As I see the jubilant faces of the mob celebrating the gunning down of the accused four in the Disha incident, it makes me wonder, is this what we have come to as a society where the Police resort to such forms of “justice”& we cheer them? the same Police who are supposed to be the upholders of law & order clearly flout them & bow down to popular opinion & mete out their own brand of justice. The same police who had the gall to ask the victims father inappropriate questions & made him jump through hoops in the name of “jurisdiction”, when he came to register a complaint? if the Police themselves circumvent the judiciary & serve as the judge, jury & executioner , it only points to their lack of faith in due process of law & the very system they serve. This begs us to ask a very important question, how broken is our current justice system that the police themselves didn’t have the patience to wait till the law take its own course? if so, how can we assure a common man/woman that he/she will be delivered justice (in other cases & instances) as our constitution intended it to? our cheering of such acts by the Police will also put us in a precarious position where our need for justice won’t be incumbent upon the integrity of the institutions put in place by our founding fathers but upon the whims & fancies of certain (police) personnel who might think they’re above the system that they serve there by leaving us to their mercy, mercy which can be easily manipulated with the right incentives . It’s also funny that the scythe of “justice” swings swiftly when the perpetrators are of a low social standing, wonder why the police never gunned down the affluent & the politicos who stand accused & in some instances guilty of similar crimes? (29% of our current members of parliament face rape charges)
To all the people celebrating that justice has been served, let me remind you that Justice is retribution carried out for the betterment of the society as a whole, Revenge is retribution carried out to make few people good and/or vindicated, so please don’t commit the mistake of confusing revenge for justice, they can never be the same. People might be under the assumption that such acts of “justice” following the precept of “Lex Talionis” or “The Law of Retribution” might bring down sexual assault incidents down but if you take a look at the statistics, you’ll see that in countries where such forms of justice is served, the percentage of rape incidents are only marginally lower (3.65%) when compared to India (4.4%) . what needs to done is a systemic over haul within both the public & private spheres. The government should commit to implement Justice Verma’s report in it’s entirety, fill up the vacancies in police & judicial department, setup fast track courts to expedite the cases concerning sexual assault & when it comes to the private sphere, children should be taught the meaning of consent right from their kindergarten days, awareness centers should be setup in schools & colleges & PLEASE stop encouraging movies where stalking & teasing of women is normalized & glorified (looking at you Ismart Shankar).
Let this whole ordeal be a grim reminder to all of us that we live in a desensitized society & that we should be asking ourselves everyday about how one should stay kind & adhere to tenets of basic decency & humanity in the face of relentless barrage of temptation, instant gratification, ignorance, self righteous indignation, hypocrisy & apathy.
