Suddenly, the middle class got paranoid about the safety of their sisters, wives and daughters when ‘India’s Daughter’, re-re-provoked by interest in Rapes happening in India. Re-re-provoked? Oh just couple of months back it was Uber Rape Case and then few months back there were two bodies hanging in some village in Ballia duly raped and then hanged (Guess, in which state that is?). So it would be couple of weeks before people stop talking about “Rapes” happening in every nook and corner of India, before people realize that, those three men sipping tea in that road-side stall and giving casual glances around are not looking for a prey to rape.
“But we just want this man hanged”
– cried the well-educated middle class.
And look who also was seen asking for his hanging before his appeal is decided by Supreme Court – Jaya Bachchan, a legislator, who is chosen to govern us by us. A meek and frivolous attempt, I would say, to play to the gallery and prove to the world, how knee-jerk our reactions can be. For the record, after the CBI report and due forensics, it was found that those two girls who were found hanging from the tree in Ballia were not raped. Who would have been responsible for the lives of the accused in that case, if they were hanged without a trial. But then that is one-off case, my friend would remind me. Nirbhaya was also the one-off case my dear friend, prior to this and after this how many such cases have you heard?
“But, one cannot deny the fact that in India rapes happen at the drop of a hat.”
Let’s come back to one of my favorites, statistics
Rape per 100,000 people in US – 29
Rape per 100,000 people in UK – 25
Rape per 100,000 people in Australia – 29
Rape per 100,000 people in South Africa – 115
Rape per 100,000 people in Sweden – 67
Rape per 100,000 people in India – 2
I am not making this statistics. People can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics for source of these statistics, taken from UN data. In terms of countries, India stands 102nd in terms of incidence of Rape. Is it something to be ashamed of?
“But many rapes in India go unreported, we should do something about it, statistics does not tell the right picture always.”
If you can trust the sources like USA Justice Department or UK Home Office or Australia Government Statistics, you would find that even they say that Rapes are underreported and at time even suggesting that out of 13 rapes only 1 is reported, so, if you juxtapose that much on Indian Scenrio, we are not worse than them in this regard. One in 200 UK women were speculated to be raped in year 2006-07. Would you say there is anything comparable in India? Also, in US 1 out of 6 women would be raped in their lifetime. Now to all the concerned citizens of India, how many rape victims you know. Is it comparable in any ways?
“But in India, Rapist get away because of loop-holes in law”.
India probably is only one of the very few countries, where the conduct of the prosecutrix can not be brought up during the trial. It is also one of the very few countries where sole testimony of the complainant is enough to convict a man. And coming to my favorite mistress statistics, India has a healthy conviction rate of 24%, which is considerably more than less than 7% in UK, 10% in Swedan and 25% in France (Sources: UK Home Office 2006-07 report on crime and Time Nov 08, 2013)
“But Rapes still happen in India, and we should have zero tolerance for it”
I heard you right, Every crime and not only rape, should shake us to the core, why single out rape and equally also there should be zero tolerance for many things, I hope you would agree that Rape is not the only problem plaguing this country. We have many more problems to tackle and we are emphasizing on all of them including (and rightly ‘but not limited to’) Rape.
“But whenever there is rape, someone should pay for it.”
Right, tomorrow you can pay for a rape which either happened or not happened, somebody has to pay should means guilty person has to pay and not let’s frame someone because a rape has happened. Today it is some other poor chap which has been framed, tomorrow it might be you or someone close to you.
One aspect which these punishment mongers miss is that all leading reports, including “The Hindu” study “the many shades of Rape in Delhi” and independent study done by “Delhi Commission of Women” suggest that overwhelming number of rapes 83% as Hindu put it and 55% as DCW put it are prima-facie false. Which means minimum 50% of rape accused are incarcerated for crime that was probably never committed. If the figures are not alarming as of now, the increase would mean that tomorrow no one would believe even the genuine victim of rape. The same thing happened with 498a and then happened with cases of molestation. In the beginning it is police and lawyers which stop believing the victims and soon the society at large would stop believing these so called “victims”, if the checks and balances are not put in place urgently.
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