Tackling Rape Problem By Going Beyond Candle-lit Vigils and Protests

By Promod Puri

It’s a disgraceful societal evil that has not begun targeting in any realistic and practical way how to kill the rapist beast that lurks everywhere in India, ready to pounce on the female at any given opportunity!

Priyanka Reddy, Asifa Banu, Jyoti Singh, and hundreds perhaps thousands more became victims or going to be next: now, today or tomorrow.

Headlines make the scene. Speeches and statements drum up. Anger, frustrations, and emotions ventilated. Slogans are raised, “hang them, shoot them.” Protests are organized, candles are lit. Articles are written, rewritten, poetry composed. Social media is flooded with outrage. And a lot more expressed, discussed, and debated.

Meaningful but helpless expressions become just rituals. Continue for a few days, remains dormant, and then come back when another news of national shame breaks out. The cycle is renewed and rerun.

In its response, can the nation go beyond this emotional and enraged cry?

The hungry sex devils don’t care and are immune to all the public outbursts. During the barbaric moments, the evil lust dominates and erases any civility, morals, or even the laws against the vulturous acts of violence and rape. There is no fear and shame for them in society or their own families.

That is the reality which transfers a man, a teenager from being a human to a beast.

They are diseased with a behavior disorder. The syndrome erupts with an uncontrolled desire to grapple the victim, molest, and burnt alive. In those horrifying moments, the unconstrained sensual appetite supersedes the society’s protests and the legal punishments, including hanging. Their mental faculties are deranged. The aftermath consequences do not matter.

The civil society’s sentiments and strict legal statues do have impact and solace for the victims and their families. But this is a disease that can’t be controlled by candles, protests, poetry, prose, and punishments.

Who are rapists? Medical and psychological investigations can reveal the symptoms of the disease to determine the profile of a rapist.

The seriousness of the disease and its escalating spread must be of utmost concern for the nation’s medical community, especially in the faculty of psychology and related faculties, along with social scientists to deliberate on all aspects of the rape issues.

After all, it is not only the women who are raped but in the developing rape culture, the entire nation is a victim too.

(Promod Puri is a writer, journalist and author of Hinduism Beyond Rituals, Customs. And Traditions.)

Websites: promodpuri.com, progressivehindudialogue.com, and promodpuri.blogspot.com