The Land Of Contradictions

The recent gang-rape, and physical assault on a young woman who eventually succumbed to her injuries,  has brought about an overwhelming response of fury from people from all walks of life through out the country. How can this happen in a country where some of the most powerful political figures are women, much more than most countries in the world  ? 

To list some of them,  Sonia Gandhi , the head of the ruling Indian National Congress Party , Meira Kumar is  the Speaker of  the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj a prominent leader of the Bharitya Janata Pary,  is the leader of the Opposition. Sushma Patil was the former President of India, Jayalalitha the Chief Minister of Tamil Naidu and the head of  All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party . Mamta Banerjee is the Chief Minister of W.Bengal and the head of the Trinamool Congress Party. Mayawati the head of the Bahujan Samajwati Party was the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in the country. Sheila Dixit is the Chief Minister of the capital Delhi.

 Also during the wedding season you read about the big fat Indian weddings where the bride's father ( businessmen , politician ) spends the equivalent of millions of dollars for his daughter's wedding to entertain thousands of people . The entertainers include top Bollywood or overseas performers who do not come cheap.  

You then have the contradiction of women being treated as chattel, where there is a rape committed in the country every few minutes. Delhi is not just the capital; it has the inglorious distinction of being classified the rape capital of the country According to the New York Times dated December 30th,2012, there were 600 rape cases reported in 2012 with one conviction. The National Crime Bureau statistics show  there were 228650  incidents  against women ,reported which averages almost 628 incidents ( which include crime such as  rape, molestation sexual harassment etc. ) a day,all over India. These do not include those which do not get reported ,including family incidents.

To make matters worse,  almost every day some unthinking politician makes a comment (including some the women politicians) as to how the rape victims brought it upon themselves , how they should dress soberly , how they should not go out at night “  dented & painted “ whatever that means. According to the social activists the problem arises, because it is a patriarchal society where women are treated as mere play things to be used and abused by the males.

However I would like to focus on the fact that almost all  of the rape victims tend to be from the poor or lower castes in the  rural areas or if in the cities from the  working class or the lower or middle middle class. You do not hear about such incidents among the wealthy or the senior bureaucrats. The reason for this is  because the wealthy do not use the public transportation in the evening , nor they do not live in areas which are not well lit, which exposes them  to the lecherous individuals. Also when these affected people go to the authorities to report them ,they are ignored or  not taken seriously , as happened recently with a young seventeen year girl in Punjab and who eventually committed suicide out of shame. 

Yes we do have to change the mind set of the men, but that is long term  solution. What can be done faster is  to amend the laws, but they in themselves will not make  much  of a difference. India has no shortage of laws, the problem is in the enforcement.We have to make the public transportation safe so that young people, particularly women  can travel without fear no matter how late it is. We need to ensure that when they go to the authorities, their complaints are registered, and action is taken immediately . The government needs to allocate more funds to the judiciary to enable them  to beef up the court system so that these cases can be fast tracked. They need to be able to hire better prosecutors, to ensure that they have a higher conviction record.These are relatively quick fixes, if the political will and determination is there.

It is only when laws are implemented without fear or favor,when people are made to pay for their crimes by serving long prison sentences, will we see the changes. Only then will there be one India - not one for the wealthy and well connected and one for everyone else.