nSociety can end murder, rape or hatred. This is the true truth. Even in the most virtuous society there will always be murderers, rapists and haters.
So why do we go about our lives as normal every day? Well, because we believe that the rule of law will prevail in all civilized societies. Yes, there will be crimes. But the criminals will be chased. And when they are caught, justice will be done. After due process, they will be punished according to their crimes if found guilty.
If, for some reason, this hope of justice is continually thwarted, if some criminals can escape murder, and if the system is so perverted that no justice is served, you will lose your status as a goodbye to civilized society. You can start kissing. And your citizens will live in fear, knowing that the system will not act against those who harm them.
The fight for justice in India is a continuous struggle. First, police forces do not always bother to apprehend those who prey on the weak and helpless.
Second, influential and powerful people (the rich, politicians and their families etc.) know how to thwart any attempt to hold them accountable. And finally, even assuming that the law enforcement system works, there is still a failing legal system to face: cases take years to come to trial, with judges listening carefully to arguments. There is not enough time for this, efforts are made to influence the judiciary and so on.
destroy a trust
Yet, so far, despite many problems and some obvious miscarriages of justice, our system has not reached a level where we think murderers and rapists will get away with it and society will no longer consider them terrible human beings. , In most cases, guilty parties will be caught and punished, or so we tell ourselves.
It is the belief in the rule of law that makes our society work, that gives us the confidence to go about our lives knowing that we live in a country that respects the rule of law.
Destroy that belief and you destroy the foundation of our society.
Read also: One thing was clearly rotten about the 2002 Gujarat riots: Using rape as a form of terror
deny humanity
Much has been written about the Bilkis Bano case but mostly from a Hindu-Muslim perspective. This is an important and valid point of view, but as I said here, a few weeks ago, the issue goes beyond religious differences. It is about respect for life. About respect for women. How difficult is it to ensure justice in today’s India.
About 14 people were murdered. The head of a three-year-old boy was crushed with a stone. Bilkis was gang-raped. His assailants left him as dead.
Does it matter what religion she belonged to? Isn’t what happened only on a purely human level really horrifying? Doesn’t every person of every religion want to ensure that justice is done?
apparently not.
We must now acknowledge that there are people in positions of influence and power who hate Muslims so much that it negates their basic humanity. A few weeks ago, I wrote that the release of the rapists and murderers convicted in that case was against everything the Prime Minister was saying. Woman power (women power) and women safety. I found it hard to believe, I wrote, that the Center has agreed to get these people out of jail. It must have been some local level communalists in the Gujarat administration.
I was wrong.
The state of Gujarat has now revealed that the decision to release the men came with the full approval of the Union Home Ministry, which wrote to the Gujarat government on July 11 this year saying it was okay with the release.
The reason these killers and rapists are let out before the completion of their sentence is because of their ‘good behaviour’. In fact, two of these men were out on parole during the time they should have been in jail (it has now emerged that at least two of these convicts have been on parole for 1,200 days or more for free) kept roaming), they were the subject of the FIR. For outraging the dignity of women and intimidating witnesses. This is not a rumour. Website mojo FIR has been published. Good behavior?
What is even more shocking is that the ministers of the central government are saying that there was nothing wrong in the release. “I don’t see anything wrong in it. It is a process of law,” told Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi ndtv, Even Hardik Patel, who was once called the secular hope for the future of Gujarat, supported the release. “The state government has the right to release prisoners for good behaviour,” he said. “I believe it is being deliberately misrepresented.”
Here’s my question: Would any of these have said the same things about Nirbhaya’s rapists and murderers being released?
I think you know the answer.
Not everyone is blinded by hatred and ambition like these people. The special CBI court judge who opposed the release (Gujarat government and home minister ignored his opinion) wrote, “The accused had no enmity or any relation with the victims. The offense was committed only on the ground that The victims belonged to a particular religion. In this case even minor children and a pregnant woman were not spared. This is the worst form of hate crime and crime against humanity. The victims in this crime are the society at large.”
The judge is present. We have now reached a position where politicians are ready to betray society’s expectations of justice and rule of law only because of communal hatred, personal ambition and hunger for votes. As the judge said, we, the people of India, are the victims. It is our society at large that is damaged by such crimes. And it is damaged even more by the lack of basic humanity in our politicians.
We know what comes next. Even if the courts put a stay on the release of these rapists and murderers, nothing will happen. They have already disappeared. The Gujarat government will say that it cannot find them.
Disagreements of people are possible on Hindu-Muslim issues. But it would be a shame if we consider the release of the rapists of Bilkis Bano and the killers of her three-year-old daughter as just another Hindu-Muslim issue.
It is much more than that. This is an issue that shows us how deep is the communal rot in our society that politicians are ready to break the rule of law and tell the country that the guilty do not always face punishment, especially if it is political. Of course it is convenient to let them go.
It is this kind of issue that scares many of us for the future. Yes, institutions have been mutilated and damaged in the past. But when politicians exhibit open contempt for the rule of law, no one – Hindu, Muslim or whatever – is safe.
It is India that loses.
Veer Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweeted on @virsanghvi. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Choubey)