I was reading articles and news on recent gang rape
case in Delhi, but could not understand what solution people are expecting and looking
for!!!
Some are blaming police and administration, some are
suggesting having more police force and some are asking for death penalty to
guilty. There was a big protest at India gate also. People gathered but no
celerity on what they really want!!!
This is not something happening first time, similar
incidents happened before and similar noise is made but nothing has changed. We
make noise for few days and then we get back to our work. Administration also
understands that after few days people will forget it.
So what’s the point of making noise? I’m not saying that
we should not raise our voice but our way of approaching issue is not correct.
We are just reacting to the situation, there is no concrete thinking behind the
agitation and that’s the reason when it cools down we forget it and get back to
our routine work. Like a kid or uneducated person we are just pointing out the
things which are visible and trying to get a solution for it. Nobody is doing a
root cause analysis! If the solution which we are trying to find is not based on
root cause, it is not a long term solution and same thing will be repeated again
in future!
Things happening today are the outcome of the way
our system has evolved post-independence. So there is no straight or magical
solution for it. There are multiple connected factors which need to be
understood to find the root cause.
One of the major factors is “No fear of punishment”.
Right now people do not have any fear of law they know the loop holes or they
know the influential people who can help them getting out of it. So people do
whatever they want fearlessly. I like the idea of moral laws in Saudi Arabia.
There the fear of punishment is so scary that people think 100 times before
getting into a criminal activity. The law looks very inhuman from punishment
perspective but the real objective of law is “fear of strict punishment” not the
punishment.
Another factor is “Fear of administration”, which is
more like people are scared of helping/supporting police and administration. It
is the responsibility of administration/police to address all these issues but
they cannot do it alone. Police cannot be present all the time at all the
places its only people/us who are present most of the time.
So what is stopping people to help administration? The
recent gang rape case in Delhi when victim was thrown on the road, people were
looking but nobody dared to help her! People are saying that humanity is dying!
It is stupid to say this! We are humans and will remain; it’s only our system
which is stopping us to behave like human. Here the problem is power, which is possessed
by administration or police only and it is difficult for ordinary people to
deal with it.
Our administration is incapable of doing their work
(this itself is point to think why they are incapable?) and sometime just to show
some results, they use these powers against the same person who is helping and
supporting them! There is no straight and sure way with people to protect
themselves with this behavior of administration. Because of misuse of power, police
has created a very bad image and nobody wants to get into trouble by helping
them.
I was in Pune till last year and got chance to deal
with Pune police. Two laptops which I kept in my office drover were stolen.
Laptops were insured and so I was supposed to file a FIR. It took more than one
month just to file a FIR! The way police behaved is horrible. The first thing
they told me is that you yourself might have stolen the laptops! It was
shocking for me, I came for FIR and these people are targeting me!!! I kept on
talking and they said they will come to my office for investigation. It was
almost a week nobody came. Later on calling 2-3 times, they came to my office. They
started talking to working staff but the way of talking was so rude/full of
arrogance and threatening that nobody dared to help them.
Finally they asked me come to police station, I
thought, I will go, file the FIR and it will be done. But it was the start of
feeling pain of visiting police station J Almost every
alternate day I was visiting police station. Every day they were making some
excuse to go out for some urgent work and I was sitting in police station
waiting for them. Three to four times they made me waiting from morning 10 AM
till evening 5 PM! During this one month
visit I was able to realize that they are incapable of tracing it and somehow
dragging the issue, hoping that I will give up filing FIR.
On the other hand, I had a very different experience
dealing with police in Germany. I spent almost a year in Germany and experienced
the way German police behaves. I had a major car accident there. Being an
Indian, I was scared of dealing with police. But what I experienced was very
opposite! German Police acted very friendly and collected all the information
in a very gentle manner. It was surprising for me see police acting so friendly.
Later on I learned that for any such issue the first thing German people do is to
call the police and once police come, people feel relaxed.
I don’t know how it is implemented but certainly it helps giving correct
information without fear.
In India when we think of police, what comes to our
mind is more trouble. People are scared of police but police is not scared of
people. So what we need is a straight and sure way to protect ourselves from
administration/police so that it will become easy for us to help and support them.
Police
also need to be educated on their behavior. Rather than feeling threatened
people should feel comfortable talking to them.
Another factor is, not much people are aware of their
rights. Rather than studying subject which make sense only in adulthood it is
better to get educated about our rights during our schooling. It is almost more
than 60 years of independence and rather than bringing good system in place we
still react to situations, we still do same mistake again and again.
These are the few factors which I could think of,
there can be more. The point is, these are the basic building block we should ask
for; once we have these basic building blocks in place, we will have a better
upbringing and we will behave more sensibly rather than just reacting to the
situations.
