A day in the life of a nation is filled with millions of ordinary events and a few extraordinary ones. However, some incidents shake you to your core and numb the senses. They shatter your belief in the system and a pall of gloom and pessimism permeates your consciousness. The headlines in newspapers last week screamed – “Jamia students allege cops kicked them in private parts, tore their hijab during February 10 protest” and “How a Music Festival Turned into a ‘Mass Molestation’ Nightmare for the Girls of Gargi College”.
LICENCE TO TORMENT
Last week, students of Jamia Millia Islamia took out a protest march against the CAA-NRC. They wanted to march up to Parliament to demonstrate and show their dissent. They were stopped near their university by the police who had set up barricades at the Holy Family Hospital. The students allege that the police thrashed them with their boots, batons, flash rods and steel gear they were wearing. Media reports say around 23 students were admitted to the nearby Al Shifa Multispeciality Hospital and Ansari Hospital at Jamia Nagar for treatment after the scuffle.
The students narrated some harrowing experiences to the media. They indicate extreme insensitivity and a vindictive attitude by the men in uniform. A student alleged – “A senior officer threatened me in front of a group of students, ‘I will tear you apart’. I told him he can do whatever he wanted, but I will not be scared. Policemen also commented on my beard and questioned my patriotism.”
Other female students and protestors alleged that the police hit them in their private parts with sticks and passed lewd comments like ‘take her in a corner and teach her what Constitution is’. The female students say that the police stood on their thighs and tore their hijabs. The police scrupulously reject these claims by the students, saying – “All allegations levelled against us are untrue. The entire protest has been video-graphed by us. In fact, some of our men were manhandled and they received injuries in the scuffle. No force was used against the protesters.”
LICENCE TO MOLEST
On 6 February, another shameful incident occurred in Gargi College (Delhi University). It was the last day of a 3-day annual festival – “Reverie 2020” organised on the campus of one of the leading girls’ colleges of Delhi University.
According to a news story published by News18: “Several middle-aged men, who were not students, entered the venue at around 6.30 pm. Students claim that there was no checking of passes or ID cards at all, even of male students who are required to have a pass to enter the girls’ college. The crowd started to build by 4 pm. By 6.30 pm, the main gate was opened and all the men standing among the gathered crowd outside made their way into the venue unchecked.
Some students claim that many of the men were part of a pro-CAA rally that was taking place who entered the college by scaling gates. Some men were even heard reportedly screaming ‘Jai Shree Ram’ at the venue.”
What happened next as the men went on a molestation spree is too shameful to describe in this article. The kinds of verbal abuse and physical assault that our daughters had to endure are extremely disgusting. Eyewitness accounts and descriptions of their torturous ordeals are all available on social media. The students complained that the college management did not pay heed to their complaints and the police and security personnel were mute spectators unable to intervene and stop the mayhem.
AN AFFRONT TO “BETI BACHAO”
Hurting the protestors and girl students by kicking and beating them in their vulnerable and private parts can by no stretch of imagination be part of any Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the police towards implementing ‘crowd control’. Whatever might have been the provocation, the job of the police is to control the situation within the acceptable norms of human behaviour. They are trained for that.
Doing a shoddy job is not the hallmark of professionals. Delhi Police has to be pulled up for this horrendous turn of events. This is simply not acceptable in any civilized society. If the barbarity unleashed on the protestors was perpetrated by a few rogue elements within the police then they need to be identified and punished for their misdeeds. If they were following orders from their officers then it was a disgusting bid to traumatise and scar the female protestors both physically and mentally and scare others from joining these protestors. Further, only an impartial high-level inquiry into the incident can lead to the detection of the real villains in this sordid episode.
The Gargi College incident is symptomatic of the moral abyss into which our society has fallen. There are credible news stories, doing the rounds that these molesters were workers affiliated to a political party. They were sent to the college to enjoy themselves as a reward for their hard work in campaigning for the party in the Delhi elections. The men enjoyed themselves for many hours in the college doing as they pleased without any police action.
There are allegations that this news was deliberately hidden by the media for several days so that the particular political party would not suffer politically in the crucial Delhi Assembly elections. Only after loud protests by the Gargi College students, the authorities swung into action and arrested some people who at the time of writing this article have all secured bail over the failure to prove that they took part in the molestation. The slogan of “Beti Bachao”, it seems is just a hollow slogan and we are a long way from realising it.
SOME MUST-DOS
Many canvass for imposing harsh punishment on those who indulge in outraging the modesty of women. Closing the doors of opportunity to crime and deterring potential criminals with severe punishment is only half the battle won. The real fight against crime has to be fought in the mind. That is where crime germinates and it has to be neutralised there. Education about the status of women in society, recalling that every girl could be somebody’s sister or daughter may help in sensitising people on the issue of rape and molestation.
We also badly need to start deploying moral tools in our law-enforcement agencies. Those tools are appeal to the moral conscience of every individual. No moral conscience is possible without the fear of accountability before a higher power that can see and record your deeds at all times even if you can hide your crimes from the entire world. Reviving the moral conscience is the only cure to crime.
The police force is also in need of drastic reforms. Their near-total politicisation is another huge challenge for our country. The future of our coming generations is at stake. Time is surely running out and any further delay to confront these challenges shall only add to our woes. A wise person said: “The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman thinks about the next generation.” How many of our politicians are thinking of the next generation?