Turn anger to energy

Rape and after

There was understandably widespread anger and sorrow over the death of the Delhi rape victim who was so brutally assaulted a fortnight ago. She bravely struggled for life but breathed her last over the weekend.

As sadly, ‘the victim,’ ‘the young woman’ or anonymous ‘Braveheart’ was robbed of her identity and died a largely unnamed heroine as the media avoided using her name in keeping with the practice of not shaming rape victims.

Ultimately it was not she but the nation that was shamed by the loss of national values and social standards that permit such gross indignities to occur and often go lightly punished, if at all.

The anger against the government was palpable as people are tired of pomp, protocol and routine delays at every level masquerading as governance. Authority’s inability to communicate with anybody is proverbial and so there was no soothing balm of words and simple deeds that would have suggested a reaching out to comfort a wounded national psyche and a holding of hands at a time of anxiety and grief.

Yet, to argue that the government should not have taken precautionary measures to safeguard law and order would be to push the envelope too far. Delhi has had experience of many rallies through 2012 that have got out of hand and could not risk letting nefarious elements exploit the situation. This, especially after attempts were made to storm Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

That some protesters were bent on taking over of central vista, a very governmental space from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, seemed to suggest that they wanted the mob to symbolically seize it. No surprise that this was prevented as that could only have led to a worsening of the situation and a wholly avoidable confrontation over a totally different agenda.

If indeed that had happened, the argument would then have been, ‘What was the government doing and why were not the police better prepared. Could none anticipate events?’ Heads I win, tails you lose it is. 

And what were the demands? Instant justice and an immediate change in laws. Apart from due process, the government had already set up a high-powered committee under former Chief Justice J S Verma to sound public and expert opinion and make its recommendations within a month.

This was like the Anna movement’s absurd demand that its Jan Lokpal Bill and that alone must be immediately accepted.  As before, mass mobilisation countrywide was fuelled by anger catalysed this time not by corruption but by a sense of non-governance, unemployment, high prices, discrimination and disparities in all walks of life.

These surely are real problems and none will say that the government has done a brilliant job. But collective action over time, with improved policies and implementation, is what is required. There are no instant solutions and any lurch to anarchy would be ruinous.

Magnifying events

Sections of the media, while portraying unfolding events, magnified them by endless repetition and focussing on trivia and sensation to conjure up ‘breaking news.’ There were outpourings of undigested sentiment and puerile discussions with panellists who had little to say.

Political parties that dutifully voiced their disgust glossed over the fact that most or all of them have consistently nominated electoral candidates who are self-confessedly charged with rape, murder, forgery and other crimes. True, the trial process is under way and it would be premature and unfair to adjudge them guilty. Yet, purity in public life demands that such persons not be nominated and should shun public office until their names are cleared. There is no reason why the Election Commission should not now be empowered to disqualify such candidates as well as others who are unable to explain a mercurial rise in their assets.

It will be argued that court processes are tardy. This is because of case overload, a shortage of courtrooms and magistrates/judges and a tendency to tolerate filibustering arguments and grant long adjournments all too easily. Likewise, India is a highly under-policed nation. Yet here the immediate issue is not numbers but diversion of limited staff to needless personal security and VIP duties.

The current demonstration of public anger at governance failures must lead to acceptance of overdue police reforms. The Congress states should be the first to fall in line instead of making bogus pleadings like the others. Likewise, the CBI and Vigilance Commission must be made truly autonomous without such absurdities as needing governmental approval to prosecute senior officials found guilty of malfeasance or dereliction.

The big lesson that must be learnt from the current mobilisation of national anger is that India is changing. Numbers have grown and, with it, empowerment of the underdog in huge cohorts. These underprivileged groups are impatient and wish to see early fulfilment of their aspirations.

They are rightly intolerant of nepotism, corruption, disparities and mis-governance. The anger of these young people must be harnessed to energise progress and change. Time is a financial as much as a social resource. None is prepared to wait until tomorrow, next week or next month or the next Plan if the job can be done or at least begun today. It cannot be jam tomorrow any more.