When state fails, vigilante rises

"Law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress."

Martin Luther King 

Much has been the public outrage across the country in general, and the national capital in particular, after the Delhi bus rape incident. The focus has mostly been on safety of women and the flaws in the system that is supposed to protect them.
However, little has been said about the rising danger of vigilante justice — which will find many takers as the ‘system’ continues to fail them.

One such example is an incident that took place in Jharkhand recently when a village meticulously planned and executed the lynching of five men who were constantly molesting women in the locality. After the murders, a mob went to the local police station to take responsibility. 

While this can be considered as an isolated incident, one cannot ignore the rising public discontent when the justice delivery system fails their expectations.

There are tens of thousands of cases every year when people are forced to suffer heavy-handed measures of the state that is supposed to protect them from oppressors. Many ‘development’ projects that are launched with fanfare involve land acquisitions and rarely is this done ensuring adequate compensation to the landowners.

Since many contracts are ‘won’ by benamis of politicians, their methods of coaxing the landowners through threat of violence and, of course, real violence, are invisible to the guardians of law. Considering  there is little difference between the treatment meted out to them by the goons and the police, it is only natural that organisations such as the Maoists are never short of fresh blood.

While the salaried class is squeezed dry through every possible tax and surcharges, the corrupt officials and politicians are having a field day. The rags-to-riches success story of the Indian political class who turn rupee billionaires after spending barely a decade in modestly-paid public offices should put financial moghuls to shame.

The Central government cites constraints of international agreements and refuses to divulge the names of those who have bled the country white and stashed their illicit wealth abroad.

So, while a clerk caught taking a Rs 500-bribe loses his job and spends time in jail, those who siphoned off enough money to feed an entire generation continue to rub shoulders with national leaders and star as outspoken stalwarts of industry.

Even in cases communal violence, response of the state machinery has always been late and on many occasions — complicit. The best example would be 2002 Gujarat riots. While small-fry and thugs have been convicted, the masterminds of the mass murders — executed with meticulous planning and clinical precision — remain untouched. When caste kangaroo courts make a mockery of judiciary and police and continue their reign of unfettered bloodshed, the victims have nowhere to run.

With all institutional mechanism failing to provide justice or protect from injustice and oppression, majority of our population (without the ‘protection’ of a politician or a criminal – now don’t ask me what’s the difference) has been rendered helpless, hopeless, powerless and cornered.

Great minds have made observations such ‘man is a political animal’ and ‘man is a social animal’ — basically an animal with many intellectual facets. And guess what happens when an animal is cornered without any possibility of escape...

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on December 26, 2012.)

We have built a rapist’s paradise

A journalist friend’s social network post on the Delhi bus rape made some scathing observations, and correctly so, about how the nation is truly ‘outraged’ only when sexual violence occurs in the heart of political and economic powerhouses. 

Society and what we call “the system” are equally responsible for the state of sexual siege the women of this country are forced to live under.

Newspapers come up with illustrations of statistics and news channels line up ‘experts’ from different walks of life to hold prime time panel discussions on the deteriorating social conditions.

There is a lot of drama and rage before cameras and mikes for a few days, then all is gradually forgotten — till another mauled female form is discovered abandoned and battling for life.

Though psychologists may line up a host of reasons to explain the behaviour of perpetrators of sexual violence, it boils down to few basic reasons.

• Societal endorsement of masculine aggression
• Lack of airtight case-building that will lead to conviction
• Flawed portrayal of women in popular culture
• Outdated patriarchal social system that tends to punish the victim than the violator
• An ultra-slow legal system that can be exploited to delay justice to the effect of denying it

As long as we have ludicrous ‘out-of-court settlements’ for rape such as rapist agreeing to marry the victim, the justice system is taking a beating. This is an endorsement that the rape victim is in some way ‘contaminated’ and ‘unfit’ for leading a normal life. 

It also puts the victim at the mercy of the violator, who has already destroyed every minute element of self-respect she possessed. Every act of sexual intercourse after such a wedding is nothing short of socially-endorsed rape.

The absence of quick legal redress ensures that the victim is forced to put up with inordinate delays as case hearings are postponed and mental wounds stay raw and open. And thanks to the media attention (which usually goes overboard), every last bit of privacy of the victim goes for a toss — making a return to normal life even more difficult.

From policemen, politicians and social workers, we need to go miles in terms of treating cases of sexual violence with sensitivity. There is no dearth of top cops and politicians who shift the blame on victims’ tight clothes and loose morals.

Above all, the lack of a punishment that serves as a deterrent to rapists is the biggest inducement for the perpetrators to continue their brutal hobby with impunity. I reiterate my call, from an earlier column, for surgical castration of rapists. 

If there is anything that can deter the rapist, it is the permanent destruction of the supply chain that powers the macabre hunt.

I know this is not a permanent solution. However, with predators reduced to paper tigers, forced to live in self-loathing for the rest of their lives, the world becomes a better place for the fairer sex.

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on December 19, 2012.)

Israel vs Palestine: There will be blood

Disproportionate response has always been the cornerstone of Israeli policy towards Palestine and this time too it has been no different. The decision of the Jewish state to allow massive levels of settlements (considered illegal by friend and foe alike) on Palestinian land has only added fuel to the fire.

The knee-jerk reaction to Palestine gaining observer status at UN (just nine opposing votes shows where the world opinion stands), the hawks in Israeli government had to prove that any line other than the Israeli line will bring about only suffering for Palestinians and their cause.

The settlements will further corral Palestinians into a smaller piece of land, which is being continually encroached by Israel on every possible pretext, forcing into their lives an artificial scarcity for resources and related suffering.

The icing on the Israeli policy cake is further financial and material restrictions that will cripple Palestine administration. As hundreds of millions of dollars in legitimate taxes and aid is denied to the Palestine government, it is only natural that the current human catastrophe in the occupied territories will worsen. This will weaken the government’s ability to govern and, more importantly, rein in the activities of militant groups that target Israeli territory with crude rockets.

The recent cross-border military operations by Israel in Gaza clearly demonstrates that the Jewish state has no qualms in killing civilians, though its propaganda machinery goes to great lengths to say how it  ‘minimises collateral damage’.

In a report by an international news agency, a Gaza resident recalls how he got a warning call from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) at 3am that the building was about to be bombed in five minutes and the family had to evacuate immediately. He and his family were lucky enough to make it out alive before Israeli jets reduced the building to rubble — not everyone was that lucky.

Say an average family has five to seven members, including children and elderly, how many can get out of a multi-storey building if roused at the dead of the night and given a five-minute window? So even as its operations are guaranteed to massacre innocent civilians, Israelis can hide behind their lip-service to ‘adequate warning’ — and have their US-led backers endorsing the slaughter.

However, the Western champions of ‘peace and stability in the region’ have no difficulty in ignoring Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons and its continuing occupation of other countries’ territories — if only one were to forget that it is actually an occupied Palestine that is today’s Israel.

Israeli policies are also ensuring that the oppression and injustice faced by the Palestinians are increasing by the day, and in turn transforming into a rallying point for terrorist organisations. Recruitment videos of jihadi groups showing mothers wailing over bloodied, limp bodies of little children killed in Israeli raids have been quite effective in serving their purpose.

When the financial and military might of Israel and its half-a-dozen backers are able to subvert the functioning of an international body like the United Nations and reduce it to a scarecrow, it is only natural that any action that will hurt Israel and its citizens will find takers and supporters.

Palestinians are being killed slowly and painfully by Israel’s sheer brutality and equally effective stranglehold of blockades. The blood and tears of Palestinians will ensure that Israel will never sleep in peace till it mends its ways.

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on December 5, 2012.)