Men who recently assaulted women in a Mangalore pub would be considered criminals in any civilised society and taken to task for their behaviour. This would have been done promptly without any further discussions on tradition and morality of Indian women or debates on the existence of ‘pub culture’ in the society. This is because almost all societies around the world have laws prohibiting assault, violence and destruction of property. Even in India, the Indian Penal Code has sections which deal with such criminal behaviour: 268 — Public nuisance; 358 — Assault or criminal force on grave provocation; 503 — Criminal intimidation; 504 — Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace; 509 — Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.
Most acts of public violence would attract arrest and punishment under one or more of the above sections. These laws have been in our books for more than a century. However, it is quite amazing that criminals can go around defacing paintings, storming plays and movie sets, ransacking bookstores and offices, disrupting lectures and discussions by force, and physically bothering women in public and private spaces. And, we just end up sending teams to conduct enquiries, having passionate debates on the morality of issues involved and whether the acts are in conformity with our ‘culture’. This is why the frequency of these acts keeps increasing.
The fact is that under existing laws, anyone involved in assault, intimidation or property damage can be punished irrespective of the morality or cultural implication of the issue involved. This is what we should demand — punishment for breach of law first and debate afterwards. The main job of the state is to enforce existing laws and not to discuss morality and culture. These debates can and must go on in a civil society, but this will be possible only if the state ensures that criminals do not terrorise others in the garb of culture and tradition.
We have to be very careful in invoking issues of “culture” and “tradition”. Cultures exist as beliefs and values learned through the socialisation process as well as material artefacts, but are difficult to pin down. Pushing culture in public spaces through the political domain is usually with the intent to oppress: Males oppressing females, upper class oppressing the lower class, and the majority class oppressing the minority class. Tradition, while necessary for providing continuity between generations, needs to be jettisoned when harmful for human well-being. If this were not so, women would not have the vote, different castes would not sit in the same office and we would not be eating potatoes, tomatoes and green chillies since they were not a part of our past. Obviously, debates about culture and tradition need peace and long periods of gestation to be fruitful.
How do we deal with the issue of young men and women inhabiting pubs? The state cannot deem such activities to be immoral if it allows manufacture of alcohol. If alcohol is ‘bad’, then it should not be sold. On the other hand, if the state feels it is helpless and has to allow sale of a harmful commodity, then it has to put in place mechanisms to minimise its harm. All scientific evidence suggests that alcohol causes more violence and health problems, purely in terms of magnitude, than any other drug. Drinking is a factor in nearly half of all teen automobile crashes. Alcohol abuse is linked to majority of all the sexual assaults of teens and college students. It is also a major factor in unprotected sex among youth, and use of alcohol by men is a risk-marker for partner violence that appears especially consistent across different cultural settings, etc. The list is endless.
Once the alcohol is out of the bottle, it is the job of the state to set up systems to minimise harm. We cannot encourage proliferation of pubs without controlling drinking and driving. Police patrols must be visible 24 hours a day and seen to be conducting random breath tests every night. Many societies are restricting driving by teenagers at night by instituting systems of graduated driving licensing systems. These restrict driving privileges in the first two years after licensing. ‘Designated driver’ systems have been promoted over many years with success. In every group out to party, one person does not drink so that s/he can take others home safely.
A number of other schemes are being tried out. The town of Diadema in Brazil has reduced its murder rate by almost half in the last few years — mostly by establishing 11 pm as the closing hour for bars and other places that sell alcohol for on-premise consumption. Interventions in USA have shown that alcohol-related crashes among youth decrease when the legal drinking age is raised. In the UK, pubs are being asked to adopt a Code of Practice (COP) which includes banning promotions which could lead to binge drinking, such as ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘all you can drink for a fixed fee’. North Carolina’s (US) dram shop law makes it illegal for anyone to “knowingly sell or give alcoholic beverages to any person who is intoxicated.”
Worried about many such issues, I went to see a well-known chief of police and suggested to him that they must advertise the IPC sections mentioned above and apprehend anyone who hits first and ask questions later. This, might eventually result in reducing the number of incidents of road rage. The Commissioner nodded sagely and changed the subject. As I left his office, his assistant followed me out and informed me that my ‘western’ ideas won’t work in India. How can the police stop others from hitting under provocation when policemen have to slap people now and then to enforce the law? “After all, uneducated people only understand one language”.
The tradition which has to change is the culture of violence. The state can set an example. The rest will follow, we hope.
The author is Volvo Chair Professor and Coordinator, Transport Research and Injury Prevention Programme, IIT-Delhi