Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Writing on the third morning of the wave of demonstrations in the national capital, the demos as it seems may well have brought out the best and the worst of the megapolis : the best marked by spontaneous protests by the capital’s youth, by men and women alike, over the horrifying rape of a 23 year old para-medic student by some half a dozen goons driving a part-time school bus late one evening that unfortunate day. The woman was beaten up and raped after she and her friend, a 28 year old young man, resisted the assault and were finally thrown out of the bus in a secluded place.
The girl had been so brutalized that the doctors treating her at Delhi’s Safdarjang hospital declared that they had never before seen the kind of injuries inflicted on her. The major part of her small intestines had to be removed. And yet the undying spirit of the young woman has so far withstood four operations even as she must remain a resident for days of the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU).
She is amazingly brave, declared the chief of the hospital. And indeed she must be. She is determined to have her attackers pinned down and as a consequence has narrated her tale whenever conscious. Her friend, the young man whose account has already been recorded corroborates every word of what the girl has said.
That was the human part of it, raised to a glorious pitch by the spontaneous demonstrations by several student organizations from the campuses of Delhi’s universities and colleges mounted at India Gate. The first day’s demonstration as well as the first half of the second day of the demo revived in my mind memories of the peaceful demonstrations in Cairo’s Tehrir Square a few months back which led to the end of the 30 year old authoritarian rule of President Hosni Mubarak in the country; that’s until the Muslim Brotherhood, waiting in the wings, stole the Tehrir Square revolution and has since installed an Islamist regime on a traditionally secular State.
The student demonstrations at India Gate, extending from the historic war memorial to the outer walls of Rashtrapati Bhawan, were by themselves a memorable phenomenon, with Delhi’s youth virtually seeking the blood of rapists whose numbers seem to be increasing with each passing day. That’s until the politicians chose to chip in.
The Arvind Kejriwals, the Baba Ramdevs, Gen. V.K. Singh, the ex-Army chief, now a man in search of a cause, that pitchforks him into political limelight, and assorted rowdy groups coming from the Kejriwals and Ram Devs, the BJP youth wing and several left-oriented outfits.
This odd mix virtually hijacked the student protests on the second day and turned these into pitched battles with Police, leaving more than 170 cops and demonstrators injured by the evening, apart from making bonfires of the wooden planks brought to the Central Vista Lawns to raise tiered stands for the Republic Day Celebrations. Even as the students saw themselves out-maneuvered by the ambitious Kejriwal types the Government led by Manmohan Singh turned itself into the proverbial ostrich. It wasn’t seeing anything. The Home Minister, the former police sub-inspector turned politician, Sushil Kumar Shinde was in perpetual meetings; his secretary Mr. R.K. Singh (Home Secretary) spent the first evening in the company of Delhi Police top brass, dishing out “Well Done” testimonials to the policemen who he believed couldn’t have done better than what they did: lathi charged the students six times on the first day of the demos, burst some 50 tear gas shells and unleashed water cannons on them. Their fault: they asked for speedy action against rapists, setting up fast-track courts, an enhancement of the sentence provided for offences like rape. They also asked for the implementation of the six-year old Supreme Court ruling on police reforms.
They wondered why no one from the government had bothered to talk to them on the first day and the greater part of the second before the politicians infiltrated their ranks. Delhi’s Chief Minister’s was the most pathetic confession: she was helpless, law and order was under the Lt. Governor who took direct orders from the Home Ministry and who, in any case was out of town. Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit who has ruled Delhi for over ten years was obviously passing the buck although she wouldn’t admit it.
The Prime Minister and his leader who have not in the past hesitated to address mass rallies and taken to TV on issues like the FDI et al obviously misread the demos and chose to keep away. That is if you don’t take a student delegation’s meeting with Sonia Gandhi as an effective intervention. About Home Minister Shinde the less said the better; he is simply out of his depth in his Ministry and reminds me of one of his predecessors, Mr. Shivraj Patil who spent more time on suit selections and hairstyle than on his Ministry. You remember the instance when Patil, as Home Minister effected a change of suits within an hour of his visit from one riot affected site to another? Shinde, is equally fond of his sartorial elegance and would be happy adlibbing at a Press Conference than coming to grips with a critical situation on the ground. These last three days he has given enough proof of his being unequal to his present assignment. A Home Minister must be a gutsy individual who will rush to the place where the action is rather than issue fatwas from the safety of his home or office. I suppose he avoids the media on purpose. I don’t see him satisfactorily explaining why there should be just one policeman for every 800 Delhiwallahs against an average of three constables (some have details as large as 30 and 40) per VIP-M.P., MLA, senior bureaucrats, Ministers, Mayors etc.
When he did finally take the TV route to talk to the protesters, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had little to add to what had already been made known : there would be fast track courts to deal with rape cases, a judicial commission was being set up… and, of course, the usual other homilies. Seemed even after three days of the face-off at India Gate, the UPA government was unwilling to dismount from its high horse. Be assured, Dr, Singh appeared to suggest that his government cares and will act whenever necessary. The human touch, too, was available when he spoke of his having fathered three girls and therefore very concerned about women’s safety.
This, mercifully, was a big improvement on his Home Minister Shinde’s counter-question to an interviewer “Why do you want the government to go to the street every time agitators are there?” He had met some student delegations the previous day, he argued. Did the questioner expect him to rush to the street to talk to agitators, to Maoists and Naxalites? The Home Minister was, obviously, all too pleased with that counter-punch.
Even as I wind up I hope better sense prevails in the ruling party at the Centre and in Delhi, The attitude of the Congress Party so far in regard to the unfinished anti-rape agitation borders on sheer callousness. I don’t believe it that Sonia Gandhi and her senior colleagues do not understand the implications for the future of their party of the apparent insensitivity to the basic issues they have largely displayed. Safety of their children, the girl child especially, is a basic concern of every parent. And when it seems to be unavailable, particularly, in big metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Bengalaru or even in smaller cities like Imphal in Manipur the loss of faith in Authority is the most obvious consequence. And such basic concerns cannot be wished away. Shutting one’s eyes to such issues is certainly not the answer.
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