My article in Bombay times in the
context of the gang rape that happened in Mumbai
Crime is a disease
In the wake of last week's shocking Mumbai gang rape I really was
disturbingly intrigued about one thing..I felt it would be very important to
know what the Mumbai rapists would have felt about the huge national outrage of
both the Media and the public over the Delhi gang rape that happened a few
months back...After all the noise made and stringent laws passed if it dint
deter this new gang from repeating such a blatant and a horrific act once again
and that too in the nerve centre of the commercial capital of india,its obvious
that criminals such as these are the last people to fear or bother about
laws .To start with I dont think any criminal who commits a crime
actually thinks of the severity of the punishment..it's not possible that a
criminal individual will think for himself 'its ok if I go to jail for a term
of 5 years for raping a woman but I will think again if its going to be a life
term" A criminal commits an act of a crime either because he cant control
his urge which is psychological or because he thinks he wont be caught which is
due to his part ignorance and part overconfidence.... So in both ways us common
folks screams from the roof tops of our twitters for justice and more
punishment actually never reach where they should reach which is the concerned
criminals cell phones....and if at all they reach its very evident that the
criminals care a hoot about it>> And with our screams if we are targeting
the political leaders and law enforcement agencies for the inadequacies in our
police department lets not forget that even in a far superiorly equipped place
such as New york city also such crimes happen much more rampantly than
here..And trying to greatly increase police vigilance and bringing in all kinds
of restrictions on movement in the name of safety will only push our society
towards becoming a police state>> It is easy to cite the examples of
almost crime free countries which practice stringent and brutal punishments
such as Sharia,but are any of us really are willing to lose our individual freedom
just for the sake of feeling safe..the answer from most of us ofcourse
will be a resounding big big No> >> Freedom comes with a price
and we have no choice but to pay for it and yes sometimes very dearly..like the
old saying goes you cant have the cake and eat it too..so if this bitter truth
sinks in and if we manage to keep our emotional outrage aside for a moment and
instead of screaming mindlessly and uselessly for the blood of the criminal and
jumping into the social network circus ring to be among the seemingly shocked
and appalled celebs nd politicos of the world i really think it would be much
more wiser to take a mature and more indepth look at crime for what it really
is...i think crime is a disease and a criminal is its carrier..if there is a
life threatening disease it's obvious that one has to keep working on trying to
understand its origin and nature to contain or eradicate it ...its plain
useless and stupid to get angry with the disease...one might say that a
criminal is a human being and has a rational mind and hence he needs to be
responded to on the same level as that of a human being..But going by the
repeated examples we are witnessing again and again that theory does not hold
water at all because a rational and normal thinking man will never take part in
such a horrific act as a gang rape in the first place..so it follows that our
aggravated and angry normal human reactions will never have an effect on such
criminal organisms which indulge in gang rape and other such horrific acts>>
It goes without saying that there are no easy answers or solutions for such a
thing as eradication of crime..No civil society no matter how advanced has
never been able to decimate crime..if at all possible to achieve that one way I
strongly believe could be that it should be diagnosed and treated in the sa me
way as one would treat a disease...I really think it will be very enlightening
both for the policing agencies and the common people if an effort were made by
some concerned to make some really good psychologists conduct extremely
professional indepth interviews with the Delhi and Mumbai gang rapists with
regard to what they think of women and why they think like that ..also to ask
them what they think of the existing laws and what makes them think that they
will not be caught ..to make those interview contents public for everyone to
read will be at least a first step towards us common people understanding the
origin,nature and the cause of that horrific disease called crime and
hopefully a way forward for some of us to reach some kind of a treatment for
its cure
