I want to make India a safe country – Would we wake up when 6 billion citizens of the world will ask us Is India safe to travel?
News on Rapes in India, a most common crime must go out of India. It only needs attention of the Governance and change in mind-set of every individual especially men. Police cannot drive it out of our country, politicians will never utter a word since they worry of their vote bank, media can only report about it in its most romanticized approach,and you and I consider ourselves too insignificant to drive any change. Let me assure you, that if any change can come, it would only come from what we do to bring world’s attention to this gruesome fact that every 22 minute a rape occurs in India as per Indian Government statistics.
There is no point discussing about the context of why rape happened, who was the victim, who are the perpetrators, what is the class, caste or background? It is simply to stop RAPES in India. The question is what can we do that brings public to vote for PAARI (People’s Action Against Rapes in India).
We voted for the new Prime Minister and his governance model, and I am hopeful that our Hon. PM would take a serious note of this situation and we will vote for PM acting against RAPES in India and be brutal in his verdict and provide safe environment to women in India. At this juncture, it is no tall ask but to demand resignation of current UP Chief Minister for the recent news from his state.
In India, for centuries discussions on rapes have been dealt with silence and victims as well as governance have found it difficult to deal with it. Has anyone questioned, Why? I feel, each one of us is responsible for it. The stigma and discrimination that we practice with the victim ensures that the accused are set free and give license to repeat their crime and encourage others to do it. Oxfam India released a report stating that there are 85.1% of rape cases investigated in 2012 were still awaiting trial and interestingly if we see the number, 93,000 rape cases are pending in various Indian courts.
During my work in the Water and Sanitation sector, I have traveled over 1200 villages and met men and women, girls and boys to know their views on water and sanitation facilities in their village. It was always girls who demanded for a toilet in school and women demanding bathroom along with toilet in their homes. Because they do not feel safe to defecate in bushes where they could be attacked by men. Wateraid in India has brought this issue in light several times and if we don’t review government policies and programmes to tune to what people really want – we shall be failing as a state, and as a nation.
How many of us know that there is an online campaign ‘I am Nirbhaya’ that gives important information and reports/cases on rapes in India. But truly, what is the impact on ground. Are we ready to hang rapists publicly? Is government ready to invest money to treat these diseased minds through psychiatric help and keep them indoors since they are menace to society? Are there other solutions that we have not looked for? I feel there is nothing that can work, other than constantly putting pressure on the government and create threat to their revenues. We are indeed a capitalist mind-set where everything is money.
Delhi is the epicentre of rapes in India, as the official sources declare and is the residence of the President of India and the Prime Minister of India. Is it fair to the women in Delhi? This also brings another important dimension of the whole issue – Media. What can media do about it? They can stop selling women as an object. They can educate and sensitize men about women’s issues. When children can teach a father why it is important to wear a seat belt and is rated as one of the favorite ads watched online, there could be better ideas to make men more sensitive towards women. Our media needs gender training and they need to learn making gender positive journalism a practice.
If media needs gender training then what do we want our Police to do to curb cases of rapes in India. Police is the most well informed citizen of our country and we can only prevent crimes with their help. This can only happen, if we respect them and give them more freedom to operate, to prosecute and to question the accused. They know the criminals network, vulnerable hot spots and places in the city and critical issues. We need to empower them to deploy more forces in such places, keep a tight vigil and work with public to prevent such cases. I do not mean to say, police don’t need gender training they too need to become sensitive to women’s issues.
We need to build accountability at every level whether legislature or judiciary to deal with cases on rape. “Some reforms are necessary and they are urgent. We could form special courts in every district that deal with cases on violence against women and make these courts fast track” opines Advocate Shaurya Gohil, Gujarat High Court. One of the objectives of judiciary is to punish the accused so that it sends a message to the citizens and deters them from committing a crime. The punishment should be such that it remains in public consciousness and memory to prevent such crimes. At the same time, women or people using rape to falsely accuse individual for personal vendetta should be dealt with equal seriousness when proven guilty. They also cannot be pardoned and left for pittance. We would also need to train professionals who run the fast track courts to be practical, sensitive and maintain confidentiality & dignity of the victim. In addition to increasing the number of courts, judges and prosecutors dealing with rape cases, we will need ‘Good Governance Model Code of Conduct’ for them. Public scrutiny should not only be made possible, but facilitated for better transparency and accountability.
Consistency in efforts and joint action is necessary at all levels including media, police, judiciary and public. We cannot give up and make sure that we work together without blaming each other, but creating a relationship of trust and respect.
If we want to set India on the path of accelerated development, women need to come out and participate in economic activities in more number than ever. And for this we need to provide them safe environment and secure habitats. Day or night, it should not matter what time of the day women are out of their homes – it should be safe all the time for them. Also, for this purpose every citizen needs to recognize women are important for economic growth of this country. We cannot get away from saying rape is India’s culture like US has gun culture. We have not taken responsibility so far to say RAPE must go out of India. Everyone keeps passing the buck and waits for others to fail so they can pounce upon them and take mileage. Here, we need a hard hitting campaign that does not blame but brings action.
Only if it hits the pockets of Indian government, hospitality industry and other service industry, then alone we will take Crimes against Women especially RAPES seriously. Accept, India is not safe for women. We have had enough!
Shalabh Mittal, currently serving as Faculty, with Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, in the areas of Development Studies, Social Entrepreneurship and CSR.
Post a Comment