Not by the laws alone

Attitudinal change, not window dressing, is needed to bring about women's safety and security

Alok Tiwari

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is nothing if not a fighter. True to her form, when pushed into defensive by the agitation following heinous rape-murder of a young doctor in Kolkata’s R H Kar Medical College, she has decided to come out fighting. Not only did she hold demonstrations of her own on the incident but has also announced a slew of measures that would supposedly improve women’s safety in the state.

These include new law that provides an option of death penalty for rape, mandates death penalty for gang rape, and life imprisonment for acid attacks. It also has provisions for swift conclusion of investigations and trial in cases of crime against women, even though it sets apparently unrealistic timelines. Mamata also announced measures to provide more security equipment at medical colleges, more women police stations, more fast-track and other courts to speed up trials in these cases.

These have been announced with full page advertisements in national dailies and other media. That indicates a desire for political damage control as much as any improvement in safety of women in the state. She has decided to take the political bull by its horn and take the fight to the opposition (in this case, mostly BJP) camp. In this her approach is quite different from many others who prefer to stay silent in the face of political challenge themselves while unleashing an army of political proxies to run down the opposition. Whether it will work or backfire in her case remains to be seen.

What is clear though is that the crimes against women in India are hardly a result of lax laws. Law has always been stringent for the offence of rape. It was made more stringent following Nirbhaya case. Indeed, the convicts in that case were hanged, a rarity in India. Yet, it has hardly made any dent in the frequency or brutality of rapes. If we do not hear of many of similar or worse crimes it is because we choose not to. We and our media are inured to such atrocities by the sheer number of them and the fact that the victims belong to voiceless segments of our society.

That is true for not just rape but other crimes as well. There has been death penalty on the statute book for murder from the beginning. That has not deterred any potential killer from carrying out the crime. We know crime, especially crimes of passion and revenge, are a result of a complex social circumstances. Having effective laws and criminal justice system is just one part of the solution to control them. They are necessary but not sufficient conditions.

Rape is especially problematic of such crimes. It is often said we need to work on attitudes towards women and sex in the society. Yes, our suppression and hypocrisy about sex are a problem but then rape is rampant even in societies that have more open attitude towards sex and much more empowered women. There are other factors such as misogyny and patriarchy that are at play even in such societies. We have seen rape continued to be used as weapon in wars, whether in Ukraine or in Israel. Often the crime is less about sex and more about dominance, repression, and spreading terror. When these are the motivators then having stricter laws will have limited efficacy.

The effectiveness of laws is further reduced by lax enforcement. That has always been the Achille’s heel in India. There are special laws and special courts about corruption, about terror related offences, about even consumer complaints. There are designated courts to try cases investigated by some agencies like CBI and NIA. We have had so-called fast-track courts for decades about crimes in general. Yet do they deliver quick and effective justice? Special courts are set up, but they are often left without infrastructure or staff. Worse, they are often used to wreak political vengeance than to administer justice.

No matter what mechanism is set up, eventually it is taken over by the general malaise that plagues our society. We are not interested in having what are hallmarks of any ‘developed’ society namely, decency, responsiveness, and accountability. Hence, our first instinct is to have loopholes that would allow powerful amongst us to get away, whether it is in offence like rape or a parking ticket.

Unfortunately, nothing that Mamata is doing addresses these problems. CBI investigating the Kolkata case may not have uncovered the very sinister conspiracies including organ trade that were first projected as being behind the rape-murder, but it has exposed lots of layers of corruption that led to appointment of wrong people in key positions both in the healthcare set up as well as the police. Hence their first response was not to catch the perpetrator or provide succour to the victim’s family but to somehow let it not snowball into an embarrassment.

I am afraid, Mamata’s subsequent actions are also part of this instinct. She is more concerned about appearing to do something rather than make an effective change. What good will be a special women police station if it is still controlled by local TMC leader? Mamata is hardly alone in this approach. Such unthinking responses are all we have following uproar about any incident. They almost never address the basic problems. Instead of such reactions, the politicians need to improve governance in general. It would mean providing more staff and infrastructure to all arms of government. More importantly it would mean loosening the stranglehold of the party on the administration and making it more autonomous and accountable. These are difficult calls and hence the temptation to go for fake encounters or bulldozer justice remains strong. But unless these are addressed, we-- all of us including men, women, and children-- will not have true security.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Sept 11, 2024