The recent Hathras case taken nation by storm and all the parties want to cash on this subject to malign UP govt. I agree that whatever happened was in very bad taste but instead going into root cause of why these type of incidents happen frequently in our country , all the CMs of opposition ruled state started demanding the resignation of CM of Uttar Pradesh (UP). This case was about atrocities and rape of a Dalit girl in the state of UP, but the position in other states is not any better. In today’s newspaper there is news item which say that there have been increase in rape cases on schedule caste (SC) and schedule tribe (ST) women in the country during the period from 2017 to 2019, and the top 4 states are Rajasthan, UP, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Maharashtra recorded a 62% rise in cases of rape of women belonging to SC & ST communities between 2017 & 2019, and what was more alarming was the conviction rate during the period, which was just 7%. Although UP, despite being at no. 2 place among the top states for rape cases on SC & ST women, but its conviction rate during the same period was 66%.
In 2019 Maharashtra recorded 378 SC/ST rape cases and in 48% of the cases, the survivors were minor girls. In 2018, the state had recorded 313 cases (135 survivors were minor) and in 2017 233 cases (79 survivors were minor). Till last year 9606 cases were pending for trials in Maharashtra.
Now in Hathras case, new thing has come out and that is, as per medical reports there is no evidence to show that the said Dalit girl was raped. As per this the case will take a new turn, and now the culprit will be charged for murder. In this whole episode Congress party without going into details jumped into bandwagon to show sympathy to the family of dead girl, It was a fact that when UP govt issued prohibitive order, what was the necessity of Rahul Gandhi & Priyanka Gandhi trying to breach the security cordon, and then putting the photos in media of about police mishandling them. It was just a publicity stunt to get some political mileage from this incident. The correct course of action for Rahul Gandhi would have been, he should have announced on national TV that these rape cases are increasing day by day in the country, and it is the duty of all the political parties to come together and frame out a long term policy regarding how to reduce the number of such cases, then the general public would have thought he is one national leader who is thinking in the right direction and party line, but alas that is expecting too much from Rahul Gandhi, because he has never taken any responsibility in his life time. The main problem is Congress party has ruled the country for maximum period, and they never worked in the direction of solving this issue.
In my opinion, the basic cause of the rapes and other atrocities on the poor and backward class people including tribal, SC & ST are many fold and the situation can improve only when the mind set of general public of all caste, religion is changed. The few things which comes to my mind, which can help in solving this problem are
1 The root cause of this problem is our caste system. Even after 73 years of independence, the country and our politicians instead of rooting out this problem are creating more problems by adding more caste based reservations in each and every state. If you ask any sensible citizen of the country, the answer will be reservation should be based on the economic conditions of person and not on caste system.
2 The mind set of upper class people who think that these people from poor people from SC, ST and other backward class are second class citizens and upper caste have all the rights to mistreat them. Some upper class people in smaller town and villages are still behaving like Zamindar of pre independence era.
3 The patriachal mind set of majority of male persons of the country, who still think they are superior in many ways to women, and they have every right to abuse them in whatever fashion they like.
4 Police reforms are needed very badly. The police feel that as they have power they can treat poor people of society in the manner which suits them and their superiors including political bosses. Secondly most of them are still suffering from patrichal mind set, instead of treating women equally they treat them differently. Other problem is if you are rich or connected politically, then you can twist the police with your money power and political connection, and get away from such rape charges.
5 Lastly our political leaders, who are to be blamed for this problem prevailing in our society as for more than 7 decades after the independence they have done nothing concrete to ease out the atrocities and rapes happening on poor women from these backward communities.
Above are the few major reasons, which does not allow poor persons to get justice in our country. There will many more reasons, but till the top reasons are not addressed, whatever otherwise Govt do will be an eye wash, and this problem will persist.
Waiting for your views/feed backs/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
6th October 2020