I am quite stunned at the way Nirbhaya’s case reflects the realities of India. The brave woman fought to the best of ability, to survive the grievous injuries inflicted by cruel animals in the garb of humans. There is no doubt that rape deserves the strictest punishment. In cases of gang rape involving death of the victim or life-threatening injuries, I believe that there is justification to consider capital punishment. I would also add custodial rape in this category of heinous of crimes; in fact, put it ahead of the other categories.
However, let
us face it; changing of laws alone will not solve the problem. It is not the
cardiac arrest or the brain injury alone that kills the injured victim. More
often, it is the sepsis that threatens all the organs in the body and causes
multi-organ failure. It is my case that we need to worry about the threat of
multi-organ failure that the whole country faces.
No change in
law will make a corrupt policeman exempt a rape victim from his lust for money.
No feudal lord in the form of a powerful politician will voluntarily vote to
reduce employing a large percentage of the police force to protect his feudal
class. No legal system with its movements frozen by advanced arthritis can jump
up and run to settle rape cases expeditiously. No government officer will
voluntarily give up tying down as orderlies and menials able young men who
ought to be protecting people on our streets.
Running to
Singapore for help is also very symbolic.
Our hospitals can no doubt learn about hygiene from their hospitals. I
remember sitting in the canteen of a great big Bangalore hospital recently.
Specialists were performing the most complex of operations on a patient who had
suffered a serious problem, a friend of mine. During the time I had my vada
sambhar and a cup of coffee, we saw ten water tankers come in. In fact, while
trying to get out of the canteen, I wondered if the tank drivers had a contract
from the orthopedic division to create more patients for them right on the
hospital premises! It is great to talk of medical tourism bringing wealth to
India. But why don’t the politicians gang-raping the country not work once in a
while to get piped water to our hospitals?
Singapore is
not only for our hospitals. Our law enforcement agencies can also learn a lot
about law enforcement and keeping corruption under control.
It is a
great revolution that our youth are crying out for. Let us not trivialize
issues by amending a few statutes here and there and forgetting the fundamental
problems. Let us have significant changes. Let us hope for national leaders who
rise to the occasion and declare what they stand for. The 2014 election is one
hope. Will it do us any good? Or will it do for us what the Singapore trip did for Nirbhaya?
Srinivasan
Ramani
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