It's not them, it's us

What prompted me to write this was a recent editorial in Indian Express by Amulya Gopalakrishnan. It is one of the many opinion pieces that have appeared since the brutal gang rape of a 23 year old Delhi medical student. She starts off sensibly by building a case that the “certainty of punishment, rather than the severity of punishment, is the real deterrent”. I completely agree, and couldn't have put it better myself. I also agree with her suggestions on police reform and judicial pendency  But the rest of the editorial outraged me enough to write a 400 word admonishment than just a 140 character censure.

I am tempted to do a piece by piece rejection of statements like calling the protests a “mechanical tirade against the government” and calling some of the protesters “childishly self centered”  for demanding that “just because they had shown up at India Gate, the PM must too”. But this would be missing the wood for the trees. Instead, I choose to take umbrage at the broader message that the author is trying to convey. And that message is the following: it is us, the society, that treats women badly and since “institutional responses also flow out of social responses, ultimately” we are to blame and not the government.

I agree that much of our society remains regressive, especially when it comes to gender related issues. But that cannot be used to condone government’s errors of commission and omission. In a perfect democracy, if there is any such thing, the people get the government they deserve. But our democracy, just like any other democracy, is far from perfect, and despite the many failures of our society, we deserve better. I say this because of my firm belief that politics can and must have a vision of its own. This vision, rather than merely reflecting social attitudes, should try to improve them. Such a constructive and forward looking political vision has been completely absent from parliament. How many parliamentary debates have we had on the state of primary education in our country? Compare this to the number of discussions in parliament on reservations and caste issues. Is it then any surprise that we remain a regressive society? And is government, and politics not to blame?

I’m in no way suggesting that all we should do is to blame politicians and be done with it. We should all pause, and reflect inwards about what happened to that girl on that night. Our attitudes need to change, but so does the politics of our country.