What is the remedy? like what we hear from the protesters... is it enough we have strong laws to punish the guilty of crime by handing out most stringent punishment so that it will send out signals to potential criminals as a deterrent?
But who are the potential criminals and who are potential victims? On a larger perspective you can consider every woman a potential victim whereas every man can make a potential criminal! Watching the news channels who are carrying out debates, one comes to a conclusion that this issue is not very simple to address. The word Rape is generally gender biased to connote sexual abuse against women. We all know that abuse is not just gender specific.
Therefore, law should address the violation of individual liberty by any aggressor so that the abused can get justice.
But preventive action is something which is very difficult to establish unless widespread awareness and social awakening is achieved.
When you hear about the weird responses and utterings of so called eminent persons in society, we are staring at the dogmatic mindsets that are plaguing us. Some one said that it is not unusual of grown up women to get sexually abused! Recently, a high ranking official who is in a position of a law keeper drew flaks for his views to the effect that 'the quality of rape is twice blessed- it blesseth the giver as well as the receiver in equal pleasure'!
One minister opined that girl children should wear protective over coats and travel in 'girls only' school buses... What if the masquerader is to be encountered in elsewhere than en route to school or home?
The society in which we live needs reforms! Although man has reformed a lot, the fringe elements needs to be educated about civilized behavior! Instead of blaming the opinions raised by few well meaning but old fashioned members of society, let us try to engage all those possible measures which will, eventually eliminate this abusing behavior of criminals. They include:-
- Strong laws that will not only be on paper but will be enforced against those perpetrators, who may try to dodge the process of law
- The severity and certainty of punishment to the guilty to be publicized to nook and corners of the Nation so that no one feign ignorance about existence of such law
- Have a citizen code of conduct for the nation with citizen charter- What the country is expected to do to citizens and what role citizens are expected to play for ensuring civilised society
- Change the education system to include moral education and social responsibility in the syllabus
- Use the ministry of communication to convey the message-Encourage TV and Cinema to bring out socially useful stories rather than populist TRP based shows... and, so on!
There is an old film song which declares in resignation that, 'it is impossible to reform a thief unless himself decides to reform!'. Since logically every man is a potential violator and every woman a potential victim, notwithstanding the suggested measures, only solution to this problem is to have a resolve or undertaking by every man that 'I will not commit this crime' and, although a bit too far fetched, every woman to take a resolve that ' I will not become a victim'!
As an advocate of this theory, I have taken this resolve myself, and as a symbolic act, I have removed 'Grapes' from my diet as it contains the word I detest the most nowadays!
