Rape Cases: Building Better Society And Not Harsh Punishments Is The Way Ahead

The nation is in tears for the 26-year-old Disha rape and murder case in Hyderabad last month. It makes everyone feel unsafe and brings a society to think where we went wrong. This ultimately was closed by a dramatic shoot-out by the police of the four alleged men at the same place as the rape was committed, attracting a mixed reaction from across the nation.

Two trends are clear, the Indian urban middle-class youth, is out there, sensitive to issues where they feel connected and at risk. Also, oddly, there is a lack of political respect which such protests command – and they have often brushed aside as holiday protests which are bound to die down with time.

Seeing the charged youth all across the country, fighting for an unknown stranger’s need for justice is heart touching and reinstates the hope for brighter India.

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Take this particular crime or many others this year. The question remains, what is the source of such free-will to commit a crime?

Two things stop crime from happening – strong value system and effective legal remedy. We now need to work on both these aspects.

Look at the ages of the accused in this recent rape case. All of them are in the early twenties – a time when values and culture are shaped in the youth. We need to reform the learning environment which the younger generation is exposed to. I am yet to come across a school or college, even in the top-notch, which seriously teaches and grades moral science as a subject.

And it, not just the books the youth learns from. Neuroscience states that in humans, up to 20% of the neurons in the brains are imitation neurons, which means a young mind learns and imitates the culture around him. That is where the fixing of culture is more important.?

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In the last five years, I have seen the quality of many newspapers; magazines and even news sites degrade into what can be called “soft porn”. Movies would openly crimes and moral compromises as grey shades of heroism – where a woman is shown successfully seducing men to propel her career and a mother is shown as a custodian of her policeman son’s black money. This is what the youth imitates.?

Culture has to be reshaped, education rewritten to induce better citizens, who have the judgment and self-control to stay away from all forms of crimes, and who respect a woman’s or anyone else’s position in the society and are self-governed by law.

Then we come to the legal remedy side. Personally, I do not agree with the multitude of demands for capital punishment being invoked for rape charges. It would be short-sighted and emotional rather than rational.?

My worst fear is that capital punishment for rape would encourage the rapist to follow their hot-blooded crime with a cold-blooded murder of the victims to hide the evidence of their first crime, just as they did in the recent case. Moreover, statistically, capital punishment has shown little correlation with the incidence of crime as shown in the table.

While there are nations like USA and Oman which have relatively high rape rate, while having capital punishments, there are also nations like Serbia and Canada, which have no capital punishment but much lower rape rates. Of course, there will be rapes which are never reported, but then there is no credible study to ascertain that number or to prove that fraction is significantly higher in India than the rest.??

?In fact, it is the surety and not the severity of punishment which will act as a deterrent. Indian courts have more cases pending in them, than any other nation, which makes us the slowest justice delivery system in the world.

?Often cases taking more than a decade to culminate into punishment – which erodes all faith in the judicial system. This erosion was at the full public display when hoards of the crowd were hailing Hyderabad police as heroes for the seemingly summary execution of four men who were accused (though not conclusively proven) of rape.

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Then, there is the talk of fast-tracking rape cases. A few years back there was the talk of fast-tracking corruption cases, and before that, we talked of fast-tracking cases of terrorism.?

This solution is a temporary quick fix only to satisfy the mobs, but if long term solution is desired we need to think on how to speed up the entire judiciary itself – all forms of cases – rather than recommending fast track on whatever crimes catches the news of the day.?

This would need massive investments, new courts need to be established, new judges need to be employed and in fact, the Article 32 needs to be redefined than mere “right to judicial remedy” to “right to time-bound judicial remedy”.

Now is the time to revisit our societal order – recheck our legal procedures and reinstate our value system and work to create a society where none feels alienated or unsafe, and where the citizens are self-controlled against committing any form legal or moral wrong.

The author is a public speaker and social entrepreneur.?