By Atul Kapoor

Few days back another rape incidence rocked our national capital. The news obviously became sensation in no time as it was no ‘ordinary rape’. It was after all committed in ‘Delhi’ so it was somewhat ‘greater rape’ that demanded enviable media coverage when compared to ‘lesser rapes’ that keep occurring with every blink of the eye in our vast country but fail to make it to the prime time.

 So, is it only when a rape would be committed in the likes of ‘Delhi’s’ and ‘Mumbai’s’ should media make a hue and cry and demand for a stringent action and laws against the heinous crime? Is it that we can have a liberty to sweep the filth under the carpet when a rape is occurring every passing minute in some by lane of a village or a small town in the country but we must have our brooms trudging in the right spirit when a bad tide brings the filth to the last frontier i.e. ‘the metropolis’?

It seems as if the demon ‘rape’ has to follow some unwritten code of conduct, and should it break it, only then would it be treated without impunity. The government cannot take the matter lightly anymore and must now act. And act fast it should if it were to save its neck from the ever tightening media noose. The administration must work round the clock to exhume the culprit and bring him to justice. But even that would not suffice to be an enough action against a rape of such great magnitude. Remember, the rape has been committed in the national capital region and government cannot afford to seem complacent, so it must also ban the service provider (‘Uber’ in this case, an app based cab service provider not based in India) who was hiring the ‘rapist’. All the claims of the service provider that it followed the verification procedure before hiring can go to hell. This is India, and in India it must do as Indians do, or for that matter don’t do. So, Uber must have been diligent enough before coming to India to realize that it cannot take the documents here at their face value and must have done its own research to ascertain their veracity before hiring the people. Welcome to India. And amidst all this hullabaloo no one should question that by the same logic shouldn’t the victim girl, who is an Indian at first place, and should be well versed with ‘Indian system’, have taken extra precaution not to travel alone at an odd hour when she was so drunk and not in total control of herself.

  Now, before the entire brigade of human rights activists begin to bay for my blood for my political incorrectness I would like to clarify that it is no reason to blame the victim girl as she had broken no law and its entirely her business to get drunk the way she wants and travel alone at any hour of the day to her liking. But you want to point at the hypocrisy of the argument where you expect a foreigner to know beforehand that in India one has to take extra precautions but same may not hold true for someone already an Indian. The fundamental question that remains unanswered here because it was never raised is that why should we need to take ‘extra precautions’ in India at first place.

 The media would rather try to corner the government by coining the phrases like “Delhi fast becoming the ‘rape capital’ of the world” and would not let the government get away so easily for the ‘capital rape’. The government promises to take all the necessary actions to make sure such an incident doesn’t get repeated. It obviously curses the ghastly incident to the core and parrots its commitment to do away with the menace for the satisfaction of media. And what else the hapless government can do even? For, if it were to get to the core of the issue then it opens up the Pandora box for itself that it cannot think of repairing in its short span. It would rather try to achieve success with other pressing issues where it is more likely to achieve so and could claim it emphatically when it were to go for the mandate the next time. Besides, it also knows that even with its best intentions it can only play a limited role in uprooting something that largely is a social evil. The government cannot change the mindset of the patriarchal society at large that commodifies women and rapes at will. It can only act as a facilitator for the change but the change has to come from the society itself. The government only rides on its fortune expecting the demon of rape doesn’t get too ambitious and comes back knocking at its ‘doorsteps’ in its lifespan.

The demon in the meantime is in full swing in its ‘comfort zone’ and is thriving as always. It has tamed itself returning to the unwritten code to ensure there is not much risk involved. It would only be a matter of time when media would bring closure to the issue and things would return to normal. And then one fine day we would get up in the morning, switch on our televisions and come to know that the unwritten code has been breached yet again and a ‘greater rape’ has been perpetrated. You cannot keep the demon tamed for a lifetime after all and it has struck with vengeance in the ‘forbidden territory’. It’s now time for the prime time.

About The Author: Atul Kapoor is an author of a novel ‘Incredible High’ published in the year 2010. Presently, he is working on his next book which is a group of short stories knitted together to give them a semblance of the novel. He keeps dabbling in poetry and writing articles in between.