The Thompson Reuters report names India as the most unsafe country for women. This cannot be easily contested considering the growing number of rapes ad atrocities against women. Notably, the survey held periodically had ranked India at seventh slot
in 2011, a year before the Delhi gang-rape of a paramedic that led to strengthening of related laws across the country. The scenario
admittedly has not changed for the better. Rather, it’s worsening by the day.
Clearly, here is proof that laws alone will not suffice to effect a turn-around in the situation. Sex is a primordial instinct that drives
human life. At the same time, India is a nation with a strict moral code, adhered to largely in public life. Safety valves like organised
prostitution centres do not mark out the life here, unlike in the West, or even in some Asian countries. In a society that’s
increasingly coming under the influence of the Internet, the interest in sexual matters is naturally on the ascendant.
Yet, the Indian establishment’s approach to this serious issue leaves much to be desired. The way it deals with this steadily worsening
situation is both old-fashioned and ham-handed. There is no real seriousness about going into the root of the problem and ensuring the
safety of women both in public life and at their homes. A Union Minister is among those advocating castration of those indulging in
rape. An issue in which human passions are involved cannot be handled in this manner, unless India wants to emerge as a nation on the lines of countries like, Saudi Arabia. Creating conditions for women safety is one thing, and increasing the level of punishment for such acts is quite another.
Today in state after state, the day starts with reports of cases of rape being filed. One of the main jobs at police stations today is filing of FIRs on rape cases and cases of sex-related crimes or atrocities on women, mostly girls in the public sphere. Teenage girls sadly form the bulk of the victims. Cases of tribal girls or those from rural areas being raped and murdered are cropping up with increased frenzy also because new laws have teeth and spread of awareness has helped in the matter of booking the guilty. But, notably, the number of such incidents are steadily on the rise. Herein lies a serious contradiction.
