With the Supreme Court calling the Tamil Nadu lawyers a bunch of hooligans, Judges all over the country facing charges of corruption or political manipulating, it is wonderful to have a court, especially one in Gujarat, rule for truth and not for political pressure or other inducements. For all of us who for years have been working with women subjected to violence, physical, mental, spiritual, yesterday’s verdict on the Patan case came as a huge relief, and a reassertion that the judiciary of the country still has some people with a moral backbone.
The judgement, as far as I know, sets a precedence. The figures for convictions in cases of rape or multiple rape in this country are appalling, less than 4% I believe. And even in the few cases where the rapist is convicted the sentence is light. The male judges always seem to feel sorry for the rapist who suddenly remembers that he is the sole breadwinner of his family – a fact forgotten when he was mauling another poor innocent woman. Worse, and even more degrading ,are the unfortunately not infrequent judgments where the poor woman is persuaded to marry her rapist! Are the judges so dense that they think this could lead to anything but further misery and hatred? So a life sentence underlines, perhaps for the first time anywhere in the country, the finality and permanent nature of the crime
Many people however think that life imprisonment is too light a sentence for this crime, especially given the premeditated planning and plotting that seems to have gone on in the Patan case. These are the votaries of the death sentence. I for one do not condone death sentences for any one – I don’t think the State being violent has shown a fall in crime anywhere. Also it makes it too easy for the rapist. It is with dishonour and shame that he must live. Death is too quick in that sense, compare to the inadvertent sentence to the woman – to never forget.
But there is a third solution, adopted by several countries, which is certainly worth considering. That is of chemical castration.
We still live in an archaic and barbaric society where a man’s greatest pride, and weapon, is his manhood, and a woman’s greatest honour her virginity. In India for a man to be called namard is worse than any insult. And to kill a woman who has lost her virginity (usually through no fault of hers) as a badge of family or community honour, quite accepted. Does it then not make sense to equate the two in judgement? If a man rapes, he forcibly makes a woman lose what her society considers her greatest virtue. Then he must be made to lose what society considers his. Today when going to jail is nearly a badge of honour in itself, when criminality is not considered wrong, when you go to parties and socialize with people who have committed fraud, or worse, and consider it ok, is the mere serving of a jail sentence enough to dishonour the man for ever? A woman can recreate her life, try to erase the horror of being brutally violated, but she will never be whole again. Why then should he not be made to be the same?
In the United States for instance this is the treatment that used to be, and perhaps still is, meted out to habitual sex offenders. What guarantee is there that the rapist, once out of jail will not rape again? None. Except if he is made incapable.
Which brings us to another aspect of the Patan case. That of the people in power who protected the six convicted, who let complaints against them and other teachers lie collecting dust on their desks for ten years, who flouted rules of transfer and repeatedly posted them back to where the complaints were coming from. What of their culpability? Have they forgotten the high moral ground that they mouth when convenient?
Do our much misquoted Shastras and Dharmavakyas not speak of adharma being committed if wrongdoing is not accepted, not punished?
Do we still have only ONE single example of true Raj Dharma in political life – that of Lal Bahadur Shastri resigning after a train accident because as Minister of Railways he felt he was morally responsible? If that is the case, let us stop politicians posturing about dharma and karmabhoomis and get them to accept that only one thing matters. Power. Power for themselves.
