Correction

Why do we always end up believing that a strong law and order is enough deterrence for a person to commit crime. While I am not downplaying the need for stringent punishment and robust mechanism to trial of an accused, the serious question lies in how do you stop a person from committing a crime when the act according to him is nothing but a corrective treatment met to his version of wrong done by the Victim, when his act is nothing less than a call from the divine, that his act is to clean the society he is living in of all the western evils or that his act is to teach someone an essential lesson.

In the aftermath of Hyderabad rape, the entire social media was filled with “Hang the rapist”, “Chemically castrate them” and so on. Most of the people around me felt that the increasing sexual crime is a result of an inadequate or absence of appropriate legal machinery in place which tends to be giving the perpetrators a free hand and fearless pursuit in committing the heinous act. Even if the legal infrastructure is present, it is slow to the extent that one would feel there isn’t any. The entire national uproar met a sudden slumber once the accused were encountered while trying to escape from police custody, acknowledging it as justice is met.

I think one of the most ignorant fact here is not trying to plug the source, understand and deal with it at its inception. Post the Hyderabad incident (well, actually after every incident that gets highlighted in the media), we often find some independent news agencies going around asking the common men in different parts of the country across the age group or even the lawmakers in the parliament and the village heads at panchayats as to what exactly they feel causes rape and the answers would briefly come down to the following excuses for rising sexual crimes:

• It is the western influence, the movies and the shows, dressing style and use of mobile phone and internet
• Going out alone with group of boys or going for parties
• She asked for it by her conduct, stepping out of the house in late night
• The worst one being – Eating chowmein and a former chief minister of India’s largest state casually stating that Boys make mistakes with a “big deal” shrug

AND THAT’S WHERE WE ARE COMMITTING A BIG ERROR.

Ignoring to identify the potential rapist mentality among all the people who give such reasons or present such arguments that the victim could have avoided a crime or that victim asked for it, we are forgetting to address the upbringing, the social structure, unquestioned family / customary practices and the lack of awareness which gets a culprit to think that whatever he is doing is right for the society, that he is punishing the person who is adopting western culture over his version of culture, is teaching a lesson to someone going against the boundaries set by the family or community or that he thought the women is asking for it basis her exercising the freedom of movement and clothing. Why would these culprits who think they’re on a divine duty, that they’re playing the role to uphold their beliefs of being righteous ever fear the law, irrespective of how deterrent it would be.

While we need to address the issue of slow trials, police harassment of victims and also make certain laws too stringent to create fear as creating an effective infrastructure, it is time, we start addressing the issue of lack of moral education, absence of sex education, silence on marital rape, silence on child abuse (there are researches to prove that children with unresolved sexual trauma are likely to be abusers when they grow up or indulge in violence), awareness through religious and cultural centers the importance of consent and the crime, call out the casual sexism at home that are too easy to be ignored while growing up, call out casual sexism even in the ads or movies that seek to glorify it and to summarize it, ‘don’t teach your daughter on how to be careful, teach your son to behave’.

Till the time people continue to blame the victim in their first instinct, our society will never be able to effectively tackle the rising sexual crimes. We need some correction in finding the root cause and maybe, we could start by dealing with such mentality around us whenever faced with it.