Recent Gang rape case in Delhi, do we really understand why it is happening again and again?

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.