure and people would have moved on with their lives. In this case, there is no running away from the ugly truth: it is a systemic problem and there don't seem to be any easy solutions. We have to live with it and let it bristle inside of us. We have to brood over it and introspect. Blaming the police, the state, the chief minister, demanding death penalty for rapists are all justified but misguided expressions of anger. We want instant gratification, we want instant justice. Retribution is an easier narrative and more fulfilling than introspection.
Lets step back for a second and see how we can fix this. There are 2 paths and their associated solutions. They are both complementary and necessary; we need embark on both simultaneously.
First of all, from a law and order perspective, we need to explore the different ways to empower women and the police to prevent such crimes. There are lot of lessons to be learnt from other countries. There was a great article on firstpost.com on this topic, which I'll summarize here. Most rapes have a typical script: the target is likely alone or vulnerable in other ways, they tend to happen around late evenings or early nights, the locations are deserted areas where lighting is often poor. Once the most common scripts are identified, then the police can breakdown the steps and insert themselves at any of the points to prevent the crimes from happening. Police rounds during the nights could be more focussed on the risky neighborhoods. Routes from and around movie theaters are potential targets and could be monitored carefully. There are a lot of steps a woman can take to protect herself or at least mitigate risks such as these. It pains me to even write something like this: asking someone to learn self defense skills or be always vigilant in a free country. Its shameful that we have to ask our women to be cautious and not feel free and safe. But I'm trying to be practical here and look objectively at what we can do in the short term. No one should have to carry weapons, but I plead everyone to always have a basic knife, pepper spray and learn a kick move to the groins which could be inflicted on a hostile stranger.
Secondly, there has to be systematic overhaul of how rape cases are handled. The police's apathy is shocking, they need to be given sensitivity trainings and counseled right from the day of induction. Rape is a heinous crime and the they must treat it as such without prejudice. All rape cases should be automatically transferred to a specialized department which only focus on crimes against women. The officers in that department would be handpicked based on their sensibilities, stature and past performance. Needless to say it should be dominated, if not entirely composed of, by women. And fast track courts or separate courts can be established to handle such case in their entirety. Even judges for these courts should ideally be women or be handpicked to ensure that they are sensitive to the issues. The last thing we need is another judge who advocates marrying of the victim to the rapist.
Now all these solutions will help solve the current menace to an extent. But the underlying causes for these crimes against women are sociological in nature. Indian men have been sexually repressed under the bogus pretext of cultural conservatism. A nation of a billion people did not appear magically. Sexual education needs to be imbibed right from schools. Lets talk about sex from a young age, understand it without the myths and misinformation, learn how to practice it in safe manner. Lets get rid of single-sex schools, boys and girls should grow up together and learn to respect each other. If boys grow up with girls and spend time with them and be friends, then they will learn to respect women and not treat them as conquests to satisfy their libidos. The commodification of women's bodies in ads and movies, double entendres and innuendoes in films, sexist or blatantly misogynist stories under the pretext of commercial cinema needs to cracked upon. It is NOT OK to make a lewd joke about a female colleague and tease someone at the bus stop.
It is a slow process, but we have to singe ourselves to ensure that the next generation learns to respect its women and lets them live their lives in any which way they choose to.
Update (12/25/2012): I wrote this post about a week earlier and for various reason didn't post it then. Since then, there have been widespread protests in the capital and other parts of the country. And they seem to be similar to the outbursts that I had talked about in the first couple of paragraphs. The Delhi Govt, Central Govt and the Delhi police have of course done a spectacular job of alienating and hurting protestors who were merely trying to voice their vulnerabilities. Instead of displaying any signs of contrition or understanding, they have been trying to treat this as a law & order situation, which misses the point completely. I cannot for the life of me, try to fathom the insanity that is taking place and my only fear is that these police atrocities will end up camouflaging the larger issues at hand.
But somehow, it still doesn't feel satisfying. Maybe, if the rapists had been on a run for a while and then been caught, it would have given the media and everyone sense of closure and people would have moved on with their lives. In this case, there is no running away from the ugly truth: it is a systemic problem and there don't seem to be any easy solutions. We have to live with it and let it bristle inside of us. We have to brood over it and introspect. Blaming the police, the state, the chief minister, demanding death penalty for rapists are all justified but misguided expressions of anger. We want instant gratification, we want instant justice. Retribution is an easier narrative and more fulfilling than introspection.
Lets step back for a second and see how we can fix this. There are 2 paths and their associated solutions. They are both complementary and necessary; we need embark on both simultaneously.
First of all, from a law and order perspective, we need to explore the different ways to empower women and the police to prevent such crimes. There are lot of lessons to be learnt from other countries. There was a great article on firstpost.com on this topic, which I'll summarize here. Most rapes have a typical script: the target is likely alone or vulnerable in other ways, they tend to happen around late evenings or early nights, the locations are deserted areas where lighting is often poor. Once the most common scripts are identified, then the police can breakdown the steps and insert themselves at any of the points to prevent the crimes from happening. Police rounds during the nights could be more focussed on the risky neighborhoods. Routes from and around movie theaters are potential targets and could be monitored carefully. There are a lot of steps a woman can take to protect herself or at least mitigate risks such as these. It pains me to even write something like this: asking someone to learn self defense skills or be always vigilant in a free country. Its shameful that we have to ask our women to be cautious and not feel free and safe. But I'm trying to be practical here and look objectively at what we can do in the short term. No one should have to carry weapons, but I plead everyone to always have a basic knife, pepper spray and learn a kick move to the groins which could be inflicted on a hostile stranger.
Secondly, there has to be systematic overhaul of how rape cases are handled. The police's apathy is shocking, they need to be given sensitivity trainings and counseled right from the day of induction. Rape is a heinous crime and the they must treat it as such without prejudice. All rape cases should be automatically transferred to a specialized department which only focus on crimes against women. The officers in that department would be handpicked based on their sensibilities, stature and past performance. Needless to say it should be dominated, if not entirely composed of, by women. And fast track courts or separate courts can be established to handle such case in their entirety. Even judges for these courts should ideally be women or be handpicked to ensure that they are sensitive to the issues. The last thing we need is another judge who advocates marrying of the victim to the rapist.
Now all these solutions will help solve the current menace to an extent. But the underlying causes for these crimes against women are sociological in nature. Indian men have been sexually repressed under the bogus pretext of cultural conservatism. A nation of a billion people did not appear magically. Sexual education needs to be imbibed right from schools. Lets talk about sex from a young age, understand it without the myths and misinformation, learn how to practice it in safe manner. Lets get rid of single-sex schools, boys and girls should grow up together and learn to respect each other. If boys grow up with girls and spend time with them and be friends, then they will learn to respect women and not treat them as conquests to satisfy their libidos. The commodification of women's bodies in ads and movies, double entendres and innuendoes in films, sexist or blatantly misogynist stories under the pretext of commercial cinema needs to cracked upon. It is NOT OK to make a lewd joke about a female colleague and tease someone at the bus stop.
It is a slow process, but we have to singe ourselves to ensure that the next generation learns to respect its women and lets them live their lives in any which way they choose to.
Update (12/25/2012): I wrote this post about a week earlier and for various reason didn't post it then. Since then, there have been widespread protests in the capital and other parts of the country. And they seem to be similar to the outbursts that I had talked about in the first couple of paragraphs. The Delhi Govt, Central Govt and the Delhi police have of course done a spectacular job of alienating and hurting protestors who were merely trying to voice their vulnerabilities. Instead of displaying any signs of contrition or understanding, they have been trying to treat this as a law & order situation, which misses the point completely. I cannot for the life of me, try to fathom the insanity that is taking place and my only fear is that these police atrocities will end up camouflaging the larger issues at hand.