Why are we picking on Rathore alone?

In the entire drama of SPS Rathore that has been so lucidly played in the media, few noticed Rathore’s wife and lawyer Abha’s contention in court that her husband was being hounded by the public and the media.

She has a point: Rathore could not have got away by doing so much wrong for so long with so little repercussions (till now, that is) without the active and passive abetment of a number of people, right from his junior policemen to the school principal who expelled Ruchika to politicians who promoted him over the years.

Not that the others haven’t been questioned. An inquiry report has come out strongly against Sister Sebastina, who was (and still is) principal of Sacred Heart school when Ruchika was expelled for non-payment of fees (no one else had ever been expelled for non-payment either before or since then, a clear case of external influence), while a CBI officer who was questioned on why the agency failed to nail Rathore claimed his conscience is clear because there was no evidence!

Ruchika did not commit suicide just because she was molested; she committed suicide three years later, after her expulsion and soon after her brother was arrested on trumped-up charges of stealing cars.

In all this, Rathore was abetted, whether explicitly or implicitly, by a number of other people such as politicians who backed him, police officers who ignored the case, policemen all too willing to carry out his orders, a school principal willing to do his bidding (and school authorities who never thought it fit to question the principal), and a judicial system that took 19 years to find him guilty.

Just as we love creating heroes, we love tearing down the high and mighty. Today, our entire focus has been single-mindedly on Rathore, who appears to be some sort of a demi-god who could get all others to do his bidding. Why are we not asking why the others so willingly agreed to commit a crime when told to do so?

Perhaps it is because deep down we agonise that had we be in the shoes of a junior policeman or Sister Sebastina, we might have behaved no differently. After all, how many of us might actually turn down a request from our boss, even if it is wrong (what happens to my next raise? my next promotion?). And few are the establishments that will not accede to a “request” from a powerful policeman, bureaucrat or politician.

In such a scenario, it is easy to put the entire blame on a powerful person like Rathore for “forcing” others to do his bidding against an innocent girl, while ignoring, or at least playing down, the role of others who are equally culpable. This catharsis extirpates our collective guilt when we should also be asking questions about the role of others.

For instance, when the school expelled Ruchika, why was Sister Sebastina’s decision not questioned? What were the authorities/trustees who run the school doing? The risk is now that Sister Sebastina will be made to bear the entire responsibility for Ruchika’s expulsion, while others go scot-free.

Similarly, what were the other senior police officers doing when some car thief claimed that Ashu was his accomplice? Why did they so go out of their way to please their boss? How is it that when the judiciary found Ashu innocent of all the charges slapped against him, no one from the police was held accountable?

Many of them might justify their acts of commission or omission by saying they were only obeying orders, or really had no choice under the circumstances. But the truth is that we all have a choice in doing the right thing, either out of respect for our conscience or out of fear of being penalised some 19 years later. Exemplary punishment must be meted out to the others who are guilty along with Rathore so that henceforth this fear looms on the horizon. Only then can we say that Ruchika was given justice.