Wish you a very regretful New Year--Part 3

The Reality, Punishment and Future

I know it is quite late to publish the 3rd part of the article. But i had deliberately waited to publish it late, in order to make people realize that how forgetful they are about issues, despite it creating a ripple throughout the nation.Its been nearly a week since the articles and reports regarding rapes have started declining by the day and people have started to forget the incident and have started talking about other issues. 

With a brief introduction above, this leads us to the first Sub-heading that is mentioned in the title.

The Reality

Protests all over major cities, especially the capital. Metro rail services blocked, roads barricaded, announcement of section 144, etc. These are the many steps taken by the authorities to prevent the people to gather in places such as India Gate in order to echo for the Delhi gang rape victim who died a few days back. While the concern of the general public is to be appreciated as a whole, I happened to get skeptical about the crowd who had gathered for protest. I doubt whether all of them are protesters indeed. It is not meant to be offensive of the concerned people who have taken days off to protest in order to ensure justice for the victim, but while people are looking up at the crimes that have reached sky-high, we sometimes fail to look down upon the reality of the situation. 

This sub-heading was not meant to be a part of this article initially, but I brought it out after i saw a report that made me feel ashamed of the nation I live in and the state of affairs that it is in now. A female journalist being groped by some random guy in a mob during a protest against crime against women. It sounds ironic, but in reality it is something which shows us that, we have not yet evolved (at least mentally) as civilized human beings. The situation is even worse when this victimized journalist happened to tweet this. Very few people sympathized her, whereas others blamed her of seeking publicity, some called her a liar, some people (whom i wouldn't even consider calling them humans, but had to) even told her to enjoy the masculine touch. This incident shows us how low can mankind stoop for the sake of a pleasure lasting for a few minutes which comes with a price tag of the victim's mental agony. 

This was just one case that came to light, even that had because of the victim being a journalist. There could have been many more issues, opportunistic people capitalize on such situations. One can always find in any gathering of people, Drunkards or non-drunkards trying to misbehave with women in the crowd, pick pockets, who thrive on the income from the purses of protesters and many others. Sadly enough, people are not aware of the reality that exists in protests.

Punishment

With the whole mob of protesters on their brim of explosion and many demanding for a lynch mob style punishment, it is necessary for us to think wisely and decide with the course of action and the legal proceedings. Though the entire group of protesters are united in seeking justice for the victim, they stand divided on the punishment that is to be awarded to the perpetrators, if found guilty. Currently, the laws provide life sentence for rape and unless the rarest-of-rare crimes , death penalty is not awarded. 

There is a group demanding death penalty for the perpetrators, one demanding castration of the convicts and another pressing for life time confinement in prison. When looked on a case-by-case basis, though the idea behind death penalty was to instill fear in the people and prevent them from committing crime, it does not prove to deter the rate of crime, especially with crimes against women. Following this is the demand for Chemical castration, but one must understand that, there can be no drop in rape instances, with the implementation of castration either. The criminals would find some other innovative way to humiliate the woman, these would be so gross that i do not wish to discuss in my article. One must understand that rape is not just penile vaginal intercourse, as in the Delhi rape case, the perpetrators used an iron rod as well. OK  now back to the discussion of the various cases of punishment for perpetrators of rape. When looked at life imprisonment, it can prove to be a deterrence to the crime, especially if it is solitary confinement. This is so because considering death which kills the convict within a matter of minutes. Castration which ensures that the convict does not have an erection but will still give him a considerably amount of freedom in other terms except sexual pleasure. Whereas with solitary confinement, it would be hell on earth, not on literal terms but it will subject the convict to a mental torture of being cut off from rest of the world. It would also give time for the perpetrator(s) to introspect on their crime and give them space to regret for the same, if they wish to.

The Future

Now with discussing the reality and the punishment that can be implemented on the convicts, naturally comes the question about the future--is it going to be anyway safe for women? Well, as an answer to that question, we need to understand one thing. We live in India, a place where people have started thinking progressively in a materialistic way, but still are way behind in the stone age in terms of thinking progressively for the place of woman in the society which was governed by the men in the yesteryear. Most of the people today lack maturity in thought regarding women donning the roles which were meant for men otherwise. All the uproar and talks regarding women empowerment just remains on papers and when it comes to implementation, everyone slows down.

As with immature thought, we blame the women of stimulating crimes against them. A Self acclaimed god-man arbitrarily says that the crime would not have happened if the victim had pleaded to the perpetrators and addressed them as brothers. Can we be more stupid than this? It is a shame that a man who is respected spiritually doesn't even know to respect the dead and uses the victim's case as a tool to give his discourse. 

If a god-man can turn out to be so ignorant, we have an entire government, who are supposed to crackdown on the criminals, instead impose restrictions on male and female interactions and bring in dress codes for women with a belief of controlling crimes against women. It is very sad that a government in a huge democracy like India, had to blame the women's dressing sense and brought in dress codes. The government is also intruding into the social sphere of the women by restricting interaction between men and women.

It is indeed, the need-of-the hour that we bring about some change that makes the street safer for women, but no one asked for the safety that comes with strings attached, such as sacrificing social freedom. By imposing such directives by the government, it does not serve the purpose of protecting womankind, instead it shows the inability of the government to act upon criminals and its readiness to just sit and start the blame game.
But the real change can come only on a long term, it is time that we don't hide everything under the guise of culture, girl children must be reassured that they can approach parents or elders to report anything that might make them feel uncomfortable. Parents must start speaking up and explain children about harassment of women. The schools must start implementing value education in school curriculum in order to ensure that the children understand moral values and turn out to be better citizens tomorrow to stand up for the cause of women or at least would not indulge in violence against women. It is the childhood days which put up a foundation pile to the adulthood tomorrow, hence it is necessary that the children are properly groomed. The change that we need cannot be enforced, it must come from within and the best place to implement those changes is childhood.

As you can see, this is the last of the three part article. It is indeed very sad that a civilized country like India had to witness such a brutal case of rape, especially in the capital. My respects to the victim who died even after putting up a fight and expressing her desire to live on. May her soul Rest In Peace.