Will Hanging The Rapist Solve The Issue Of Rape??

Will Hanging The Rapist Solve The Issue Of Rape??

The ghastly act of rape in the national capital has once again brought the issue of safety of women under focus. I for one believe that rape & human trafficking should be considered the biggest crime against humanity above all other crimes even above murder, kidnapping and terrorist activities; the most painful fact about rape is that the victim is scarred for life the physical pain associated with the act is too small when compared to the pain that the victim goes through all her life including social stigma and personal scar. Even if you look at the current incident closely “Gangrape Victim” has become her name, everybody associates her with the act which she would want to forget as a bad dream, the problem is that she will now be known by this very act of crime committed against her, 10-20 years down the line she will still be known as the girl who survived a gangrape.

The debate is still open on variety of issues related to this particular incident and rape as a whole reasons for rape/how do we prevent rapes/ who is responsible etc, I in fact read a blog titled “why Indian men rape”; these are all important topics and need to be discussed continuously in various forums; But I would like to concentrate on the issue of punishment that is being demanded for the rapists. If you are following the student protests and various other protests across the country you would have noticed that the public view in general is with the three basic demands :-

• ·     The rapists be hanged to death
• ·         Fast track all the rape cases
• ·         Bring a law which approves Death Penalty as punishment for rape

Now let’s look at these demands one by one:-

• ·         The rapists be hanged to death :-  Well I respect the public view and felt the same but in retrospection I feel that we are actually asking the judiciary to pass a judgement which we want, in a way are we not undermining the whole judicial process? Now I know I would attract brick bats for this but let’s look at this case logically within the purview of law, to be sentenced to death the case needs to be classified as rarest of rare, now I have an issue with this very term, how does one decide which one is rare, which one is remotely rare, medium rare and then rarest of rare??  Aren’t we in a way classifying that ohh crime committed against you is bigger than crime committed against me and since I don’t fill the required criteria the accused in my case deserves a lesser punishment than the accused in yours. I mean who the hell came up with such a term in the first place?? There is a rape happening in India every 20 minutes, what justification will you give to a tribal women getting raped in Chhattisgarh when you tell her since nobody did a candle march for her accused can’t be hanged? Also I personally I would want each rapist to live his entire life in shame and by rotting in jail, each minute, each second he should be made to feel guilty & repent what he did. Basic rights of an Indian citizen should be withdrawn, which means he should not have any identity no passport, no pan card, no ration card, no voting rights absolutely no facilities that a common man has access to. I might sound a tad sadist but trust me that’s the amount of hatred I have for such monsters. Hanging them would solve their problem for ever. So let’s look at making the rapists pay for the crime rather than providing them an easy escape route.
• ·         Fast track all the rape cases:- Even I am against 15 -20 years of dragging of cases but let’s look at the dependencies of making a case fast track, the police for instance have to present strong prima facia evidence for framing of charges against the accused and in cases especially in rural India where the victim herself is not sure of the procedures of the law add to it if the accused is well connected the shoddy investigation by police, the judge gets transferred etc. So a fast track court would be a fast track court only in name and the case would still drag on for years; however this would be a great step considering we have a dismal data of only 12% rape cases actually getting reported and out of this convictions happens in only 18% of them, this should be a great step towards atleast starting to address this menace.
• ·           Bring a law which approves Death Penalty as punishment for rape:- Now this is highly debatable, asking for death penalty is easy but we need to keep in mind that passing such a law will have serious ramifications; the next rapist will make sure that the girl dies so that there is nobody to testify against him, so apart from the fear that every girl faces of getting raped, she will also carry the risk of getting killed. The need of the hour is to re-look at the existing law, for instance current law will consider rape only if there is strong evidence of intercourse, if the intercourse has not happened its not even considered rape. There is no clear guidelines on eve-teasing (I don’t even like the term) very few people take it seriously; some even consider it entirely acceptable.

There is no law in the world including the most talked about Arabic laws which would deter anybody who really wants to commit this ghastly crime; also a law is created to punish and not to deter and what we need right now is some proactive steps instead of reactive punishments; We might never have an India where there is zero rapes, Iam all for stricter punishments for rapists but it should be all around; rapists should be shunned socially and their pictures should be published with their phone numbers, addresses, employment details. Once convicted they should be devoid of any citizen rights no passport, pan card, ration card, driving license, insurance, and should be chemically castrated. This will be the biggest deterrent if any towards the crime. This will send a strong message to anybody who would know it will not just be a jail term but also social boycott for life. Hopefully the citizen protests won’t stop until strict laws are drafted and passed, and on the other hand we should collectively try and create an environment by educating our children (both Sons & Daughters) about respecting women and standing for their rights. Till then we still keep hoping and believing that one day we’ll be able to restrict if not put an end to this ghastly crime.