What we the people of India can do about the mindset

There has been a lot of talk about changing the mindset in our patriarchy leaden society, families though there is no clear indication as to how this could be done.

Two points of actions that can be initiated in indvidual homes come to mind  :

a)      Parents (especially mothers through their conditioned instinct and awareness about the patriarchy in action, but fathers no less if only because they provide the theoretical underpinning of patriarchy) should not discriminate, in the real sense, between the boys and the girls. Have you ever seen mothers asking boys to try doing normal household chores (say, helping the mother in the kitchen or taking care of a younger sibling instead of going to school or preparing for a competition) which a girl child is routinely expected to learn and excel ? This also includes the discrimination about norms of gender-appropriate behaviour. Of course significant discrimination about food, nutrition, medical attention and education - sometimes subtle, sometimes open - exists and must be eradicated. This will require the parents to fight their own acquired prejudices handed down through family and strengthened by cultural stereotypes promoted in both real society and in the entertainment world.

b)      Parents must teach their children to accept NO for an answer as a part of the civilised behaviour. And this is not just about the material goodies that they need for their satisfaction. Perhaps it is time the parents bite the bullet and actively educate their children in a calibrated manner about sex, at least as the latter move through their unstable adolescent years. The parents, having the best interests of their children, can be expected to impart reliable information in a matter of fact manner. This should not be left alone to outside agencies like schools. In particular they must also teach the children about the delinquent and sexually deviant behaviour and how society looks upon and how they punish those who inflict such cruel hurt on girls or even small children. This will require a major effort on the part of the parents in removing their own mental block and making the trade off between the prized innocence of childhood against an appropriately organized training and mental preparation in respect of an everpresent threat to their children’s safety. There can be no two opinion about the need to impart, simultaneously, rigorous physical and self-defense training.

Mindset is a devious thing. Most if not all of us imbibe this from our family environment which gets ingrained much before we are equipped to confront it rationally. This also works in an insidious manner through the interstices of a mind given to lazy generalizations, accepting received wisdom and parroting the same without realizing the import of what we are saying. The deep-seated mindset also often causes a divergence between our professed liberal opinion and a not-so rational and anything-but enlightened behaviour, results in our acceding to retrograde suggestions, proposals, requests made by friends, relatives, allows people who by virtue of being in superior or respected position to remain an unquestioned authority for us. If we seriously intend to fight the backlash of the patriarchal mindset we need to root the vestiges of the same within ourselves. The purveyors of false Bharatiya cultural construct and its claptraps would not have been able to withstand our withering gaze if we had chosen to sport one.  

What the government and the political parties can do

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.