Combating the Unwanted Rape Culture in India

The first thing we need to do is to focus on the institutional structure of the police. Today, the police is monopolistic in nature. They have no incentive to serve the people to the best of their abilities. They are more or less safe from expulsion from their jobs (the safety unique to government jobs). There is an urgent need for audits by an independent authority, regular and constant supervision, and an anonymous complaint system. The police needs to be accountable to the public, the public who’s taxes pay their salaries. Their job is to work FOR the public, and there is a need for them to recognize this, to be accessible.

Specifically to address their insensitivity in rape cases, there is a urgent need for sensitization. Something that is required to be stressed upon in their training. Facing the insensitivity suck as that shockingly visible in the sting operation is perhaps the worst thing a rape victim can feel. In some ways, it is possibly the worst thing that could happen, ?because it reinforces the belief that the rape was her own fault from people who are supposed to give her justice. The Kumars and Tomars are soon becoming the poster boys of the Indian police.

Kiran Bedi, in an interview, stressed group patrolling, working together of the police and the public. Again, their needs to be inclusiveness, without which the entire police structure is disintegrating. Fast.

Justice serving, today, is a long drawn and cumbersome process. There is a need for increasing the number of courts, and introduction for fast track courts for certain cases. This particular sentiment has been repeated again and again throughout the various debates in the media itself, but the importance of this one step is paramount in restoring the faith in the judicial process of our country.The law, presently, is not as much of the demon it is made out to be. The major problem area today is the collusion between failure to understand the laws by the police and blotching up the investigations due to shoddy training, minimum incentive to work, combined with haggard and delayed justice (if at all). However, we DO need to define ‘rape’ better, address the issue of marital rape, also making the laws gender neutral, all of which, among some other useful suggestions, have been recommended by Criminal Law Commission reports, and have failed to make their way into the amendments. Or in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2010. There needs to be a stronger law, agreed, but a more pressing need right now is to focus on the police structure and judiciary. Any law overhaul would be ineffective without a corresponding improvement in accountability and fastrack delivery of justice.

Presently, getting justice has higher costs verses minimal benefits. It needs to change.

*Defines as the number of convictions as a percentage of the total number of completed prosecutions that year.

According to State Crime Records Bureau, in 2011, a total of 1,864 cases ? including those reported earlier ? were referred to courts. Eighty per cent of the cases are pending trial in various courts, and of the remaining 20 per cent cases, only four per cent ended up in conviction.?In all, 74 accused were convicted, while the accused in the rest of the cases were acquitted.

Right now, we face an imminent danger. Danger from self professed moral brigade serving as police barging into the very very *spirit* of the women. Apart from a gross violation of human rights these sad statistics report, the ugly?patriarchal?views threaten the very bases of our democracy. We want to change the mindset of these people, but that is a long-term process.

Right now, just the fulfillment of the duties of our police and judiciary would do.

 

(The opinions reflected in this article are completely subjective to the author and do not represent the opinions of TIE as an organization)