In the wake of the horrifying gang-rape and fatal assault on a girl student in the Capital on 16 December, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind organised a talk on “Rising Vulgarity and Teachings of Islam” on 21 December, in order to throw light on how Islam provides the solution to such perversions and inhuman crimes. Addressing the gathering, Engineer Mohammad Saleem began with the statistics from the National Crimes Record Bureau. He mentioned that in 2010 alone the total number of rape cases were 22,172. It must be noted that out of these cases charge-sheet was filed in only 94 per cent cases while in rest of the cases no charge-sheet was even filed, forget about culprits getting punishment. As per the conviction rate, only a meagre 26.6 per cent cases were the ones in which culprits got punishment. In 2011 the number of rapes increased to 24,206. The data of 2012 is yet to come and as per the trend it appears that the number of cases would increase this year as well.
The data only shows the number of rapes that were recorded and one can imagine what would be the figures had the unreported rapes were taken into consideration, he added. Besides rapes, other lesser crimes like molestation, harassment, etc. have become so common that they are not even treated as crimes. Narrowing down to the cause of such brutal and inhuman crimes, he said that the reason for such a steep rise in such horrible crimes is because of the aggression of western civilization. He further said that vulgarity is being promoted because it helps in the business of capitalists. It is the aggression of western civilization that has been creating havoc in society and our civilization has become very much obsessed with it. The promotion of certain days like Valentine’s Day is just to increase their business and nothing else, he added.
He further lamented that the organisation of beauty contests where the awardees have to sign a contract with the companies that they would promote their brands and use their bodies to sell their products. The most pathetic and heart-rending thing in beauty contests is the way the different parts of their bodies are judged as people ogle and stare at the body parts of women walking and standing half naked. It is these beauty contests that cause the urge among other girls and they vie with one another to grab the opportunity and hence the business increases and capitalists earn more and more. He termed this increase in business as ‘economic colonialism.’
He blamed the rise in the corporate sector and the rise of call centres responsible for the increase in such acts as they provide opportunities for inter-mingling with the opposite sex and hence all these things pave the way for such heinous crimes. It is the double standards that cause the rise in such crimes as the promotion of filth and vulgarity would definitely result in the cases of rape, molestation, etc. He further argued that in most of such cases the culprit, or in some cases even the victim, is found in an inebriated state. However, instead of putting a blanket ban on alcohol, it is being promoted through television and other advertisements. One needs to look at the root cause and not just at what is at the surface. Islam claims alcohol to be Ummul Khabais, the mother of all evils, and puts a blanket ban on it. However, our government is not taking any step to ban its production and consumption.
Recently, the government of Rajasthan came up with parity among men and women in distributing licenses of liquor shops. It proposed that there should be a specific percentage of women that should be given licenses of liquor shops. How ludicrous it is, he questioned. Besides this, TV and films promote and disseminate the culture of vulgarity and often present vulgarity in a boastful manner.
“Our country has bogus and incapable laws to tackle such heinous acts. It is the law that the victim has to prove his or her innocence,” he added. In cases of rape normally it takes a lot of time for the victim to recover from the state of shock and fear as this crime hits the victim psychologically. And even if the crime is proved, the culprit gets the punishment maximum for seven years imprisonment. It is a pity that laws are not efficient and effective enough to tackle such crimes. We have already seen the conviction rate which is merely 26 per cent and even these 26 per cent get the maximum punishment of seven years which is nothing as compared to the crime they did.
Islam gives a ruling of capital punishment in such a crime. In the recent past many politicians have also advocated this punishment. Few years ago L.K. Advani called out for the same. While mentioning the Muslim states where Islamic law is being implemented, Er. Saleem said that though there are many other evil activities that are going on yet such kinds of incidents are hard to be found there and this is just because of the implementation of Islamic laws which are just and good for the whole society.
Hence the solution lies in the fact that double standards should be done away with and everything that promotes evil and vulgarity should be taken care of and banned. Merely changing the laws would not change the situation much because the system subserves the laws; and it is only when the right system is in place the laws would work.