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- How long people can wait for State to address rape?

Bhaskar Majumder

Yes, I am referring to the message that one of the high-profile members of India’s esteemed Parliament remitted through electronic media that I received today – it messaged, extra-judicial killing is unacceptable. The reference point was the killing of the four men (by anatomy) alleged to be the rapists (gang) who conspired, raped and murdered the helpless veterinary doctor on road in the state of Telengana in the great civilization called India that is moving towards being called rape country. We need to get rid of it.... we, the people of India.

By the way, the father of the victim expressed happiness for the killing of the alleged rapists, the mother of Nirvaya that refers to rape-cum-murder of a girl in 2012 in Delhi expressed happiness for the police role, and the sister of the doctor who had been raped-killed has expressed happiness though she expected the rapists to have been hanged. This is a small sample size what is called in social science research “Case Studies”. As a person in the academia for the past four decades in different universities and Institutes in India I am also aware of the fact that no robust conclusion can be drawn from only a few case studies. But you know, only one case study was enough to lead to war and death of almost all as elaborated in the Great Epics of India. So I offer my opinion.

What alternative could have been done to ensure justice? Remember, it was justice for women as different from justice for the whole society. Often the part is bigger than the whole – it is inverse of Gunder Frank’s observation (that the whole is more than sum of its parts). In my understanding the safety-respect of women in a country is bigger than the respect of the whole country; a country that fails women is doomed to failure. If we go back in the history of evolution of mankind, the point will be as clear as non-cloudy sunlight – that unless women were saved, the human civilization would have vanished since the cave-jungle life.

My point obviously is not to authorize the police to kill people at sight. Unfortunately that is also there in some regions/states institutionalized. I also know that justice is delivered by the Judiciary, and not by the Police. With full respect to the Judiciary, the Nirvaya judgement is still pending – it happened in 2012. I abstain from saying that justice delayed is justice denied, for judgement delivered may also imply compulsions of the Judiciary. After all, all work in a dynamic socio-economic-cultural-political environment.

There is no denying the fact that India’s civilization tolerates also the mass society though the elite set the rules, that the society is fractured unlike the animal world where all tigers are alike and all crows are alike behaviourally. All being called human, often delinked from humanity, are not alike. I have reasons to believe that the dignity of women is not on the priority of the political determinants. If that is so, how are my daughters in India safe – it is a large number even with adverse sex ratio?  

The judiciary delivers only in accordance with the Acts that are formulated by the Parliament of India and the facts/evidence that the Police provide in such cases as rape or rape-cum-murder. So I have reasons to believe that the hands of the Judiciary are also tied. In case the accused come from the religious elite, the outcome becomes obscure.

The polity-society may also be engaged in other more important issues like Mandir-Masjid, onion, nationalism and all that. Often the accused are also gossiped to be identified as Hindu or Muslim, pundit or Dalit and all that which simply imply immaturity of the vocal society.

I have no doubt that this killing of the alleged rapists will not stop rape and rape-cum-murder. The potential rapists, what I derived from the boys I talked to, have no idea what dignity of women is. Also, one finds huge consequential gap in what wrong happens with women on the plain land and what happens on the Hills. The consequential gap is embedded in the processes where it is either matriarchy or natural power of women on the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) for example that keep women secure and dignified.

There are also dirty concepts in the minds of a large section of men – it is that the sex-worker is rapeable. Also, that the girls from nomadic community and dalits are rapeable. In some regions in India, male society has the privilege to rape girls – ‘Ladka hai’! At this point of time the Unnao (in the Heartland) rape survivor is fighting for life in a Delhi Hospital. A political high profile person was allegedly engaged in the crime.

I had the idea that the civil society in India is one. Now I find it is divided or fractured. One section, mostly women, are showering flowers on the Police for killing the alleged rapists in Telengana while some whose voice is heard through different channels are questioning the process. The latter is opining, this is not the way. This means they will show the way. What did they do during past seventy years? Why rape-cum-murder anywhere anytime has got the shape of an exponential curve, many of the crimes are not at all recorded? And, if reported, many are not addressed? One of my colleagues in a premier social science research Institute in the Heartland opined that the reaction of the Police was also caste-biased for in parallel some more rapes-cum-murders occurred in the same state at the same time period but that were not addressed. My point is, one error of omission does not justify another error of omission. However, one justified commission requires commissioning parallel justification also.  

Government failed and Government succeeded. Let the sentence not be surprising for us, the male society. Silence of women in patriarchy is absolutely different from the silence of men. I have so far did not hear rape-cum-murder of men by women in India. However, on a daily basis over past few decades I hear the rape and rape-cum-murder of women by men. It is nonsense to say that it happens only with the Dalit girls. It happens with the biology of a girl – in the Telengana case of November 27, 2019 perhaps the rapists did not ask the victim what her surname was!

The Telengana police have set an example – one may judge the error of commission in presence of Judiciary. But the Judiciary has to come forward to declare what time frame it requires to address such issues, if reported to the Judiciary or the Judiciary takes such cases suo moto. The country cannot wait for indefinite period for justice. I believe it is late – but let us learn from the Police action. The Police did not kill any helpless girl; it did not kill anybody in custody. It killed the alleged rapists. It took the risk to be questioned. But then I also believe the state power is with the Police who killed the alleged rapists. If family failed to teach, if educational institutions failed to teach, if Judiciary did not reach the problem, the question goes to the agitating mass or the civil society whatever fractured it is. Let us learn from this gun-shot justice.              

Bhaskar Majumder, Professor of Economics, G. B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad - 211019

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Dec 12, 2019