Lip sync sympathy amidst juke box governance By Shankkar Aiyar
29th December 2012 11:30 PM On Saturday, India was outraged again. Its political leaders confessed they were ashamed. Indians were told by its political class that the entire country should hang its head in shame. True. That such venal brutality should occur in what is defined as a society and a democracy is shameful. I am ashamed. We are ashamed. But how long will we be ashamed? How many times will we be ashamed? For what all will we be ashamed? The shame meter is ticking by the minute in India. Every two minutes a crime is committed against a woman somewhere in India. Every two hours six cases of rape are being registered. Every day 16 children are sexually assaulted. To get a perspective on the rage, consider this: there is no chargesheet filed in one of five rape cases and of those chargesheeted, the conviction rate is only 20 per cent. Yet, a promised law to change all this has been pending for seven years. It is not just about sexual assault. Every 10 minutes a woman dies in child birth under a stony category called 'maternal mortality' which means society and government fail to attend to her as she is in child-birth. Indeed, India’s Maternal Mortality Rate at 212 is twice what is specified by the UN. Every hour 200 children die of malnutrition. Life expectancy at birth is better for those born in war-torn Iraq and Guatemala. That this should persist after 25 years of child welfare schemes is a matter of shame. Between 1995 and 2009, over a quarter of a million farmers committed suicide--that is, two a day. Is this all my fault? Yet I am truly ashamed. India is told by its politicians that preventing rape is not just about the law or about capital punishment. True. For too long, the issue has been viewed from the stand point of law enforcement whereas it has wider dimensions which requires society to undergo serious catharsis. Now, consider the views expressed by some representatives of political parties. The son of the President of India exemplifies the mindset while describing protesters as "dented and painted" women. A legislator from the BSP questions why women should be given mobile phones? A Haryana Congressman says 90 per cent of women who are raped want to have sex but don't realise they will be raped. An Andhra Pradesh Congress chief wants to know why the girl who was gangraped was out late at night. They have all survived and these are parties headed by women! A deodorant manufacturer thinks that the only reason men buy deo is so that some woman can tear off their clothes. Should I be ashamed of the advertising standards regulation? Sometimes one wonders if cretins are writing the script for these ads. I am ashamed of the commodification of women by those marketing consumer goods. I am ashamed that every day, every single evening tele-serial makers beam reels of patriarchy--where women in joint families have to live up to the test of medieval morality--and misogyny into millions of living rooms. There is no dearth of cases by political groups protesting against the portrayal of a caste or a creed in films or words in a song. Rarely, if ever, there is outrage about the portrayal of women. So who should be ashamed--the channels, the regulator, the government or me? And: is being ashamed enough? Through the week, every party has sermonised on strict action, on a deterrent law and of the need to change societal mindset. Yet, none want to admit to their own sins. Almost every party gives tickets to those facing charges for crimes against women. Yes, the law says innocent till proven guilty but it is also a fact that they are accused till proven innocent. Should we be ashamed that they are elected or that the political parties give such monsters tickets? How about some genuine soul-searching within the political class for starters? Safety is also an issue of capacity and quality of policing. India has a police to population ratio of 130 per lakh when the global norm is 225. Uttar Pradesh, ranked third among states for rapes, has a sanctioned strength of 184 and actual strength of 74. Bihar has a sanctioned strength of 88 and actual strength of 64. Why aren't states recruiting police? What about judicial capacity? On December 27, the Supreme Court ordered that rape trials must end within two months as stipulated. Trial courts, however, allow adjournments and sentences are often dictated by individual views. A day later, a trial court in Delhi sentenced a man arrested for raping his 12-year-old daughter several times over 60 days with eight years imprisonment, although it was a clear case of incest. The unpalatable truth is that the political class is quick to lip sync sympathy but successive governments have failed to address the basic issues of governance. And this is best illustrated by the Delhi gangrape case. Stranded for public transport, the two youngsters boarded a contract bus. We now know from the police that "at the time of offence the bus had no legal permit to run on city roads, had no fitness certificate for the vehicle and had been impounded six times in 24 months". The mind boggles that these monsters were ferrying school children in the day. The crux is that there are multiple issues confronting the quest for safety and the biggest issue is pure and simple, governance. The death of the girl on Saturday morning has sent the political class into a display of competitive shame and concern. Governments seem to think they can deal with rape in isolation even as governance is collapsing. It has been their approach with corruption, terror, with any crisis. I have said this before and I am saying it again: Governance is not a juke box where you put a coin in a slot and expect change on cue despite systemic rot. shankkar.ai...@gmail.com Shankkar Aiyar is the author of Accidental India: A History of the Nation's Passage through Crisis and Change newindianexpress.com/opinion/article1399889.ece
