A version of this essay was published by news18.com at https://www.news18.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-beyond-lenient-laws-what-will-it-take-to-protect-indias-women-9023844.html
After this fortnight, it is not hard to see why some are demanding speedy punishment, including automatic death sentences for severe crimes against women. To put it bluntly, the Indian State is letting rapists and murderers get away with their crimes against both grown women, and especially tragically, against little girls. This is a blot on humanity. There needs to be recourse. There has to be a severe deterrent, and men should quake in fear at the prospect of instant, fearsome retribution.
The cry of anguish began with the extraordinarily brutal rape (suspected gang-rape) and murder of a 31-year-old doctor (revealed by her mother as Moumita Debnath) in the R G Kar Medical College Hospital in Kolkata on August 9th. As information trickled out, it became clear that she had also been severely tortured before being smothered to death. It is rumored that she had stood up to some important people and this may have been “punishment”.
The immediate parallel was with the gruesome rape-murder of Girja Tikkoo in 1990 in Jammu and Kashmir, where she was gang-raped and then sliced alive in two, screaming in mortal pain, on a mechanical saw.
There was also, in a hospital setting, the extraordinary case of Aruna Shanbaug, a 25-year-old nurse who was choked with a dog chain and raped by a janitor in a Mumbai hospital in 1973. She was brain-damaged and in a coma for 42 years, cared for by the nurses in the hospital until she died in 2015. Assaults on women staff in hospitals is especially ironic considering a recent finding that patients treated by female doctors have better outcomes possibly because of empathy.
Then there was the 2011 case of Sowmya, a 23-year-old shop assistant traveling in an empty women-only coach in a train in Kerala. She was chased around the coach by a one-armed vagrant named Charlie Thomas alias Govindachami, who repeatedly bashed her head against the walls. He then pushed her off the train, raped her and beat her head in with a stone. The lower courts sentenced Charlie to death, but the Supreme Court commuted it to life imprisonment.
Not about sexual crime, but about power over women
This is not about a sexual crime, it is about something more vile and reptilian. It is about sadistically inflicting pain and humiliation, dominating women, exerting power over them. It is extreme misogyny, and is motivated by pure hatred, possibly intent on sending a message. It is also about “putting women in their place”, so that uppity females are “taught a lesson”.
The rape-murder of “Nirbhaya”, later revealed by her mother as 22-year old paramedical student Jyoti Singh, in 2012 in Delhi, was similarly traumatic. Four of her assailants were executed after seven years, and one killed himself in jail, but the worst offender, who instigated the ramming of an iron rod into her genitals, was let go in 2015 on the flimsy reason that he was allegedly a juvenile. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal presented a sewing machine to the offender upon his release.
There was also the 2016 case of Jisha, a 30-year-old law student in Kerala who was subjected to extreme violence, including disembowelment in her rape-murder. A migrant laborer was charged with the crime, and sentenced to death, which was upheld in May 2024 by the Kerala High Court. However, it is rumored that Jisha was the illegitimate daughter of a local bigwig, and that she was “punished” for demanding a share in his property.
In Kerala again, there were the Walayar sisters, a 13 year old and a 9 year old, who were found hanging, two months apart, in 2017. The initial conclusion was ‘suicide’, but after an uproar when postmortems confirmed sexual assault, the case was reopened. Several politically connected people were involved, whom the POCSO court acquitted. But the Kerala High Court ordered a retrial of the five accused, including a juvenile, and the case is with the CBI as of now.
Every sinner has a future, maybe, but he denied his dead victim her future
There was the startling “every sinner has a future” Supreme Court verdict of 2022 that commuted the death sentence of a rapist-murderer of a four-year-old child into imprisonment for 20 years. The court also held that this was not a “rarest of the rare” case.
Using this “every sinner has a future” precedent, the Orissa High Court in May 2024 also commuted the sentence of a rapist-murderer of a six-year-old child. He had been on death row, but they commuted it to “life imprisonment”. In India, “life imprisonment” usually means the convict will walk after 14 years, so that is the total sentence the murderer will serve in practice.
On August 20th came another shocker. After 32 years, a POCSO court has convicted six men in Ajmer of raping/molesting, photographing and blackmailing over a hundred minor girls. It took 32 years for what should have been an open-and-shut case. The assailants are said to have political connections with a particular party.
Also on August 20th, the Justice Hema Commission published its report on the plight of women in the Malayalam film industry. It alleges that sexual exploitation including the ‘casting couch’ is rife, discrimination such as the lack of even basic amenities like toilets on sets is common, and that a ‘criminal gang’ of senior actors, producers, and directors perpetuates a cycle of abuse.
Soft on crimes against women and girls
All this signals that the Indian State, especially the Judiciary, is soft on horrific crimes against women and girls. This cannot continue in a civilized nation. One possible outcome is that the Executive and the Judiciary will take cognizance of these lapses, and provide severe deterrence, which can only come with fast-tracking of these cases, and enforcing capital punishment, instead of vague homilies quoting Oscar Wilde.
Another possibility is vigilante justice. There was the 1974 film Death Wish about an unassuming architect in New York who takes the law into his own hands after his wife is murdered and his daughter raped by violent criminals. He stalks muggers and criminals. Ordinary citizens may be tempted to do the same in India.
The third thing is to drum it into males from a young age, especially in school, that they have to respect women as human beings, not see them as sexual prey. Repeated insistence on that message will get through to them.
Furthermore, there is every reason to try juveniles committing heinous crimes (such as rape and murder) as adults. The existing Juvenile Justice Act is sufficient for this; it may well be that prosecutors are not using the law to its full extent. Prosecutorial incompetence was alleged in the Sowmya case as well, along with the involvement of shadowy benefactors for the murderer.
Copycat crimes, in particular against babies and toddlers, are becoming more frequent. In November 2023, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped by a 17-year-old boy in Buldhana, Maharashtra. In August 2024, a Class 9 student was detained for allegedly raping a three-year-old girl in Mumbai.
This sort of thing simply cannot continue. It is not the case that India is particularly prone to sexual crimes against women: the number of reported rapes is not high compared to other countries, but for a nation that calls itself the Motherland and worships many female deities, the cavalier treatment of crimes against women is a disgrace, and must be stopped.
1100 words, 20th August 2024, updated 21st August
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