Ian Pinto
Recently I participated in a rally to spread awareness about the atrocity of rape in the sordid light of the brutal cases at Unnao and Kathua. The rally was supposed to serve as a reminder of our humanity and participants were told to carry slogans that were not related to religion but to humanity in general. At the end of the rally, once the crowd had gathered at the final spot, some youngsters, who were responsible for the event addressed the assembled crowd. What startled me was that some of the boards as well as some of the speeches did not reflect much humanity at all!
For one, how does hanging the rapists solve anything? The rapists of Nirbhaya were turned into a spectacle for all to see and yet, it seems to have had little or no impact on the base population. Eve-teasers, potential rapists, oglers, uncultured commentators and similar riff-raff still prowl around our streets. How far have we come really, since Nirbhaya? It doesn’t seem like we have progressed much further. Parents of girls are still mortally afraid that every time their daughter leaves the door she might not come back the same or worse still might not come back ever. The chilling reality stares us in the face.
But how do we choose to respond? An eye for an eye? A fashi for the rapist? Castration? How much will that solve? It will lower the population by a fraction, but what else? Will it restore what is lost? I’m not referring to life and innocence alone but also to humanity. The same humanity that was sought to be upheld will be at the losing end if life is taken to compensate for life. One wrong cannot be righted by another wrong. Only in mathematics does minus and minus become plus, and even there it is rare.
I was impressed by the fact that young people came out to express their passionate disapproval for the heinous crime and that they were able to mobilise so many others to join them in silently protesting but was positively taken aback with some of their proposals. Even though greater insistence was given to personal and local change, the idea of capital punishment was not put aside. If I could express their sentiments in a few lines they would go like this: ‘We need to be the change we want to see. Boys need to learn to treat women with respect and behave as they would towards their own sister, mother, girlfriend and wife. Girls are not completely left out either. The effort is not only on the part of boys but also of girls. However, for what has been done, the rapists must be hanged.’
I think the paradox becomes clear. Let me confess that there is no easy solution to this grave situation. The perpetrators must pay for their crime but taking their life is not helpful in my opinion. It will only spread the blood on more hands. It will ignite a vicious cycle of wanton violence that will be difficult to stop at a later stage. Violence only begets more violence. The animal kingdom and even history testifies to that fact. The law must become more stringent and the citizens more vigilant.
Rape is a human malady and therefore requires a human remedy. Just what that remedy is, I am unable to say now. But there must be a way and it is definitely not the way of violence.
