In advocating the death penalty for rape Home Minister L.K. Advani is articulating the sheer disgust which every such act evokes. The recent violation - and never has the word been so apt - of nuns at Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh has strengthened the popular perception that a rapist is somehow less than human, he is a deviant who deserves no mercy.In a hospital in Mumbai, Aruna Shanbaug - perhaps India's most tragic rape victim - has spent 25 years in coma. The ward boy who destroyed this nurse's life used a dog chain to immobilise her. Horrifically, he also lacerated her wind pipe and cut off a vital link to her brain. Today, while Aruna waits a death which does not arrive, her molester is a free man - having got away for lack of evidence. It is at such moments that the death penalty seems most justified, even desirable. Rape has a million silent victims: young women numbed by squeamish families; little girls who are victims of incest or the lust of a trusted associate. Many rape cases in India go unreported. Indeed, such was the misplaced prudery that till a few years ago more conservative newspapers preferred terms like "criminal assault" to describe rape.Advani will find much support for his harsh prescription. Yet, rape will not vanish simply by making it a capital offence. Before such a law is enacted, the conditions for it must exist. Medical and policing authorities have to undergo a transformation in attitude. Just as western police forces have special homicide squads, the Home Ministry has to strengthen its gender-specific mechanism. An officer looking after the crimes against women (CAW) cell one day could well be transferred to traffic control the next. This won't do. The CAW cells have to be equipped with staff of lasting commitment. Only with experience will come the expertise to smoothen the mangled psyche of a human being - or, and this will doubtless be a problem, tell a genuine complaint from a trumped up charge.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 9, 1998--- ENDS ---
