It was different; it was a different kind of gang-rape that
shook not only the nation but also the Diaspora, besides evoking strong and
sensitive reactions from abroad. It even prompted the Secretary General of the
United Nations to write to the Indian Prime Minister for ensuring greater
security for women. It was a different kind of rape in that it was not like the
ones that are reported almost every day in the newspapers. It was different
because it was an uncommonly and excessively brutal and beastly assault, which
tore up the insides of the 23-year old bright and ambitious paramedic,
eventually taking her life despite the best efforts of medicine men in the
country’s capital and abroad.
So much has been written about this unfortunate incident that
it is now needless to repeat the details. What, however, matters is that this
rape has become a sort of a watershed in the Indian social consciousness.
Reports of rapes in the newspapers and the electronic media have been frequent,
if not regular, and common people have been taking them in their stride,
pursuing their day-to-day activities leaving the rape-victims to fend for
themselves in the tortuously protracted (and sometimes gender-biased)
investigations followed by adjournments-and-appeals infested legal proceedings.
But the mindless brutality exhibited in this particular case of sexual violence
seems to have acted as the tipping point that released unprecedented social
energy in the shape of protests and strident demands for the lives of the brute
rapists who displayed traits worse than those of predatory animals.
The barbaric rape provoked an acute sense of horror, distress
and shock stirring up the nation, setting off spontaneous reactions right
across the country. Massive peaceful assemblies were held, to start with, in
Delhi at a scale much larger than what one had seen in 2011 during Anna
Hazare’s Lokpal campaign. Later, it spread all across the country from north to
south and east to west. Largely non-violent, barring a few stray incidents of
violence engineered by miscreants in Delhi, the demonstrations, though
leaderless, exhibited exemplary discipline and restraint. There was no
breast-beating, only loud and vociferous demands for, inter alia, change of the
laws, meting out prompt justice ending in severe punishment to the perpetrators
of the horrific crime. The civil society has never reacted in this manner in
the past bewildering, as it did, the political and governmental establishments.
The protestors, with their legitimate demands for harsher
punishment for rape and sexual assault, built up such a pressure on the
government that it promptly appointed a committee headed by a former chief
justice of the apex court to review the existing softer provisions dealing the
offences. They had to, as the protestors gave vent to their anger against the
MPs who, they said, unanimously enact legislations within three days raising
their salaries but amendments to the laws for sexual violence proposed by the
Law Commission have been left unattended for more than a decade. Likewise,
Delhi Government promptly set up five “fast track” courts to deal with rape
cases on the basis of 2003 recommendations of the same Commission. Typically,
commissions are created for specific purposes but their recommendations are
seldom acted upon with promptitude for the benefit of the society. The pressure
this time was so overwhelming that the government couldn’t tarry any further.
Fearful of the
pervasive anger, the political class demanded special session of the parliament
to enact the amendments in a hurry when most of them remained dormant earlier,
never bothering to raise this vital issue even as rapes and assaults on women
were frequently being reported. Clearly, it was not the lapse of the government
alone; every political outfit was at fault. When the Home Minister put his
proverbial foot in the mouth by saying that the government could not meet
protestors all the time, he obviously forgot that three senior ministers had
met and spent about three hours meeting the Yoga Guru Ramdev with a view to
buying him off during 2011 agitations for enactment of a Lokpal bill. The
unforthcoming Prime Minister made a bland statement with a gaffe of a “theek
hai?” (all right?) at its tail end and later made amends by remaining present
at the Airport with the seemingly insensitive UPA Chairperson when the body of
the rape victim arrived from Singapore at the unearthly hour of 3.00 AM.
The Delhi Police never had it so bad, despite the Union Home
Secretary’s gratuitous pat on its back for prompt investigations followed by
arrests. The Home Secretary’s fatuous praise overlooked the fact that the
unfortunate assault would not have taken place had the Delhi Police functioned
in accordance with the law. Before the horrific attack there was a series of
failures of Delhi Police which are now common knowledge.
Recent reports, however, indicate the bus was booked on several
occasions for violation of various traffic rules in the past but each time it
was somehow let off lightly. Investigations have revealed that the bus-owner
was paying “hafta” (weekly bribe) to
the Police; an entry to that effect was found in a police diary. Such entries
are reportedly communicated to all traffic police officers to enable the buses
in question to illegally operate without let or hindrance. The young life of
the aspiring paramedic was lost largely because of the utter lack of governance
as exemplified by the ineffective and corrupt ways of Delhi Police.
Its strong-arm methods in dealing with the protestors too
came in for severe criticism. Its use of batons on unarmed protestors,
including elderly women, firing of numerous tear-gas shells and directing
high-pressure water cannons in severely cold conditions were condemned by all.
Evidently, Delhi Police’s assault on sleeping devotees of Yoga Guru Ramdev
Delhi’s Ram Leela Grounds in 2011 was not a one-off action. It has a history of
such atrocious conduct. It also came in for heavy criticism for its steps to
prevent peaceful assembly of protests at India Gate and Jantar Mantar by
blocking all roads and imposition of prohibitory orders, respectively. The
Delhi High Court pulled it up asking it to maintain law and desist from curbing
basic rights. Later, it has had recently to apologise before the High Court for
suppression of the names of delinquent policemen.
Although the print and electronic media called her “Nirbhaya”
(fearless) and “Damini” (lightning), respectively, the rape victim has remained
faceless and nameless even after her death. The media, however, has been doing
outstanding work ferreting out relevant facts connected with the incident. Even
the companion of the victim was interviewed who emphasised that instead of
lighting candles people should help others who happen to be in distress. Had
people promptly responded to appeals made by him while lying on the roadside,
he asserted, the victim might have survived. A news channel has, therefore,
launched a campaign for change in attitudes of such pervasive callousness
prompted by fear of harassment by the Police. A distinct hands-off attitude has
been perceptible all over the country in such cases largely because of
protracted, virtually interminable police investigations in which witnesses and
others who attempt to help the victim are browbeaten and threatened by the
corrupt police investigators. The channel’s initiative is indeed praise-worthy
but the policemen all over the country also will have to mend their ways.
Even as the nation was virtually on an unofficial mourning
for the death of an innocent victim because of a brutal assault some
conservative legislators and organisations placed all the blame for her
misfortune on the girl. While some felt that she should not have been out on
the streets with her boy friend so late in the evening, others blamed only her
for the incident. According to them, mostly it is the women who invite trouble
either by way of their conduct or by wearing Western dresses that expose far
too much. They blamed Westernisation of social mores for whatever was happening
to women in the country. The chief of an extreme right wing organisation, while
showing utter disconnect with reality in speciously calling rapes an urban
phenomenon, asserted that Hindu marriages were a contract under which women
were ordained to serve the needs of their husbands. Another self-styled god-man
blamed the victim for not seeking mercy from those who attacked her. The media
has been proactive in hitting out at and tearing apart those who made regressive
statements or sexist, gender-biased comments. The newly elected Congress MP,
the son of the President, had to face inquisitional questioning from several
channels for his idiotic comment against the protestors whom he contemptuously
called “highly dented and painted” socialites.
Rapes were being reported every day from various corners of
the country even while the protest against the Delhi rape were continuing. It
seemed the rapists were immune to whatever was happening around them and the
sub-culture of rape seems to be flourishing unabated. The spate of reports in
the dailies made one wonder whether it was the media’s way of trying to project
before the country the enormity of the problem. The silver lining, however, was
that Police, having shaken away its lethargy, promptly nabbed most of the rapists.
In many ways the gang rape has turned out to be a defining episode.
Never before people were brought so close together in sorrow, anguish and anger
against the non-functionality of the established system. Shaking the people and
the political class alike, it has left a deep impact on the nation’s
consciousness. As far as the Establishment is concerned, the cruel and pitiless
episode has driven another nail in the coffin of the UPA government.
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