C V Sukumaran
Crimes against women are so routine these days that they are as homogeneous as sunrise and sunset in their predictability.
Of late, not a day goes by without a girl being raped here or molested there. Every female, young and old, it would seem, is grist to the rapist’s libidinous mill. Not long ago, the ‘kaph’ panchayats in Haryana advocated, of course, with the tacit approval of some politicians, child marriages for girls so that they could be saved from being molested and raped. What a strange logic! For these fickle-minded male chauvinists, it seems, a man can rape and molest with impunity. The onus of rape rests on the victims, not on the rapists, they think.
The number of cases of rapes and molestations being brought to light by media is merely tip of the iceberg. For such crimes are rampant in rural India. Reading news about rape or molestation is as commonplace as seeing the sun. On a rainy day, however, when the sky is carpeted with clouds, you don’t get to see the sun. But you must anticipate a report on sexual assault invariably every day!
All this could lead one to the conclusion that every man is a potential molester or rapist; given a chance he wouldn’t scruple to commit sexual felonies. Though it might seem that sexual violence is endemic to men, making generalisation would be glossing over the fact that often it is men who are in the forefront when it comes to giving fight to sexual offenders.
History and mythology are no strangers to rape and molestation. In Mahabharata, Draupadi was molested by her cousins-in-law in the presence of great men who chose to look the other way. Her five husbands, regarded as great warriors, turned out to be mere spectators. That Krishna came to her rescue by making available copious supply of fabric is only a wishful thinking.
Not to be outdone, the King of Sindh too tried his hand at molesting her. In fine, the fair sex has always been fair game for the rapists and molesters, then and now. The fact that Draupadi was the wife of five mighty warriors did not detract from her vulnerability to male chauvinism. She was as much susceptible to it as any present day girls in our cities and villages.
Rape, for sure, demands severest punishment. The Apex Court’s decision to award death penalty to the Nirbhaya rapists is welcome. The court thinks that it is a rarest of rare case. But what sort of punishment should be awarded to a person who defiles a woman’s chastity and his crime is not thought as rarest of rare? Unlike the one obtaining in the modern world, the criminal justice system prevailed in some countries in ancient times had an air of barbarism in it. They hacked off a thief’s hands and lopped off a trespasser’s legs. The malefactors were deprived of the organs which they employed to commit crimes. Such punishments are more heinous than the crimes they seek to prevent. However, when it comes to rape, the perpetrators don’t deserve any sympathy that a petty criminal, facing harsh punishments, evokes.
So, if we follow the ancient criminal justice system as a benchmark for meting out punishment to rapists, what kind of retribution would meet the ends of justice? No prizes for guessing!
