dna edit: Setting a healthy precedent

Without venturing into a minefield of contentions — whether the State has the right to take life and capital punishment is the solution to increased incidences of rape — the sessions court judgement on the repeat offenders in the Shakti Mills cases is illuminating. By refusing to look into ‘mitigating’ factors like lack of education and poor financial backgrounds of the convicts, Judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi has put a serious crime like rape in proper perspective. Rape, as now been established beyond contention, is driven solely by a violent need to establish male supremacy and power over the victim. The crime is a powerful weapon wielded with a sense of impunity and ‘achievement’ in a patriarchal culture that runs across caste, class, religion and geography. In a country where a rape is committed every 54 minutes, a woman or a child is as vulnerable at home as she is outside. The exponential rise — 873 per cent since 1953 — cannot be attributed to economic conditions alone, though they do play a part in sustaining and fuelling the crime. What’s worse, till recently, a large number of cases used to go unreported for the victim’s fear of stigma and ostracism.

There is no denying that the low rate of convictions has mostly to do with the perpetrators’ financial and social clout. Instances of the rich and the powerful being jailed for similar crimes are unheard of. Many exploit the loopholes in the law, influence testimonies and buy off witnesses. These precedents serve to highlight the failure of the police and criminal justice system, and their susceptibility to corruption.

The Delhi and Mumbai gang-rape convicts come from the lowest rungs  of the society, themselves victims of poverty and exploitation. But, given the nature of their crimes, which bear testimony to the worst forms of depravity and violence, indigence is too tenuous a ground to show leniency. Let’s not forget that the young physiotherapist had to pay with her life and the other two traumatised victims had to suffer torture and humiliation.

The issue of poverty underscores the abject failure of the State in taking care of its people. The two Indias, at polar opposites, are the culmination of years of skewed development. But that cannot be a valid argument for judging the crime or deciding the quantum of punishment for the same. The court has rightly observed, “Conviction cannot be dependent on the social and the economic status of the victim or the accused and the race, caste or creed of the accused cannot be taken into consideration.”

The other commendable observation the court has made is to describe as ‘irrelevant’ the question as to whether the victim suffered ‘any injuries’. It must be pointed out that often in such cases of sexual violence, the victims’ behavioural responses to the incident and its aftermath tend to be made into defining points in the debate. This is completely unacceptable. Individuals react to incidents, especially when these involve traumatic experiences — differently. And it is regressive to set a set of behaviour parameters for victims of sexual violence.

Our sensibilities towards rape and rape victims continue to be coloured by regressive beliefs and convictions. The Nirbhaya outrage had signalled a marked shift in our outlook, but the fight to bring about a balance in gender power dynamics would require a lot more than laws. It begins at home, in our everyday interactions and engagement with the world.