'Rape capital of the world'
Indian society remains in dire need of an ethical dose to extinguish this stigma
A last-minute technical snag in the GSLV launch rocket in the Chandrayaan-2 mission has changed the mood of the nation from ecstatic anticipation to cautious wait for the perfect touchdown on the Moon to catapult India into the exclusive club of US, Russia, and China. One is sure that the wait will be short only. When such is the progress made in science and technology, society also should have been growing progressively in its character–in its scientific thinking and rationality. But, paradoxically, it has taken a retrograde step, animal passions and irrationality overtaking people; values jettisoned virtually in every field–business, industry, politics, religion, and even in common matters. Material existentialism and modern life-style, laced with non-scientific temper, have decimated our culture. Women, who were given an exalted place in our society from ancient times, now feel insecure. Innocent children, who were equated with god, are being subjected to cruel sexual assaults and are being robbed of the pleasures of childhood.
A decade ago Chandrayaan-1 discovered water in the exosphere, surface, and subsurface of the Moon. Now, the success of Chandrayaan-2, with a modest budget of Rs 978 crores, would open several avenues–to turn Moon into a stop-over station for future missions to Mars and other planets; as in the past, to pass on cutting edge technologies to India Inc., to create immense job opportunities, and help the economy by acting as the outsourcing agency for other countries to manufacture and launch their satellites; and also help in several sectors like education, health, fisheries, etc., apart from homeland security. Ironically, all this progress is of no avail if our basic character degenerates.
Amidst the euphoria of success, we, therefore, need to look into the murk in our backyard, where, in politics, democratic principles are murdered by engineering political defections with unethical practices and crimes of offering pelf and power, elections are won by several unethical means and frauds, including the suspected EVM manipulations, where corrupt politicians like Yediyurappa and others have a field day; in business and industry, frauds of Ambanis, Adanis, etc., are overlooked; in day-to-day life, jettisoning of moral values has become a common norm; religious barbarism has set in, as is being seen in cow-vigilantism; even mullas are beaten, their sacred beard pulled, and are forced to chant 'Jai Shri ram'; three humans were sacrificed by treasure-hunters in Anantapur Siva temple; and more importantly, women and children have become vulnerable to inhuman sexual assaults.
Even seven years after the brutal Nirbhaya case in which a young medical intern was gang-raped and tortured to death in a moving bus in South Delhi, and as India reels from the shock of the cases in Kathua (Jammu and Kashmir) and Unnao (Uttar Pradesh), there are more such nauseating incidents being reported almost every day.
In one such heart-wrenching instance, a young man deceived a known college-going girl to push her into a brothel. While she was entrapped there for three years, her family lost all hopes. It was by chance that she could narrate her tale to a customer, who, feeling sorry for her, conveyed the information to her brother. Posing as a customer and paying Rs 2000, the brother met her and rescued her with the help of police. But, he saved his parents from the trauma by concealing the real story. In another loathsome incident, at Vizag, a mentally deranged young woman was followed by an animal of a man in broad daylight. When she sat under a tree, he began raping her as people passed by indifferently watching the violence. However, it was an auto-driver who quickly video-graphed and enabled police to nab him while still in action. In yet another incident, in Rampur in UP, a group of young men stopped a couple going on a bike and tried to harass the woman. The protesting husband was beaten and tied to a tree, and right in front of him, they all raped his hapless wife. Further, they made a video of their bestial action and uploaded it on social media. It was only when the information exploded in the media that police began identifying the accused.
The list is unending. There is a rape every 15 minutes; 93 women being raped every day; at the rate of 6.3 for every one lakh women. The recent report of Livemint says that about 99 per cent of cases of sexual violence go unreported. If true, one should imagine the gravity of the issue. A survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation named India the most dangerous country in the world for women, making India the rape capital of the world. The savages do not spare even minor children. One cannot fathom the depravity of such horrors.
Breaking the trust reposed in the superintendent of the home for orphan girls at Tirupati, he raped several of the minor inmates regularly. A 16-year-old girl was confined in a room and gang-raped by six persons for five days in Ongole town of AP. In Ranchi, a minor student on way to the market was whisked away to a house by a man known to her and another two and raped several times. In spite of their threats, unable to handle the trauma on her own, she finally confided in her family members. Then, the country is aware of the 'Chennai horror'. Within the gated community, right inside the High Court compound in Chennai, using sedatives, and tying an 11-year-old girl, the employees of society forced her to watch obscene videos and raped her. Blackmailing her with the live videos of their actions they continued to traumatize her for months until some bruises were noticed by her family. In the infamous Kathua rape case that has resulted in an outburst across the country, the eight-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped for days by eight different men in a temple in Kathua, J&K, before being murdered. In Jind, Haryana, a 15-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped and her private parts mutilated. Close on the heels of this incident, in another terrifying incident in Panipat, an 11-year-old girl was raped and murdered by two of her neighbours, and they indulged in necrophilia. Similarly, in Surat, an 11-year-old girl was abducted, raped for at least eight days, caused multiple injuries and finally strangulated to death. In Lalunggaon, Assam, a minor girl, a class five student, was gang-raped and set on fire. A teenager in MP was set on fire when her parents told a village council that men in the area had raped their daughter. And soon after, a 7-year-old was also raped in this state; the two men then slit her throat and left her to die. Every incident is a macabre one.
There is no fear of law or God. There is no sign of abatement even after the outrage and awareness created out of the unfortunate Nirbhaya case, and anti-rape laws became stringent and the definition of rape has been widened to include crimes which did not amount to rape under the IPC; even fast-track courts have been created. Only that reported cases jumped by a massive 26 per cent in 2013, and are ever-increasing. At the end of 2016, over 133,813 cases of rape were pending in courts, apart from 16,500 cases pending investigation. Regarding sexually abused children, a BBC report says that India is home to the largest number of victims, but there is general reluctance to talk about the topic. NCRB data shows that a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes, four out of 10 rape victims are minors. And in 2016, India recorded 36,022 cases under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act). Most of the abusers are people known to victims, like parents, relatives, and school teachers. In the same year, out of the 64,138 pending cases of child rapes, trials were completed only in 6,626. The conviction rate is around 28 per cent; the other perpetrators are now honourable people.
Apparently, much more needs to be done. Four states–Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, and Arunachal Pradesh–have introduced the death penalty for rapes of minors. Now, even the Central government is all set to amend the POCSO to include the death penalty for sexual assault on children, and fines and jail terms for child pornography. Although these changes are expected to deal with obnoxious deviation from normal behaviour, the issue is, will it serve the purpose of a deterrent when our judicial system is notoriously backlogged, with millions of cases stuck in overburdened courts? In one classic case, a 76-year-old man finally got the punishment after 25 years of committing rape. All this while, being on bail, he was enjoying his life, while the poor woman suffered severe mental agony, virtually reliving the rape during investigation, trial, and appeal. Will such delayed punishment act as any deterrent to the perpetrators?
Rape is an abhorrent crime against the weak and vulnerable. Quick delivery of exemplary punishment is the only way to create fear and respect for the law. Thus, what is required is an overhaul of the current legal infrastructure in place to deal with these cases, along with other remedies of social welfare, awareness programmes, sex education, etc. Women and children should feel secure if we are civilised. For this, the nation's character has to be built on ethical values, and the stigma of 'rape capital of the world' should go. It is imperative that people take the lead, since political leaders, most of whom are devoid of values themselves, are no good for this.
(Dr. N Dilip Kumar is a retired IPS officer and a former member of Public Grievances Commission, Delhi. The views expressed are strictly personal)