Check your sensitivity!

Just finished watching the BBC documentary ‘India’s daughter’. Accolades to the Director, for sensible portrayal of the nuances of the unfortunate incident. It is not a clichéd cheap dramatic representation as depicted in our Primetime crime shows. However, pertaining to its ‘sensitive’ content the government is determined to bar it from public view, but one needs to be sensitive about it. Tihar Jail DG served a notice to the BBC for taking commercial advantage of it. Instead of appreciating the effort for unraveling the grievances of the victim’s associates and the individual opinions of the people involved; the DG is worried about the commercial aspect. How to counter this skewed parochial vision?

The pertinent question is how to stop the perpetration of such heinous crimes? Can educating people help? I don’t think so because court’s record rooms are brimming with the high-profile cases where the educated, sophisticated and privileged are the culprits. If education means good schooling then I should admit that being educated in a school that holds the Guinness world record for enrolling maximum number of students in a city, I studied moral science as a subject up till class VI. For class VII and VIII moral science examination, I wrote the philosophy of our school and its motto. Beyond class VIII the school did not felt the need of moral education. So, is the case in other schools.

The convicts were unrepentant because atrocities against women are a part of their upbringing and their indifference to it is practical. Secondly, if their crime is punishable then the cases of the influential people, the MPs, MLAs inflicted with such allegations should also be put on fast-track trial. Thirdly, why is their case treated differently when we have scores of assault cases complimented by inhuman acts? Here, we need to understand that corporal punishment is not a treatment for the perception-based ailments. Ideological disorientation can only be cured by ideological refinement.

As a society, we are adapting to globalization, where traditions, values, and beliefs are reshuffling and in this contagious stage we need to redefine the social infrastructure and responsibilities. We want educated, self-reliant women ingrained with traditional values who  can shoulder all the domestic responsibilities.  The pace of adaptation is not same across all the stratus; therefore, men will have to invent a conducive atmosphere to achieve this. As it was Rajaram Mohan Roy, who challenged men’s intolerance for women emancipation. The reason that can be deduced for such crimes is the loss of sensitivity. We have become insensitive as a society. We need to inculcate this basic human emotion, which is a cohesive force and must have been the seed around which humans crystallized to form a society.