..for sometimes
resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.. Barack
Obama, September 10, 2013 (from his Syria speech) (India timeline – September
11)
I do not have any intention to use
these words from yet another highly emphatic Barack Obama speech delivered the
Barack Obama way, unambiguous and to the point, but the words somewhere
resonated in my thinking while shuffling through the news channels on TV,
sifting for the news coverage on the likely announcing of the quantum of
sentence in the December 16, 2013 Delhi gangrape case.
In the aftermath of the huge,
unprecedented public outrage on the December 16 gangrape, India did pass a
tougher legislation but nothing much seems to have changed.
What on paper was done was more
than resolutions and statements of condemnation if we go by the printed words,
of legislations, of parliamentary discussions, of political promised made in
the Parliament, but these measures are simply not enough the unabated wave of
crime against women proves.
Closure, the sense of it, the
debates around it, if the family of the brave girl is going to get it, if those
of the masses who felt at one with the family’s pain are going to get it - the
majority is saying in the one voice that only the death sentence to the four
accused found guilty of all the charges by a Delhi Fast-track Court can bring
closure. The demand was only aggravated after the leniency shown by the System
in the case of the juvenile accused, which the reports said, was the most
brutal one.
Yes, the family may get its
closure the way it is demanding when the quantum of sentence announced on
Friday goes its way.
But how can there be any closure
that the humanity needs in case of such crime incidents when the root-cause
continues. It is in the mindset.
Statistically, crimes against
women including rape and murder have increased consistently over the years.
Even if we single out Delhi and that too, after the December 16 horror last
year, when there has been apparently heightened sense of responsibility from
almost every quarter, we come across a frightening set of data that says the
first eight months of 2013 have broken the record of 10 years with 1036 rape
cases.
It is in the mindset and until
that is checked and controlled, there cannot be any closure.
It is not that something so
socially demoralizing has happened post the December 16 gangrape that the
country (and Delhi) are witnessing higher number of rape cases. It tells us the
dark side of humanity was even darker and with increased attention to the crimes
against women, some light has started falling on that.
The increased number of reported
cases tells us people are coming ahead now to confront the heinous crime shedding
the inhibitions of the so-called and planted social stigmas. It also tells us
how the governance has been an utter failure that it could not stem the rot
even in Delhi, the national Capital of India.
In India, the general perception
(and the right perception) that ‘resolutions and statements of condemnation
have, simply, never been enough’ is a harsh reality.
And even if that is addressed somehow,
it is not going to change anything until the mindset is changed.
We can blame the System, we can
blame the politicians, we can blame the governance, but we also need to blame
us, the society, vehemently for this.
The rapists are hidden among us
only inhabiting the deep-rooted darkness of a criminal mindset.
The light has to be strong enough
to weed out this darkness.
Till then, there cannot be any
closure in such cases.