Opinion Evil state power
It saddens me that my last column of 2009 should be about injustice and evil but what choice is there?....
It saddens me that my last column of 2009 should be about injustice and evil but what choice is there? This past week I have been haunted by the picture of a young girl with big eyes,thick hair,a childishly plump face and big hoop earrings. Every time I saw Ruchika Girhotras face on my TV screen,I saw her as the symbol of the corruption of the Indian state. I was not the only one.
Ruchikas story caused an outpouring of national rage because in her innocent face,in her sad,needless suicide we saw reflected the defencelessness of an ordinary Indian when the enemy is the Indian state. Everyone who heard how Ruchika was driven to suicide understood her vulnerability. And,understood why she killed herself when she could not bear to see her family destroyed by the powerful police officer who molested her sexually when she was only a child.
In a more civilised country,S.P.S Rathore would have been jailed then and there for his sickening crime but in India he remained so powerful that he went on to become the Director General of Police in Haryana. He could not have done this without the help of his political masters and this is why Ruchikas story remains important so many years after her tragic death. It is not just about justice not being done for nineteen long years. It is not just about the inadequacy of Rathores punishment. It is about the misuse of political power that remains today one of our biggest problems.
Ruchika lived and died in those dark,socialist days when our only TV channel was Doordarshan. It was then,and still is,no more than a government mouthpiece. Had Ruchika lived today when 24-hour news channels make the crimes of men like Rathore public before they can be protected by the state,it is possible she would still be alive. Rathore would have been disgraced in the merciless glare of the media before he had time to use the machinery of the state to hide his crime under a tissue of lies. But,the Manu Sharma parole story reminds us that the Indian state remains fundamentally corrupt and amoral and the only thing that has changed since socialist times is the vigilance of private TV channels.
May the power of the media expand and magnify so that no Indian citizen ever again becomes the victim of a corrupt and wicked police officer. The politicians who protected Rathore have been scrutinised by the media and shamed publicly for what they did. But,we must remember that even smalltime politicians in India continue to have more power than they should under the norms of democracy.
The richest,most powerful Indians hesitate to take them on because displeasing an important minister or chief minister usually results in income tax raids and harassment of a kind that is not very different to what Ruchikas young brother went through. He was hardly a teenager but Rathore succeeded in putting so many false criminal cases against him that Ruchika was driven to suicide. Big businessmen may not be that vulnerable but if they displease powerful politicians they can find their businesses destroyed even today despite economic liberalisation. This is one reason why those annual Budget TV shows end up with a lot of very important businessmen praising the brilliance of a Budget no matter how bad it is.
As for us of the mighty Fourth Estate,we are equally vulnerable. In the dark days of socialism there were black lists in Delhis Press Information Bureau of journalists who made too much noise about governmental failures. These lists no longer exist but journalists out of favour with the Government of India find themselves shunned and denied access. In our state capitals the problem is more serious. Journalists who spend too much time pursuing corrupt politicians can end up dead. As far as I know nobody tries to ask too many questions about who the killers are.
If influential Indian citizens can be treated this way it does not take much to imagine what happens to the voiceless and the poor. In rural India women usually do not dare go into police stations to register a complaint for fear of catching the eye of some local Rathore. Dalit and Adivasi girls are routinely raped and if the rapist happens to be of upper caste,even if not a police officer,they know there is no point in trying to get justice because their families will be hounded out of the village.
Not much has changed in nineteen years but if Ruchikas story can make us ask the questions that must be asked,she would not have died in vain. We need to do more than light candles for Ruchika.
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