As I approach my car I look behind to see if someone is following me. I turn on the central locking as soon as I am seated. I purposely take busy roadways, knowing I have a child waiting for me at home. I see autos with 1098 – women’s helpline written on their rear. And I start to think, I would probably be calling that number after getting victimized. Sure, that’s a consolation. The radio stations are abuzz with debates and feedback from the general public with yet another December rape case. A woman on her way back home from work takes a cab – an obvious option for “anyone” wanting to get back home. And the cabbie – who has previously been jailed for the same crime – commits it without any shame or remorse.
The attitude of the culprit is proof enough that punishment of 7 months in Jail will do no good to a rapist. In fact, it has turned him into a “Dabangg” of his own kind.
Result: The government bans Uber, the taxi service that employed a criminal and who obviously failed to do a background check on the driver.
Sadly the laws have been made but only to be bent. In attempts being made by our esteemed prime minister to bring India on a global map, I think there is a need to first get our ethics right. In other countries, there are laws as stringent as the beheading of rapists in public. And in our country, he is let go after simple imprisonment of 7 months or at the most a ban is imposed, which in any case is a punishment for the public and not for the person who committed the crime. A famous quote by Thomas Jefferson says that “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it; he is obligated to do so”
This quote sums up our law system. A democracy that claims to be FOR the people, BY the people, is falling prey to its own people.