Why should she think several times as to how she is going to come back by herself late at night? Why should my heart skip a beat if she is just half hour late for no reason? Why should my voice break when her phone goes unanswered two times in a row? I and many like me don’t deserve this fear. These brutal gang rapes are straight forward cases, unlike other complex rape cases where it takes long investigations to determine what exactly happen. The criminals who dare for these crimes should fear and not us. Are these criminals fearless
Why is my country failing to incite fear in these useless punks who commit horrifying brutal gang rapes like Nirbhaya and Disha cases?
I know there are more than 20 million cases pending in the courts at various levels but I don’t think that would make a criminal fearless. Why? Even with these numbers, would you dare to murder the person who you hate the most and probably imagine killing him every single time you look at his face? I guess not! Why? You would not take this big a chance with your life; maybe the case gets assigned to a super smart cop with an IQ level twice that of yours and he simply cut opens and puts your cleverly planned perfect murder like an art exhibition.
But what if you were to lose say 100k if you get caught? Would you think of taking that chance now? You might, you can afford the loses if you get caught. The odds are in your favor now.
My point being, the fear depends on the price you are going to pay if caught. And that’s where the state fails. Because the price a criminal pays after being caught is the same for every one, it depends on the crime and not the criminal.
Different people fear losing different things. I would fear losing 100k if that’s all I got, but I won’t fear losing it if I make 100k every week. Would you? That’s the only reason the super rich don’t fear the fines. Many people fear the idea of going to the jail, its a matter of their reputation in the society, some don’t. Infact the politicians find going to the jail as a symbol of their “bahubal” in a lot of cases.
Now coming to the punishment for the brutal gang rapes that happen every now and then. What is common in the culprits of Delhi’s Nirbhaya and Hyderabad’s Disha? People like these rapists don’t fear because they don’t have anything to lose. They live on daily wages, the social circle they live in has the same characters that make prison a prison. In fact a life imprisonment for them assure that they won’t die of hunger and will always have a roof over their heads. How is our law going to incite fear of losing something in any such person? Is relieving them from their miseries by sentencing them for execution going to incite fear in them?
Could there be a punishment that would incite sufficient fear in potential criminals like these?
How about donating each and every organ that could be donated? And more precisely in a particular order and not all of them at once. In the first year, donate an eye, next year a kidney, next bone marrow and then another eye. Living without vision is shit scary, isn’t it. Then donating all other organs before relieving them of their pain and misery. There are thousands and thousands people who die every year because of unavailability of the organ donors. A win win situation for every one.
If this becomes the law, it would never be my heart that would skip a beat when she is late, it would be their hearts that would skip a beat at the thought of losing an eye. It would not be my voice that would break when the phone call goes unanswered two times in a row, but it would be their voice that would break thinking of losing one kidney. They would be the ones thinking several times as to how they are going to live in complete darkness after losing both of their eyes and she would not have to think as to how she will come home safely late at night all by herself.
But this type of punishment would not even be considered for discussions. Why? Because some religions don’t approve of organ donations. The political party who would try to bring this in the system will be labeled as communal.
Nirbhaya rapists are living a better life than what they had before they were imprisoned, even those who did not get a sewing machine and 10,000 Rs from Mr. Kejriwal. And, Dr. Disha’s rapists were relieved even before they were tried. And by the way, if the four Hyderabad rapists had died in a car accident, would you have still considered that the justice had been done? I don’t think so.
The truth is that we the people of India and the lawyers of India had long stopped worrying about the justice, we all were more interested in the law. That’s why, a better lawyer, a lawyer with more connections wins the case by hook or by crook but not the one who fights for the justice. But in the last few years, we moved a step further. We are not even in the business of law anymore, we are in the business of perception. Media trials, social media decide the verdict. Encounter is neither justice nor law, it just caters to the perception crisis created over the years.
Protesting for selective crimes is not going to fix anything, it would only create a perception that Indians are well aware of the problem and are willing to fix them. But the truth is that the Indian Legal system needs urgent reforms. We have to start look at the root causes of the problems and not just the shortcuts. If we don’t, we keep watching these incidents on news channels and just do nothing.
Thanks for Reading!
Also Read: Bollywood & its Feminists
