By Deepa Majumdar
This article is dedicated to the Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi.
‘Tis the season of Christmas and it is touching to reflect on the nativity scene … Imagine the Holy Family gathered around the shining Child … A heavenly star guides the three wise men to the manger … Gentle animals surround the humble crib … A quiet Joy spreads its aura in the universe. But patriarchy did not spare even the Holy Family. Like any other woman, Mary had to face the prejudice of a patriarchal society when she discovered she was with child … despite the miracle of Immaculate Conception. If Jesus transcended patriarchal gender and all ugly immanence … this was because he was Son of God and Son of Man and therefore beyond male and female. His teachings against adultery were radical … adultery began in the heart … “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Why did Jesus speak of the lesser sin of adultery and not of rape? Perhaps because His audience (mankind) was not yet ready to hear about rape. But gentle Jesus taught and demonstrated (through the ordeal of the crucifixion) the greatest message ever on love and forgiveness … love thy enemy, resist not evil, turn the other cheek, etc. Centuries before the Buddha had said, “Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hatred.” But this highest, perennial teaching cannot be implemented by all. Rare is the soul powerful enough to act upon this teaching … especially in the case of rape, which amounts to murder of the soul … which is why it is an affront to compensate rape with money. For the majority of ordinary mortals, self defense and punishment are in perfect accord with this teaching of the Buddha and Jesus, neither of whom spoke of punishment. But the ever pragmatic Swami Vivekananda did …
Despite their innate gentleness, both Jesus and the Buddha would have unleashed divine wrath upon the perpetrators of the spate of gang rapes and other rapes reported during this holy month of December. On Dec 13, a woman was gang raped in Williamnagar, Meghalaya. On Dec 16, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was assaulted and gang-raped by six men on a moving bus in Delhi. Her 28-year-old software engineer friend was also assaulted. Both had the courage to fight their assailants. Half an hour after they boarded the bus, after being tormented and robbed of their clothes and belongings, the two were thrown off the bus at Mahipalpur. On Dec 17, a five year old girl was stolen in her sleep and allegedly raped in the Bidar district (Karnataka). On Dec 19, a 37-year-old woman was gang-raped in Bishalgarh (west Tripura), then stripped naked, brutally beaten, and tied to a tree. On Dec 21, a 19-year-old college student was killed in Pipra village in Kaimur district (Bihar) after she resisted a probable rape attempt. I am the last person to generalize that all Indian men are sick. Certainly not … but a certain subsection of our society is sick … very sick. They draw this sickness from their own characterlessness … but also from the larger culture. Bollywood cannot be blamed in isolation. The seamier side of Bollywood is an expression of the pent up violence against women (by men and women) that runs across the warp and woof of Indian society.
An apocalyptic crime calls for an apocalyptic punishment … unless of course, the redemptive act of forgiveness is feasible. So great a crime calls for retribution and proportionality in order for the balance of justice to be restored. Greater than justice are forgiveness and love, for these possess far greater powers of redemption. But the young survivor of the Delhi case has herself asked for the accused to be punished. And the protesting crowds are asking for a range of punishments … from castration, and death by hanging, to life imprisonment. One of the accused, now caught, has asked to be hanged. Three of the accused who have refused the Test Identification Parade, have told a city court they are ready for any punishment … even death.
In a case like this, punishment is obviously essential … but what punishment can be moral, yet proportionate to a crime of this enormity? Clearly the punishment ought not to “match” the crime. After all, we do not rob robbers … nor kidnap kidnappers … Capital punishment is inherently immoral because it punishes the greatest crime by a matching greatest punishment … As a result, it loses its power of redemption … a power that prevents punishment from degenerating into violence … For, unless punishment is simultaneously retributive and redemptive, it becomes violent. Two wrongs never did make a right … nor does a vice have the moral power to punish a vice. Yet … if justice is to be upheld … the crime being apocalyptic, the punishment ought to be the same …
Indeed, how should the six accused (in the Delhi case) be punished? At the very least they should be locked up for life. They should be made to do hard (not abusive) labor so they can earn their upkeep and repay their nation. In a traditional society like India, shame is a great deterrent. I am not against shaming being added to the punishment. If done with proper moral and legal finesse, it can be a source of redemption. In any case, all rapists’ names should be registered in an electronic list, so families can be warned of them. It would not hurt to flash the names and pictures of these sick men periodically on national TV … each time with a homily on why rape is abhorrent.
There is, I am sure, a special place in hell for rapists … and the Law of Karma, a sort of dynamic Judgment Day, is said to take care of such iniquities. Unlike punishment by humans, this Law … because of its transcendental origin … can afford to punish crime with matching crime … for this natural Law redeems through punishment … and it punishes by meting out the exact same crime to the wrong doer. As a result, “what goes around comes around.” Part of this divine justice works through human hands … although human beings should not play God … Unlike divine law, we ought not to punish crime by matching punishment. Therefore the six accused in the Delhi gang rape case and any others (especially those who stand accused of raping minors) should not be raped, nor should they be castrated … nor hung … Rather, they should be fast tracked in court and punished for life, with televised shaming thrown in here and there.
Until Delhi assures safety to women, it is not fit to be the capital of India. Perhaps the citizens of India should be handed a referendum in which they vote for a new capital … the main criterion being safety of women and resurging moral values. The broader solution lies in a feminist dialysis of Indian culture as a whole … I mean the application of an ethical feminism (not worldly feminism). Sexism seeps deep into the roots of our culture. It is there in our mythology … it is there in our rituals … it is there in all gendered relationships, even those sublimated by complementary duties. Prejudice against women runs from the cradle to the grave … The grotesque excesses of Bollywood did not come about by accident. Yes the west has introduced a new body consciousness to the India psyche. But westernization cannot be blamed for the uniquely Indian character of Indian sexism. Indeed, an ancient civilization has ancient hang-ups. Formal education will not help … not only because our education today is mainly western, but because western education has strayed away from the moral towards the utilitarian. Under the aegis of science, higher education today is more about facts, figures, and technology. Indeed, many are the scoundrel-husbands from the Indian subcontinent, with Ph.D.’s from the west, who abuse their mail-order brides. Our nation-wide feminist cultural dialysis has to start with parents. No parent should wed their daughters to men who demand dowries, or ask for mail order brides. A son who abuses women should be chastised, in the first place, by the mother. But Indian mothers are often totally blind to their sons. Every son is an investment in the future.
The ultimate solution therefore has to come from men … righteous, powerful Indian men should erupt with protests all over the country. Men should police other men until the whole culture/cult of Indian masculinity is transformed forever. And Indian women should refuse to bear children until this form of hideous masculinity is destroyed forever.