We learnt nothing.
5 years down the line since Nirbhaya was raped and died of her injuries and we still learnt nothing. The juvenile rapist involved in the crime is still a free man, despite the other 4 accused in her gang rape being officially sentenced to death by the Supreme Court.
This isn’t an article to condemn rape because it’s obviously condemnable.
What I wish to talk about is that how long before we stop classifying young rapists under the garb of being legally juvenile?
And even more so, how long do we witness people like Aam Aadmi Party leader Nina P. Nayak fight for these young rapists?
Here, the idea isn’t to fear what the ethics committee might say when you’re punishing a young kid for sexually assaulting another person because in layman terms if someone’s smart enough to rape, he/she should be treated as old enough to face the punishments for the same crime.
In other words, distributive justice to ensure a “morally” safe stance is vehemently idiotic, when the crime in question is in itself a gross violation of someone’s human rights.
Retributive theory of justice becomes very important in this case, at least “in theory”, ironically.
What we need to understand is that the subjectivity of the intensity of one crime shouldn’t serve as a catalyst in triggering a reaction out of the society, law enforcement or the judicial bodies.
Rather, we should classify crimes, devise punishments and then see the age of the offender.
Here, in the case of the juvenile rapist in Nirbhaya’s case, we’ve seen and heard reports where it is said that the juvenile was radicalized in the facility where he was kept, some say that he’s working as a cook in South India as of now with a changed identity and we’re all familiar with Delhi govt.’s fiasco of giving him Rs. 10,000 for setting up an apparent tailor shop.
What appalls me is the nonchalance of higher officials towards this case. They condemn it on national TV, sure. But if their wives or daughters were raped by the same so-called juvenile, pretty sure the aftermath wouldn’t have been this mellow.
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The gravity of the situation is further highlighted by the sheer disregard and lack of guilt and regret displayed by this juvenile during a therapy session, as revealed by a psychologist for the same; be it in 2012 or in 2015, when he was allowed to roam free.
I felt the need to pen this down after Nirbhaya’s other rapists were sentenced to death and not this fellow, who was responsible for inserting a rod inside her and pulling her intestines out.
In an argument where we even go ahead to an extreme level and engage with the idea that rape as an action is indeed natural due to sexual frustration, the act of pulling out a person’s intestines during the same act by a JUVENILE RAPIST doesn’t seem natural to me.
Even more so, the idea of the state then going ahead and safeguarding the rapist is the metaphorical cherry on this sad idea of a cake.
Sure, the state has lowered the age of offenders between 16 to 18 in the new amended laws but how long before we see even younger rapists emerging and headlining our newspapers? We can’t base our laws on hypothetical situations especially when an infamous example is right in front of us.
The mere fact that this juvenile is being let go is dangerous because of the message it sends.
The image of the state being against retribution in its truest form throws away the undertone of the idea that no matter if you’re 10 or 17, raping someone won’t hold any major consequences in India.
Are we really that blind as a system?
Or have we conveniently acclimatized ourselves with the limpness of our law and order to an extent where we are almost inherently passive to crimes by younger people?
Think. Analyze. React. Change.
We as a society need to show that we won’t stand for this system of passive judgments and morally safe ideologies.
Till then, here’s hoping this article knocks some sense into a political leader if s/he reads it.
You’d Also Like To Read:
http://edtimes.in/2017/05/nirbhaya-girl-changed-nations-legislation/
