Rape and Hard Light Soft
Hard Light : Time to Dirty Our Hands with the Indian Penal Code
By Dhrubaa Ghosh | Hard Light Soft Light – Mon 31 Dec, 2012
The rape, torture and murder of a 23 year old woman in New Delhi is not the reason for the current public outcry. It was that final weight tipping of the scale; it came at a point when the nation just couldn’t take any more. Rape has become so frequent that its presence is like the repeat telecast of the same episode running forgotten in a television while the family dines. The other compelling reason was the terribly familiar circumstances in which something grotesquely unfamiliar happened. The girl next door boarded a bus from a crowded place supposedly safe for students at 9:30 pm, and was skewered with an iron rod by six men. This can happen to just about any woman, anywhere, at any time. Thus the identification.
Since it’s so close to us, and has made us finally, finally uncomfortable enough, let’s get closer to the remedy as well. Yes, we need to stop rape and we need justice. But how to do that without researching on the Indian psyche for the next 20 years or waiting till a suitable avatar is reborn?
If the situation doesn’t change, each woman (that’s every female from fetuses to eighty plus) in the country would be unsafe. And every man would be either an accomplice or a victim, even if it’s in the most far-fetched way possible. No economic class or geographical region has been left insulated, as the rate of crime against women is rising in every state, in all communities and across all religions. We have to look upon justice as something necessary, like drinking water or a roof over our head. Not that everyone has roti-kapda-makan in India, but everyone agrees that these are necessities.
Assuming that everyone needs justice as urgently and as regularly as water out of a municipality tap, here are the steps to getting what we require: * Realize that molestation and rape are crime, i.e. legally punishable offenses *
By Dhrubaa Ghosh | Hard Light Soft Light – Mon 31 Dec, 2012
The rape, torture and murder of a 23 year old woman in New Delhi is not the reason for the current public outcry. It was that final weight tipping of the scale; it came at a point when the nation just couldn’t take any more. Rape has become so frequent that its presence is like the repeat telecast of the same episode running forgotten in a television while the family dines. The other compelling reason was the terribly familiar circumstances in which something grotesquely unfamiliar happened. The girl next door boarded a bus from a crowded place supposedly safe for students at 9:30 pm, and was skewered with an iron rod by six men. This can happen to just about any woman, anywhere, at any time. Thus the identification.
Since it’s so close to us, and has made us finally, finally uncomfortable enough, let’s get closer to the remedy as well. Yes, we need to stop rape and we need justice. But how to do that without researching on the Indian psyche for the next 20 years or waiting till a suitable avatar is reborn?
If the situation doesn’t change, each woman (that’s every female from fetuses to eighty plus) in the country would be unsafe. And every man would be either an accomplice or a victim, even if it’s in the most far-fetched way possible. No economic class or geographical region has been left insulated, as the rate of crime against women is rising in every state, in all communities and across all religions. We have to look upon justice as something necessary, like drinking water or a roof over our head. Not that everyone has roti-kapda-makan in India, but everyone agrees that these are necessities.
Assuming that everyone needs justice as urgently and as regularly as water out of a municipality tap, here are the steps to getting what we require: * Realize that molestation and rape are crime, i.e. legally punishable offenses *