India all too often confuses law-making with implementation. In this troubled aftermath of the horrific rape of a 23-year-old in a private bus in Delhi last month, attention is again being paid to how laws could be changed to ensure that the impunity with which such assaults happen is reduced. A committee led by former Chief Justice J S Verma is examining possible changes to the laws governing the punishment of sexual offences, particularly rape. It is hopefully unlikely that the calls of the more extreme protestors for hanging or chemical castration as a punishment for rape will find their way into the commission’s recommendations. And there are indeed some changes that could be made to India’s antiquated rape laws — provisions to recognise marital rape need to be strengthened and the permission to examine the victim’s sexual history needs to be delegitimised. But the big changes to the state machinery that are required are not in the domain of lawmaking, but in the domain of administrative reform. These essential changes must not be lost sight of.
The first and most basic point is police reform. The Delhi police, and even more urgently that of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, need to be sensitised further to the importance of crimes against women. The newsmagazine Tehelka’s widely read investigation of attitudes to crimes against women shared by the police forces revealed a shockingly sexist and backward approach, with police officers recorded blaming the victims of rape and minimising the importance of the crime. This attitude is common among the police in other parts of north India as well, and is the first thing that needs to change. In addition, community policing has seen a decline in Delhi of late — mobile police control rooms, modified Maruti Gypsy cars, on street corners have taken the place of the motorcycles with which the Delhi police used to once go in to the sort of narrow-laned areas where the six men accused of the bus rape lived. Police work is also about preventing crime, and the resources of the Delhi police — increasingly used for civic work instead of policing — should be better deployed. That the police, instead of focusing on this necessary reform are instead going after Zee News for broadcasting a consensual interview with the young man who was accompanying the girl on that night is an outrageous reflection of their warped priorities. His story, repeated on television, about the delays and callousness with which they were treated by the police that night should spark changes, not action against those who put it out.
Of course, broader reform is also overdue. There should be more women in the police force, and the incentives for local officers to not register First Information Reports should be removed — that was one reason why medical attention was delayed that night, as policemen at the scene argued over jurisdiction. And it is not just the investigation of the crime that is the point at which intervention must take place. It should be tried quickly, too, through faster court processes, and with greater certainty of outcome. Finally, the prime minister’s initiative to push for greater moral science teaching in schools is welcome, but does not go far enough. School syllabuses and textbooks across the country should be examined for sexist bias in all the subjects taught, and the importance of women’s rights should be clearly inculcated in India’s next generation. It is easy, and satisfying to a degree, to seek retribution for this particular horrific instance of a more general problem by demanding much stricter laws and sentences. But that will not solve the real problem in the presence of an apathetic or antagonistic police force, a slow judicial system, and a broader culture of misogyny.
