MALA FIDE

While listening to the news in England, which is shorn of the screeching that is synonymous with news-reading in India, one heard about the rape of a young girl. The content was no different from the horrific stories of rape back home. The manner in which the police treated the victim was eerily familiar. The incident also exposed the perverse position that men across different cultures take when it comes to rape. The story here, like the story there, is similar: the victim goes to a police station and reports that she has been raped, has the 'evidence' on her, but because she is young, attractive and wearing a short skirt, the first information report is not registered. The young girl and her parents persisted in their fight for justice. Eventually, the criminal was convicted and sent to jail. The errant, irresponsible and truly despicable police officers, who should have been jailed as well, were retired off with dignity.

The phenomenon of police officers and the administration closing in to protect themselves, the gravity of the crime notwithstanding, is the bane of governance across nations. The law-keepers here are no different from the partisan policemen in India. The cases of sexual assault are familiar as well. The attitude towards independent women is exactly the same. Men feel threatened by independent women. The policemen's disrespect for the victim is untenable and must be exposed. They should have been punished ruthlessly because they represent an arm of a colluding State.

People first

Throughout history, invading armies have raped women mercilessly. The majority of men believe that they are superior to women, and that it is their right to do as they please with them. If a woman chooses not to oblige, the application of force is condoned. Therefore, to call Delhi the rape capital of the world is both unfortunate and incorrect because compared to India the number of recorded rapes are, to cite just one example, much higher in the United States of America. To pass the buck onto the third world is maddening and wrong. Apathetic police officers are common to State forces everywhere on the planet, especially when it comes to assaults on women. Women around the world are expected to be symbols of fortitude.

London was a hugely polluted city after the First World War. But today it is clean, fresh, lively and the cultural hub of the world. City-management systems work here and the people abide by the norms that make this nation civilized in every sense of the word. India has a great deal to learn from Britain. It is time to shed the baggage about Britain being a colonial power that once ruled our nation. Sadly, the Indian administration continues to abide by the 'us' and 'them' principle as it goes about administering a modern nation state, thereby enforcing disparity and division. The administrators have failed to deliver the basic tenets of civil society in India because they never rewrote the defining regulatory processes that enforce equality, fraternity and dignity for all. They rule like the colonial masters of yore, and have managed to alienate the people by implementing the 'us and them system' that has no place in our time.

India needs to initiate a major restructuring of the administrative processes, laws and acts. The administration needs to be made fully accountable to the people. The political class has to ensure that erring administrators and corrupt, rapacious officers are punished. Elected governments must be seen to act for the welfare of the people and not against them.

Once upon a time, India had the best bureaucracy. But today, that same steel frame is the single most debilitating factor in a contemporary, emerging power.