Imlisanen Jamir
The number of times that India has been struck by horrific sexual crimes has been too many. While not receiving much attention in the country, the same can be said of Nagaland too.
And every time such horrifying rapes and murders make the news, the people at large have been riled up in anger, ultimately calling for the death of the culprit.
It was the horrific 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi and the worldwide angst that followed, which prompted the Indian government to promulgate the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013 providing for amendment of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, on laws related to sexual offences. The ordinance provides for the death penalty in cases of rape.
In the aftermath of the recent rape of a minor in Jammu, President Ram Nath Kovind on April 22, 2018 promulgated the criminal law amendment ordinance, which a day earlier received the nod from the central cabinet.
This has paved the way for providing stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years. With this ordinance, the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act stand amended. Along with this come directives for effective judicious and investigative process concerning rape cases.
But the core of the ordinance, which is the death penalty, has dominated the front pages of newspapers and television channels—a development welcomed by a very large section of the people (perhaps even a large majority of India). Closer home, the Nagaland Governor had also recently forwarded to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) a petition seeking amendment of law in Nagaland to award death penalty as punishment for child rape.
It is a difficult job to sound dispassionate when talking about cases like the one from Jammu, where an eight year old was gang raped multiple times and eventually murdered— details of a case that should horrify, disgust and anger every sane person to the core.
However, the limelight that has been shone on the death penalty provision is a dangerous way of thinking, which only serves to satisfy the part of us as human beings which believe that “an eye for an eye” is what justice looks like.
The aftermath should not receive the strongest action. Instead, the terrible track record of the police, along with the criminally slow pace of the justice system in the country are perhaps more crucial issues that need as much (or even more) attention and action.
Even more needed are avenues to explore whether legislation can affect the shameful facets of Indian and even Naga society that make effective detection and prosecution of sexual crimes against women and children difficult.
Further, the mere existence of a law or ordinance is and should not be enough to pacify our anger against such crimes. The government and every other law making and enforcement agency should not be made to feel that their jobs are done after laws are passed or prosecutions are successfully carried out.
Go past the mere condemnation of these ‘monsters,’ and realize that these monsters are among us—a creation of our accepted social milieu—from our ‘tradition’ to our ‘culture’ to our education.
And finally even if the ‘humanistic’ argument against the death penalty is a hard one to make in the immediate aftermath of such horrific crimes, it must be remembered that these are the crucibles that define the character of a country, and more pertinently a society.
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