Vir Sanghvi vs. The Basterd – Death Penalty for Rape.

So we’re clear I’m the basterd. Now, let’s get on with it.

I say this with sheer sadness not sadism; the brilliant, flamboyant & versatile Vir Sanghvi has missed the bus by falling in love with capital punishment under the guise of ‘desperate situations call for desperate measures.’

Said that I can’t deny the fact that we’re desperate. Like hell we’re. By we, I mean, India. All 1.2 billion of it.

The 16-Dec case. A smash hit I’d call it if it were a film. It has penetrated the imagination of aam admi like Pepsi Cola of every fat kid.

One is dead. 4 are get-set-go for the gallows. The juvenile, the lucky basterd, will be out on the streets before Christmas 2015. When he strikes again, Exclusivity Chasers (Media) will cash in on the 16-Dec sequel. Sequels are in vogue, you see.

About 25,000 rape cases were registered in 2012. Every 20 odd minute someone gets raped in India. 

Everyone knows minutest detail about the 16-Dec case, yet magically unaware of the neighbor's plight who gets raped every day by her husband. Or do we call that turning a blind eye.

No one cares about the thousands of soldiers who die all the time. No one even cares about the 15,000 annual toll of Malaria. And what about the 1.2 lakh who die in road accidents every year.

This situation takes me to Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Joker tells Two-faced Harvey:

“If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all, part of the plan. But when I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!”

If tomorrow Rahul Gandhi gets blown up. India’s 1.2 billion will lose their minds too.

Irom Sharmila has been on a fast for the past 12 years. A world record. Yet, who gives a flying fuck. Her surname isn’t Gandhi.

We pick & choose what looks good. We don’t even choose. We’re like street dogs. We grab at whatever media throws at us.

Don’t kid ourselves that we want justice & equality. We only care about protecting our own. India trying to justify Capital Punishment under the guise of Justice is the greatest lie ever told.

We don’t seek equality. We seek superiority. Be at school, college, workplace, home, or in everyday life.

Think about it.

If tomorrow I have a son & then a lot of years later he kills someone, say a poor lad. I will hire the best goddamn lawyer to save-my-son’s-puny-ass. Justice will be the last thing on my mind.

Question: Will I also help the poor lad’s family in hiring the best goddamn lawyer for the sake of equality.

You get my drift.

So the whole “We want Justice & Equality” is just bullshit dressed as Foie Gras.

In a country where people only respect position. Where money runs the scheme of things. How do I (a rank nobody) know that the 4 people ordered to be hanged are really the true culprits? And not some random poor chaps framed to make the police look good.

We've an untrained, bigoted, lazy, and atavistic Police Force. Built on the rock-solid pillars of nepotism, bribe & world-class mutual back scratching.

It won’t surprise me if 20 years later all 4 sentenced-to-death were to be found not guilty. Except that they’ll be long-dead-&-buried by then.

Let’s move to the other side of the courtroom. The defendant’s corner.

The defendant’s lawyer calls the victim ‘sexually active’ before marriage & condemns her & says he would have killed his daughter if she were having sex with her boyfriend. Directly justifying the brutal Rape.

If the custodian of law is, for the lack of a better word, so fucked up in his mind what can we expect from a common ‘traditional’ Indian male?

I, frankly, an optimist to the core, can say without a speck of doubt that this country is not in dumps. This country is not in decay. This is country is the proverbial hell.

I’m shit scared to have kids in this country. What if my wife bears a girl child? I will forever live in fear. Do I want that fear, no thank you, Sir. Even if India starts hanging each rapist I’ll still feel shit scared. You know why, because rapes will continue to occur. And one day it will be my daughter.

You don’t have to take my word for it but I fear, Mr Sanghvi, you’ll die writing about what is wrong with this county & I will die (I’m half your age) & so will our kids. But this India that we call our home will continue to churn out rapists at excellent rate.

Here’s a fun fact: Suicide bombers for all practical purposes self-administer the death penalty. They leave no loose ends. No long trials, no police goof-ups, no hostile witnesses, no recanting. They supply swift, instantaneous justice.

Does that justice bring back Rajiv Gandhi. Did that make his widowed wife feel any better. I think not.

Unless we all become retributive in essence. Which most of us Indians already are. But is that the nation we want to be. It’s retribution that gave the world Bin Laden. And now that he’s dead, has anything changed?

A glance at the first page of daily newspapers will corroborate the hard truth that nothing has changed.

A crime of ‘fatal consequence’ like Rape or murder takes decades in the build-up. It follows the process of a tree. The society at large aides in this build up & when it blossoms into a boisterous tree & reaps fruit of hate. The very society cries foul.

Here’s a typical family from Ekta Kapoor’s K soaps to drive home the point:

Say we take the example of a family from the view-point of a 15-year-old girl Tanya. It consists of her Mother, Father, Grandfather, Grandmother, Uncle, Aunt, 9-year-old brother, 17-year-old brother, and a 19-year-old-sister.

Tanya has a boyfriend who she French-kissed for the first time at school. Now she’s back home from school & she’s dying to share this amazing anecdote of love with someone. Someone who’ll not judge her.

Riffle through the list of the family members again & tell me. Take your time.

Everyone will judge Tanya but her 9-year-old brother. Do you wonder why you never hear of a 9-year-old boy raping someone. Do you wonder.

A girl in this country is under the scanner 24/7 and the only measure of her purity is Sex.

Society judges her on the basis of her sexual promiscuity & holds the right to denounce her for being sexually active before the 7-holy-pheras.

Objectification of women by the society at large is the seed that later grows into a tree which bears a fruit called Rape. 

India’s estranged relationship with sex is its greatest problem. No one is comfortable talking about sex.

The argument is not whether to hang them or give rigorous imprisonment to rapists.

The point is to nip-the-crime-in-the-bud. And those who couldn't be nipped-in-the-bud must be given a chance to learn, to know what they did was awful.

If that rapist can be reformed & made a changed man, only then true justice will have been served. But is that even possible in our country. I don’t think so.

But does that mean we ‘kill people’ to show that ‘killing people’ is wrong. I’m not so sure. Are you?

We can go around saying in all earnest that: A society that cannot punish those who damage it ends up punishing itself.

But the unpalatable fact is that we 'as a whole' totally deserve to be punished. Because we’ve brought it upon ourselves. Yet we refuse to say those two most humble words: Mea Culpa (It’s our fault)

Law is not for retribution. It is to protect & the real protection is to ensure crime, not criminal is demolished.

Mr Sanghvi, you’ve kids & all these rapists & murderers running around the streets make you scared shitless. Toothless law & order frustrates you. It makes you angry. Anger activates our defensive instincts. We look for quick-fire solutions. We look for revenge.

And like it is true of anger, we always make the wrong decision when we’re angry.

Change is what we ask for. All you journalists & 1.2 billion Indians are shouting on top of their lungs to ask for it.

That’s the problem: We’re always asking. We’re waiting for it to be served on a platter.  

Here’s the immortal quote by the inimitable Jack Nicholson from The Departed:

“If I got one thing against the black chappies, it’s this – no one gives it to you. You have to take it.”

Gandhi said: Be the change you wish to see in this world.

Can we be that change. I don't think so. But, I'm not giving up just yet.