This is an extremely disturbing story of a little girl raped in her complex repeatedly by dozens of men and blackmailed into keeping her mouth shut. These cases really need to come to an end now somehow.
I really believe that India needs to urgently revamp its legal code to summary execution when the evidence is on hand especially with regards to crimes on women and children. The idea of “rights” needs to be balanced by a societal need for protection of the vulnerable.
All the men involved should simply be publicly executed as soon as possible to make a statement.
I feel the same outrage. In fact, fatherhood makes one extra sensitive to child abuse – even paranoid sometimes. However, I hope your suggestion of summary “public execution” in India is just hyperbole, and you don’t really mean the sentiment.
That said, India is socially a terrible place for its kids generally. The country scores absolutely abysmally on almost all social indicators of the well-being of children (esp girl children). One cannot excoriate the society enough on this count.
Dubai is a safe place; if I had a choice (I don’t) I would want Pakistan to be more like Dubai/China (effective but authoritarian) rather than India (liberal but chaotic).
Liberalism is for wealthy societies; not societies that can’t get its act together.
Not the first time I have heard this being said. Beyond Emirates & China, Singapore is another society people mention for its benign and productive authoritarianism. And my wife sings many praises of the place having lived there.
However, I disagree and for reasons that are beyond the scope of this thread and I don’t want to digress.
(BTW India is not truly liberal -even on paper – in the same mould as, say, the US. Though the American social contract was a blueprint for India’s founding fathers, so visions are aligned)
Yes benign and productive authoritarianism may dampen creative endeavours (Bollywood may not have flourished in a less liberal society) but if India aspires to World Power status (beyond regional hegemon) incidents like this simply cannot be allowed to happen beyond the obvious moral and ethical implications.
India has signed up to Gandhian and Nehruvian visions. So such forms of govt are far fetched. Personally I am suspicious of dictatorships – they never deliver the goods and pass the buck to someone else.
How can public executions make India’s (already weak) case for “world power”?
That is a terrible regression as far as I see it. I wouldn’t wish it upon any society, let alone my own.
I wouldn’t wish gang rape of a child on any society
Absolutely, fully agree. Yet public executions of convicted paedophilic rapists don’t morally nullify the gang rape. Two wrongs don’t cancel each other out.
If it prevents further instances of this rape it’s absolutely worth it. I was just speaking about this to Vidhi.
Ajmal Kasab shot 70 people because of Islamic Terrorism and he was (rightfully) executed.
The Nirbhaya rapists raped an innocent girl with an iron rod and are still appealing 5.5 yrs later*
The point is that the Indian public and elite do not yet see violence against women as evil as terrorism. If one doesn’t strike fear then these incidents will continue to perpetuate itself.
This is where I do have some sympathy for Shariah law- for a certain societal level, harsh judgements are required especially in increasingly unequal societies in the developing world..
*I remember this case happened the day after my birthday shortly before my first trip to India/engagement coincided with the fatal car crash of a Sindhi girl in Chennai whom everyone knew..
“How can public executions make India’s (already weak) case for “world power”? – you are probably not aware that summary executions are the main ingredient of success for countries like Singapore, Korea. Developing a strong state, competent bureaucracy were only secondary factors. You can also see that frequent public executions have made Iran, Saudi Arabia societies free of violence against the weak and most admired societies in the world.
The two can happen in parallel.. nothing mutually exclusive about them.
It would be interesting to compare rape stats around the world ..
Don’t presume my knowledge on my thread; manners Sir manners, that is what I suggest you learn..
You shouldn’t be nice to Nazis, isn’t that the mantra of Social Justice Warriors? Fascist, totalitarians must be confronted everywhere and pushed back if humanity is to be kept on a progressive trajectory.
That is textbook consequentialism and not morally tenable as an argument. Ends do not justify means. Besides that’s a big “if”.
Jesus Christ – who cares?
South Asia is a poor region that can’t afford ideology..
I agree with Slapstik (can’t believe I’m saying that).
I don’t think the death penalty (which I am against in any case) is known to deter rapes. That said, this is a disgusting incident. It is like the rape of the Muslim girl in Kathua. In that case, BJP politicians took out rallies in support of the alleged rapists. They got fired afterwards, but supporting a rapist is really disgusting.
Let’s not communalise this thread. This isn’t about point scoring; Pakistan has the same problem(s) vis a vis women’s rights..
However I was wondering while I was writing this post.
The 26/11 terrorists were all executed (Ajmal only recently) but from what I can recall the Dhirubhai rapists are still around? Rape is terrorising women and should be equalised (in society) as terrorism.
No communalization intended. But where have you heard of politicians leading rallies in support of rapists?
Yes that’s wrong; violence against women is the worst sort of violence.
Islam – 3
Hindusim – 0
Pakistan – 2
India – 0
Islam – 2
Hindusim – 0
Pakistan – 1
India – 0
“I really believe that India needs to urgently revamp its legal code to summary execution when the evidence is on hand especially with regards to crimes on women and children. The idea of “rights” needs to be balanced by a societal need for protection of the vulnerable.
All the men involved should simply be publicly executed as soon as possible to make a statement.”
When you hear these kind of words coming out of a supposedly highly educated South Asian who has been living in the West for long time and who also claims to be progressive, you realize what monumental challenge South Asian societies face towards becoming liberal.
With respect, ur being ridiculous..
Probably Zack does not put forward his case clearly. Crimes like terrorist incidence , violence against children and women need to be dealt in an expeditious manner by the judicial administration and any judgments like hanging need to be carried out within days of the judgement with no recourse to dilatory tactics . If that is Zack’s view I will support it.
Basically justice delayed is justice denied. Justice not only needs to be done, and also seen to be done. Strong arm of the state will be a deterrence future perpetrators. If the state shows itself to be weak , that will invite even more mischief from within and without the country.
Let me also add that the richer sections and elite are India are responsible for making judicial system a farce. They have used their money and influence to grind justice to a halt whenever it has suited them.. Elite in India is shameless.
It isn’t that existing punishments aren’t deterrent enough and we need more brutal punishments (how about breaking rapists on the wheel, or waterboarding them to death ? At what point does “strong” cross over into “barbaric” ?)
The reason so many rapes occur in India is that the guilty have a high likelihood that NOTHING will happen to them. The infamous Nirbhaya case was perpetrated by criminals ON THE JOB with absolutely zero attempt made to cover their tracks. There were even other passengers on the bus when the assault began who were chased off. The guilty assumed that no investigation would be launched.
There have to be some consequences for the police in whose jurisdictions such crimes occur. Trust me, the roads will become safe within no time.
Inshallah
“It isn’t that existing punishments aren’t deterrent enough and we need more brutal punishments ”
Probably not – and the way this are dragged out for years and years makes it worse. It is not whether the existing punishments are deterrent enough, it is the way you can keep on dragging it for decades by getting high power lawyers by paying them money, street demonstrations, petitons to the President, making that a legal excuse, and so on and so forth. etc. Even if the present punishments are quickly carried out giving no quarters to dilatory and dragging tactics that would be good. Any judicial process not done quickly enough makes out the state weak , vacillating, nervous and easy touch.
Apart from these high profile cases, there are thousands of cases languishing for years. That is an utter shame. I thought the BJP govt can take up all these matters , but these seem to be dancing to the tunes of Ambanis.
+1000 BJP dancing to the tune of the Ambanis
“I thought the BJP govt can take up all these matters , but these seem to be dancing to the tunes of Ambanis.”
Ambanis own Indian Government which they lease it to the BJP/Congress from time to time.
Zack, I tried to bring up the issue of how to address crime in a less emotional way with this article:
http://www.brownpundits.com/2018/06/04/is-american-culture-sharply-increasing-crime/
My intent was to start a conversation about crime, correlations between different variables and possible solutions. And eventually use these frameworks to discuss crime in India and Pakistan.
Very likely justice will prevail in this case as it generally does in all cases which are publicized by social media or the press. My concern is secret abuse which are hidden from social media and the press. Shouldn’t our focus be on that?
I have my ideas on how to dramatically reduce crime in America, Canada, Europe, muslim world and India. But they might not be completely right. I would love feedback from everyone else.
Well let me throw out some random ideas for all of your feedback in this comment:
1) encourage love [Yeah this basically solves crime]
2) transform culture [How?]
3) it is unclear to me what role per capita real income plays in crime. Even the direction of correlation is unclear to me.
3a) it is unclear to me what role physical health plays in crime. Even the direction of correlation is unclear to me.
3b) IQ appears to be strongly negatively correlated with crime. [High IQ people are rarely prosecuted for violent crime. Is this because they are intelligent and rarely get caught or because they don’t commit crime?]
4) Improve mental health broadly defined (Chitta Shuddhi in Sanskrit), which to me is synonymous with character, authenticity, purity, clear headedness. What affect will this have?
5) Higher more judges, more attorneys, police . . . pay them a heck of a lot more
6) Train police in Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, martial arts, breathing, meditation [Which is expensive.]
7) Give judges and police a lot more flexibility in dealing with criminals and keeping crimes out of the public record
Enough for now. Zack, trying to keep this from being your longest comment of all time 😉
I would think that guarantee of punishment and accuracy in identifying perpetrators of crime are much bigger deterrents than the degree of harshness. We should not be too lenient either, as the Western experience suggests. Westerners have forgotten their history but they used to mete out very draconian forms of punishments until not too long ago, and we all know about the frontier justice that pacified the American West.
I’m personally against the death penalty because it is impossible to devise a system where innocents never get punished. (One innocent person getting executed is one too many in my book.)