The last few days have been rather
confusing for me. I am trying to come to grips with two concepts – rape and
absolutism, rather absolutists. This confusion has come about after reading the
arguments on the acquittal by the Delhi High Court of Mahmood Farooqui the
Director of Peepli Live from charges of rape. This judgment came close on the
heels of a Judgment of the Punjab & Haryana High Court where the Court
released on bail 3 students, once again, accused of rape. This case too has had
a lot of opinion generated.
The absolutely inhuman Nirbhaya crime
resulted in an amendment to the law relating to what constitutes rape. The law
became wider. The ambit of rape was modernized and widened. The concept of
consent has been added.
Despite the amendment, feminists,
lawyers and activists operating in the women’s rights sphere wanted more.
Specifically, rape within marriage. The essential characteristic, generally
speaking and painting them all with one broad brush, of such feminists, lawyers
and activists, is that all of them are absolutists.
An absolutist is one who believes that
any theory holding that values, principles, etc., is absolute and not relative,
dependent, or changeable. This means that they refuse to accept any other view.
Therefore, for such absolutists, there cannot be any leeway, no mitigating
circumstances. A rape is a rape is a rape. I must point out that in almost all
cases, these absolutists do not hear the defense or weigh the evidence that the
defense produces in cases of rape. In other words the absolutists are merely
armchair critics. Of course, in a small number of cases the absolutists happen
to be the prosecuting lawyers for the women. This again automatically places
them in an absolutist position. The rapist is undoubtedly guilty and should be
put away. No ifs, no buts. This is unfortunately their view. If they had their
way, there would be no necessity for a trial.
There is a small problem for the
absolutists. In trials there is a Judge. It goes without saying that
absolutists regard Judges who do not pronounce alleged rapists guilty as misogynists
or feudal or possessing a typically male mindset or worse. You have to realize
that Judges are not, and cannot, thankfully, be absolutists. They have to weigh
the evidence, the arguments and then apply the law. So, often the accused are
not punished to the extent the absolutists would like. This is thankfully what
justice is.
The poor clichéd Lady Justice you see
with the scales upon which she measures the strengths of a case's support and
opposition, the blindfold symbolizing impartiality and finally the sword
symbolizing that Justice is swift and final, is really what it is all about. Of
course in India the sword is deceptive as justice is neither swift nor final.
This conflict between absolutists and
Justice is causing huge conflict. To add to the problem is the fact that Judges
cannot appear on TV or for that matter write in publications why they took a
particular decision. That reasoning is contained in the Judgment. Obviously!
But, the trend now is that the absolutists regard such reasoning as a function of
the Judges mindset which I have written about in the preceding paragraph.
I really do not know how I would have decided
these two recent cases. Unfortunately there is a lot of grey area in both. The behavior
of the protagonists is rather mixed and drawing lines seems most difficult.
In the Punjab & Haryana High Court
Judgment, which has resulted in the 3 boys being granted bail, the problem
started with the girl, as the cliché goes, taking selfies of herself, naked and
sending them to the boys. Facebook was also involved. This snowballed. The
Judges have been very critical of this shallow, irresponsible behavior. This Judgment
has been criticized as the absolutists feel, firstly, that the boys should
never have been granted bail, and secondly, that by expressing an opinion that
this rape was somehow self-inflicted on account of deviant behavior by all
parties, the Judges have become moral police. Thus the old mindset and so on
and so forth.
The Mahmood Farooqui case is even
stranger. First there is a peculiar cast of characters. Mahmood Farooqui being
an alcoholic, suffering from a bipolar disorder. Then you have some gents from
the extreme outer fringes of “folk theatre”/TV/Journalists who are all well
aware of Mahmood Farooqui’s problems. To round of this motley crew you have a
young female Fulbright Scholar. The Judges after sifting thru the evidence
reach the conclusion that it is questionable if the rape did take place at all!
This has outraged the absolutists.
I am confused as to how these two diametrically
opposite positions of absolutism and Justice can have a middle path. To further
aggravate the masses we have these shouting matches on TV, where once again you
pitch people whose points of view are poles apart and are incapable of reaching
a middle ground. This needlessly agitates us and further lowers our little
faith in the Judiciary and criminal justice system. This I believe is most
disturbing.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1HsQbGlNpEfUWtEZE50YWFYd1U/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1HsQbGlNpEfTU1SdjBXa0oycWM/view
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