5-year-old raped: We are a shameless nation

We are a shameless nation. Not even four months have passed since Nirbhaya left us after being subjected to unthinkable bestiality by some animals and we are witnessing a similar case unraveling in our national capital, which is nothing but an abode of beasts now. In the latest case, a five-year-old child was abducted, tortured and repeatedly raped by a youth.

Doctors said that candles and bottle were inserted in the victim's genitals and severe infection has been caused by the foreign material in the body. And the agony didn't pain here either. The police was accused of offering bribe to the child's family to remain silent about the case and even mishandling protesters outside the hospital where the victim is being treated. Are we humans?

The Nirbhaya episode had created some hope among a section of the Delhiites that may be the women in the city will be safer from hereon but it has now been proved wrong. No force in this universe can save the females in this country till majority of the males change their attitude towards the opposite sex. No law or parliament can stop these incidents from getting repeated.

A couple of sentimental talks by politicians or celebrities who are nothing but liability and glorified extras, respectively, for the entire country will do no good. It is the common man who will continue to fear the reality, particularly when a woman's modesty is at stake.

Enough of drama was stage after the Nirbhaya rape case. The political class shed sweat and tears but it did so under immense pressure created by the massive public protest. But nothing really changed on the ground. The dragging judicial process to bring the rape accused in the Nirbhaya case has made it a second-row news now. The hopeless police system was exposed when one of the main accused in the case hanged himself in a high-profile jail. The case lost all its sensitivity because of the continuing trial and the overdoing by the media.

The fact that a young life was terminated by some beasts who just wanted to satisfy their pervert instincts did not remain a crisis of humanity but got transformed into a legal and political debate. And the way the police respond to these cases, there is very little hope that even the toughest of law will ever have the teeth to affect any realistic change.

But the buck doesn't stop just by accusing the police and politicians to be insensitive.

Rape is a complicate social menace. It is difficult to externalize this problem, just like corruption. Fighting this menace is not contesting an ideological battle and politics will have little answer to meet this challenge. There is a terrible humanitarian crisis today when we perceive everything around us as a commodity meant for a selfish consumption. There is no direction to build up the society based on human values even though human beings live in it.

The social movements which take birth as a reaction to the ills primarily live on media's support and the moment the focus diverts, these movements loose their utility. We can not afford to blame the political class for everything and ask the law-keepers to ensure a better living. Those insensitive policemen also come up from the same society where millions, who recently turned their faces away from a distressed family on a highway crying for help, live.

We are far away from being termed as a ‘finished nation'. We haven't learnt to respect the basic tenets of humanism even though we proudly claim ourselves to be democratic and peace-loving. What we have borrowed from our colonial masters remains confined to the practices of a miniscule section while on the ground, it is a predominance of feudal minds who have suddenly left exposed to the waves of naked globalism. The result is obvious: We have lost our balance and begun to exploit ourselves, even not sparing the innocent.

Our half-feudal-half-modern mindset is a dangerous thing to deal with. No politician, police or court can change this. Crime against women is an art which a degrading India has mastered with elegance. It will continue and the media will earn high TRPs by capitalising on the sentimental appeals, till the day when a miniscule good-thinking section fails to contain its frustration and take up the cause for a real change.

There is still some time for that day to come. Till then, the rapists will have a smooth run.