Strident moral crusaders themselves descend to cruelty in their zeal to punish the perpetrators of crimes
In the wake of the grisly end of Ram Singh, the main accused in the Delhi gang rape case, serious attention needs to be paid to more circumspect views that dissent from the rabble-like cries for expeditious trial and lynching of the persons, charged with savaging the girl and her friend on the night of December 16 last year.
India is no banana republic, governed by kangaroo courts. Seasoned jurists see the hysteria over the episode as not only obtruding into the course of justice by prejudicing the outcome, but narrowing the focus to a single case, which unfortunately seems to have become a cause célèbre, here and abroad.
Other crimes of sexual nature and their tragic fallout are consequently eclipsed, meriting fleeting coverage. Every day, here and outside India, sexual predators are targeting females, even males, adults and children, in public spaces or within homes and offices, and horrifyingly, sometimes with the complicity of kin or other persons, known to the victims. Such crimes are often spurred by vendetta. Forced incest and sodomy, marital rape, battery and psychological abuse are rampant.
But the quest for securing justice for targets of such crimes, perpetrated by maladjusted individuals and hardened criminals alike, obsessively hinges on the Nirbhaya/Damini incident as a news peg.
Overriding focus on that one figure, precluding other victims of sexual crimes, is evident in the national budget allocating a Rs1,000 crore-fund for women in her name — though a media-given name — Women and Child Development Ministry honouring her posthumously with the Stree Shakti Award on International Women's Day; Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Governments monetarily compensating her family via a reported Rs35-40 lakh amount; and the Delhi Government offering a DDA flat to them.
This is unabashed populism, which, in light of the special provisions meant for female victims of sexual assault, including acid attacks, in the proposed new anti-rape laws, suggests that the Congress-led UPA Government may be carving out a gender-based vote bank in the run up to the next general election in 2014.
Prior to Ram Singh's death, Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir rightly pointed out that the December Delhi gang rape was not “unique” but one among numerous such crimes.
Speaking at a Kolkata High Court event to mark International Women's Day, he observed that while the incident was sad and bad, in a sense extraordinary, it was made into “an iconic situation”. He juxtaposed the media hype over the case with the fact of the gang rape and burning of a 10-year-old Dalit girl on the same day being “tucked away in the inside pages”, reduced to “only five to 10 tines”.
Underlining the point, he wondered whether the family of the little Dalit girl got anything, whereas, Nirbhaya's family was “given huge compensation by Governments and various bodies”. It may be edifying to know the reason for such glaring oversight. However, no answer is forthcoming.
The day that this column was written, a premier English daily which claims to set the line, reported that a 15-year-old girl in Kolkata was dragged to a construction site, while returning from a Shivratri puja, and raped by five men. Her home was just 100 metres away. The tiny news item, barely noticeable, was printed in an inside page. It is a prime example of selective reportage. Yet, the same media house has been proudly orchestrating a campaign against rapists, and is currently on the track of the absconding son of a retired senior police functionary, charged with raping a foreigner. However, hijacking the role of the judiciary and investigating agencies, conducting trial and pronouncing verdict amount to media overreach of the worst kind.
Jurists observe that Ram Singh's death, if suicide, may have been spurred by the incessant hounding of the accused by the media and women's rights groups. People's Union for Civil liberties has demanded an unbiased inquiry into the circumstances of the death.
For under the law, an accused has the right to establish his innocence, or put forth mitigating circumstances in his own defence. Senior Supreme Court lawyer KTS Tulsi describes as “unfortunate” the manner in which the public and media “presume” that those accused of crimes “are guilty and condemn and demonise them to an extent that it makes the lives of these people not worth living”.
Former Delhi High Court judge Justice RS Sondhi also avers that “an accused is innocent until proved guilty”. He faults the State for not keeping Singh under suicide watch.
Actor Rahul Bose was recently castigated on social media for stating that even sinners needed to be given a chance to repent. However, strident moral crusaders themselves descend into cruelty in their zeal to ensure that perpetrators of crimes be given no leeway, no scope for remorse, even if their trial is still underway. For, in their own minds, the accused have already been tried and condemned. This really goes against the true spirit of justice.