Opinion Deceptive closure

The December 16, 2012 case has been traumatic for a nation. The crime — a gang of six men raping a woman with such violence that it led to her death — didn’t just devastate the victim’s family, it moved society to protest, for tougher laws, for blame in rape cases to be shifted from victims to perpetrators. Protesters even demanded the public hanging of the accused. However, the legal system behaved with exemplary care. Withstanding waves of public anger, its calm deliberation, its diligent adherence to due process, is commendable. The 2012 case was processed through a fast-track court which gave its verdict, the death penalty for the adults accused, in 2013. In 2014, the Delhi High Court upheld the verdict. The Supreme Court then allowed appeals — it has now upheld the death penalty.

Yet, the case stays fraught. The Supreme Court noted: “The appetite for sex, the hunger for violence… shock the collective conscience…”. It seems a shocked “collective conscience” can only be assuaged with the death penalty. This paper takes a principled stand against the death penalty, often the easiest way out, for it evades the much harder challenges of enlightened human redress. The death penalty is premised on the state having a superior moral authority to take life. Many nations, finding this medieval, have revoked the death sentence. This hasn’t caused heinous crimes in their precincts to spiral, just as the death penalty for the December 16 accused hasn’t deterred others; 2016 NCRB data shows reported rapes rising from 3,37,922 in 2014 to 3,46,000 in 2015. In over 3,30,000 cases, the victims knew their assailants. The death penalty is not a strong enough deterrent. Better policing and better administration are. The death sentence simply brutalises a discourse already marred by diverse sadisms. It addresses a terrible crime with a terrible fate: Satisfying a collective call for violence, temporarily celebrated, then forgotten.

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But the legacy of December 16, 2012, should be deeper. Part of the Supreme Court’s judgement contains searching questions about sexual crimes in India. It is vital these are addressed, from women’s economic marginalisation, to the smothering of their voices politically, regressive gender imagery in media, weakening stereotypes taught in classrooms. The modern state needs a more evolved role than simply being an executioner. It should aid citizens in enquiring how society’s failings are spurring crimes, rather than hardening the laws whenever a shocking crime occurs — the age of juveniles to be punished as adults for heinous crimes was lowered, followed the December 16 case. That addresses the appalling, but not the endemic.