Building Better Society and not Harsh Punishments is the way ahead

Building Better Society and not Harsh Punishments is the way ahead

By : Srijan Pal Singh

In the past one and a half year, I have seen two massive protests for national issues in Delhi – one organized under Anna Hazare and against corruption. Second, this weekend, organized by a group of Facebook and college activists, to protest crimes against women. Two trends are clear, the Indian urban middle class youth, is out there, sensitive to issues where they feel connected. Also, oddly, there is a lack of political respect which such protests command – and they are often brushed aside as holiday protests which are bound to die down with time.

Seeing the charged youth braving against water cannons in the cold month of Delhi December, fighting for an unknown stranger’s need for justice is heart touching and reinstates the hope for brighter India. Take this particular crime or many others this year, like on camera shooting of a toll bridge operator in Gurgaon, mowing down an IPS officer in Madhya Pradesh or two celebrity brothers shooting each other right in the heart of Delhi. The question remains, what is the source of such free-will to commit crime?

 Two things stop crime from happening – strong value system and effective legal remedy. We now need to work on both these aspects.

 Look at the ages of the accused in this recent rape case. Most of them are in early twenties and one is claiming to be a minor – a time when values and culture is shaped in the youth. We need to reform the learning environment which the younger generation is exposed to. I am yet to come across a school or college, even in the top notch, which seriously teaches and grades moral science as a subject.

And it not just the books the youth learns from. Neuro science states that in humans, upto 20% of the neurons in the brains are imitation neurons, which means a young mind learns and imitates the culture around him. That is where the fixing of culture is more important. In the last five years, I have seen the quality of many newspapers; magazines and even news site degrade into what can be called as “soft porn”. Movies would openly crimes and moral compromises as grey shades of heroism – where a woman is shown successfully seducing men to propel her career and a mother is shown as a custodian of her policeman son’s black money. This is what the youth imitates. Culture has to be reshaped, education rewritten to induce better citizens, who have the judgment and self control to stay away from all forms of crimes, and who respect a woman’s or anyone else’s position in the society and are self-governed by law.

Country	Rape Incidence Rate (rapes reported per 100,000 population) *there is expected under reportage of all figures as most rapes are never reported	Capital Punishment Status
India	1.8	Exists but rare. Not for rape.
South Africa	120	Abolished.
United Kingdom	28.8	Abolished.
USA	27.3	Exists for some crimes.
Norway	19.2	Abolished.
Oman	6.9	Exists for some crimes.
Thailand	6.7	Exists for some crimes.
Singapore	2.7	Exists for some crimes.
Canada	1.7	Abolished.
Japan	1.0	Exists for some crimes.
Serbia	0.7	Abolished.

Then we come to the legal remedy side. Personally, I do not agree with the multitude of demands for capital punishment being invoked for rape charges. It would be short sighted and emotional rather than rational. My worst fear is that capital punishment for rape would encourage the rapist to follow their hot blooded crime with a cold blooded murder of the victims to hide the evidence of their first crime. Moreover, statistically, capital punishment has shown little correlation with the incidence of crime as shown in table. While there are nations like USA and Oman which have relatively high rape rate, while having capital punishments, there are also nations like Serbia and Canada, which have no capital punishment but much lower rape rates.

 In fact, it is the surety and not the severity of punishment which will acts as a deterrent. Indian courts have more cases pending in them, than any other nation, which makes us the slowest justice delivery system in the world. Often cases taking more than a decade to culminate into punishment – which erodes all faith in the judicial system. Then, there is the talk of fast tracking rape cases. One year earlier there was talk of fast tracking corruption cases, and two years ago we talked of fast tracking cases of terrorism. This solution is a temporary quick fix only to satisfy the mobs, but if long term solution is desired we need to think on how to speed up the entire judiciary itself – all forms of cases – rather than recommending fast track on whatever crimes catches the news of the day. This would need massive investments, new courts need to be established, new judges need to be employed and in fact the Article 32 needs to be redefined than mere “right to judicial remedy” to “right to time bound judicial remedy”.

Now is the time to revisit our societal order – recheck our legal procedures and reinstate our value system and work to create a society where none feels alienated or unsafe, and where the citizens are self-controlled against committing any form legal or moral wrong.