To read our full magazine, click here: The Delhi Saket court gave verdict to the four convicts in the December 16 Delhi gang-rape case. “ Death Penalty” as the court said that the
intensity of the offense could really not be tolerated. This heinous incident had provoked the
citizens of India and forced the Indian government to be more stringent on
anti-rape law.
The culprits Mukesh Singh (26),
Akshay Thakur (28), Pawan Gupta (19), and Vinay Sharma (20) comes under the
rarest of rare category of capital punishment. The judge convicted them for
gang-rape and murder of the 23 old paramedic student in a Delhi private bus.
The judge commented that it would be inhuman if it turns a blind eye towards
such a gruesome crime! The crime against women is on the high and it is time to
challenge the brutality with punishment.
The Indian judiciary has to imbibe
confidence amongst the women particularly during this time when crime against
women is on the forefront . The fire has not only been convicted of gang rape
but also of murder, dacoity, kidnapping and destroying the evidence. The mother
of the 23 year old victim thanked the nation and the actions taken by the media
– expressed satisfaction with the verdict of the Saket court. She was happy
with the new legislation and the fast track case.
Analytical view
about the Death Penalty
Overall, the Indians feel that such a death sentence should be a warning to all
the rapists and psychopaths. The public
demand was also that the culprits have their genitals cut before hanged to
death. Hope it will instill fear into the hearts who would even think about
committing such a crime in the future. But is it so? The Women’s rights activists are absolutely
against the popular public demand. They strongly refuse to support this. Kavita
Krishan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association who was
also one of the prominent voices against this December rape, said that a death
sentence cannot make much difference to the society. In fact Delhi witnessed a
damaging child rape case immediately after these four were arrested.
Sexual violence runs deep in our
Indian society amongst every strata or culture. So the source or the root cause
of this violence has first to be identified. How can a death sentence in one
case make any difference to the Indian male mentality? The death penalty is
seen as a quick fix solution. Hanged till death is just a vindictive attitude
to show “violence against violence”.Rapes, kidnapping wife beating, torture by relatives, child trafficking,
dowry deaths are all results of lack of respect for women.
Masculinity or the typical Hindi translation
of its “mardangi” is to be done away with from the mindsets of the men.
Violent features in men are imbed to them since their birth. This gets imbued
with due course of time. The bad behavior of the men in the family toward his
mother, seeing the neighbors treating women as doormats, gives them the right
to be bad or violent towards other women. So unlearning this process should
begin in school as well as the public places. The contemporary masculinity is
to be unwinded from the deep root.
Children from an early age must be educated
about equality, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of other castes
or religions. Women should come forward with the sexual complaints more often,
rather than shying away from it. They should have strong faith in the criminal
justice system. And the police officer who is really good in helping these kind
of women should be awarded and honored . This would change the mindset of the
society and the police to respect lesbians, or women who are skimpily dressed,
and also to the lower caste women like the Dalits or the tribal women. A large
number of public forums are to be organized to educate the parents along with
their children regarding the safety in public places and guidelines to make the
women feel safer. More self defense classes are needed in school for girls.
Boys should be specially made to learn to respect and treat his girls
schoolmates equally. Anger management courses should be introduced in the
school syllabi as it has proved encouraging.
Rapists are not scared as our
judicial system is not reformed. Very low conviction has happened and this
discourages the women to go for criminal proceedings. The investigative methods
are not strong which after the Delhi rape case should be properly implemented
now. The witnesses are threatened along with the victim. The recent rape case
of a small town Malda, West Bengal is a very good example. The victim had to
change her home along with her family, but died a brutal death in a house fire,
that is still under investigation.
Setting up fast track court or
speedy trial to give a verdict can never be a complete Redressal to a case. Men
will continue to subjugate a woman to stay to certain standards. The gang rape
of a 20 year old girl in a village called Birbhum, West Bengal, is a recent
incident that highlights the plight of woman folk. Since she was having an
affair with a man of another village, the village headman punished her by
raping along with 13 other men. Men
cannot accept the fact that they need to respect the women, but rather
subjugating the women to violence would only establish the superiority of men.
A complete change in the society is needed, which cannot happen after the
night.
Most rapists during the reform
session inside the confinement, mostly confesses to the psychiatrist that he
wants to kill the woman he raped. The vindicticdive attitude remains there. As
seen in the Delhi rape case, that the girl after the rape was inserted foreign
objects inside her private parts. This is a kind of perversion of men.
Again, another perspective has been
seen that the punishment is very swift and fast in rape cases when the men
belong to lower classes or is a common man. Had it been a BSF Jawan or a
celebrity the investigations would be slower and even the punishment.
The police force has to be
sensitized and not mock the woman who has come to lodge a complain. The police
tries to rape her again in the office
room by making a mockery of her. The DNA has to be collected and proper gloves
be used when there are no eyewitnesses. The more police post is to induce with
proper training to these officers. They are also humans and one must remember
that major chunk of these police belongs to smaller towns and also different
caste. So their upbringing have been done with the knowledge that men are here
to win and conquer. This perspective has to uproot during training.
And the worst is the media who try to make the
rape just a few days coverage. More follow up is needed to support the backward
class women. Stop using women as an object, particularly in advertisements,
magazines and so on.
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