Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The ordinance promulgated by the Tamil Nadu government to tackle sexual harassment will be generally welcomed.
It provides for imprisonment for a maximum term of one year or a fine of Rs 10,000 or both.
The ordinance was necessitated by the tragic death of a girl at the hands of her teasers-turned-tormentors.
It is indeed doubtful whether the government would have responded in this manner but for the popular indignation this incident aroused. While the government8217;s motives are not in doubt, the question is whether an ordinance is necessary to deal with such a crime. Our laws are surely comprehensive enough.
In the instant case, those responsible for the girl8217;s death can surely be hauled up for manslaughter, if not murder, which attracts a harsher punishment. Their behaviour cannot be described as quot;eve-teasingquot;.
To drive the point home, a student in Hyderabad nearly lost his life when his seniors in college ragged him. When ragging degenerates into a criminal act, the persons concerned need to betreated as criminals, not as students.
In this particular case, according to news reports, the seniors picked the juniors8217; pockets too, in the name of ragging. They should have been treated as pickpockets and punished accordingly.
If the government considered it necessary to promulgate the ordinance, despite the law being clear on the issue, it is perhaps a pointer to the enormity of the problem. But much will depend on how the authorities of law-and-order make use of the new law to deal with those guilty of sexual harassment.
If it remains merely in the statute book like many other laws, it will have little impact. As it is, eve-teasing is only one among numerous atrocities against women. The law against rape was strengthened a few years ago to make the punishment of the guilty easier and harsher. But despite such strengthening of the law, there has been no reduction in the number of rape cases.
In the national Capital, instances of a 90-year-old woman falling a victim to the lust of a man youngenough to be her great-grandson or of an old man raping an infant are not infrequent. It is against this backdrop that Union Home Minister L.K. Advani has come up with the idea of awarding capital punishment to the rapist. He has not set any time frame for the necessary Bill which will be drafted in consultation with the state governments.
Whether those committing rape deserve the death penalty or not can be debated, but what8217;s important to emphasise here is that it is not the harshness of punishment but the certainty of punishment that deters crime. It is in this regard that the state has failed. In fact, it is the extremely low rate of conviction in criminal cases that encourages criminals to strike again and again.
What is necessary is to plug the loopholes in the judicial system that allow a hardened criminal with the necessary clout to escape the rigours of the law. Instead of making the punishment harsher and harsher, let there be some thought given to making it obligatory for the guilty to payhefty compensation to the victim, in addition to serving a term in jail. If it can be brought home to criminals that there is no way they can escape punishment, the crime graph is bound to register a decline.
