Calling for nebulous changes in the rape law including death penalty or castration is a cheap populist response that befits the practitioners of opportunist lowest-common-denominator politics, pandering to the emotional street reaction of the public baying for the blood. Activists not given to rhetoric know very well that with a harsher punishment, the conviction rate, already abysmally low (26%), would drop further and therefore they have never advocated death or similar penalty for rape. Even the prescribed minimum sentence of seven years is not always handed out in many cases one is lucky to see conviction.
That the government means business can be shown, more pertinently, by taking demonstrable actions – not just by token actions against some low level functionaries - but against the gangrenous organs of the state machinery including top-level ‘engineers’ and ‘architects’ responsible for designing and controlling the operations of this machinery, which has cumulatively over a long period of time created this atmosphere of impunity in which the criminals and their apprentices seem to feel at home and be emboldened.
To do justice it would not be enough to promptly arrest and arrange to prosecute the perpetrators in the particular case of the recent brutal assault on the young medical student in Delhi. These hoodlums and sadists happen to be the dregs of the society and not in any way connected with anybody in power. It is unrealistic to assume that the record of police in pussyfooting cases for years in cases the accused is politically well connected (like the abduction and rape of one 14 year old in Lucknow in 2005 by a youngster connected to somebody in the Samajwadi party in power then and now) will be rectified immediately. But that is exactly what the government should aim for if its protestations are to be taken seriously. Also fast tracking this high profile case in Delhi (under the present public pressure) and pressing for maximum punishment for the offences under law – while passing over many thousand other pending cases of violence against women (a large fraction being rape) in Delhi and indeed all over the country, would not help lift the gloom enveloping the democratic edifice the country is justifiably proud about.
Because to do justice would also mean taking serious steps to fill in huge gaps in judicial appointments, not just opening fast track courts today only to let them become nonfunctional over time due to manpower, funds and resources. That will also require massive overhaul of the forensic laboratories languishing all over the country for skilled manpower and infrastructure. Fast tracking of court procedures without due diligence in obtaining scientific forensic evidence will not lift the rate of convictions in rape cases thus undercutting the effectiveness of justice delivery and putting paid to the goal of deterrence.
Naming and shaming the sex offenders (possibly with their pictures and addresses) by police is being suggested as one of the concrete deterrents for the would-be offenders. May be that would be a good thing if the thought ever materializes into actual charts in police stations all over the country, public places, on the web. But what about naming and shaming the insensitive policemen and the politicians ?
During the last two weeks several political leaders made usual statements (about the dress and the character of the victim, advisability of her venturing out, etc) that can clearly be associated with a retrograde patriarchal mindset that, by way of a convoluted rationalization, effectively justifies violence against women. Of course this is not the first time they have been saying these things. Nor are they the only ones who venture to display a penchant for analysis in this context. Many policemen (Noida, park street ..) were equally wise. Can the top leaders of the parties to which these leaders with proclivity to make foot-in-the mouth statements belong, publicly tell them off and remove them from important party positions, deny them election ticket for a period should an election be round the corner ? Can such policemen be publicly reprimanded and punished within the rules for showing disrespect and insensitivity to complainants or refusing to register the FIR ? And this has to happen routinely, not just around December 2012 but through out 2013 and thereafter. These things do not require deliberations in committees, but an acknowledgement about the rotten mindset that, everybody says, should change.
May be that is a tall order. But if such a miracle were to happen, those intrepid protesters who were chanting ‘we want justice’ (whose import the honourable home minister said he did not quite understand) and many others behind closed doors would have started believing that the government finally found a way to start responding.
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