In 1975, Nishant, a Bollywood
masterpiece directed by Shyam Benegal, showed how the powerful elite could
do anything they wanted
in a feudal society, including abducting and exploiting wives of ordinary
citizens, without any fear of the law. Little it seems has changed, despite
education, awareness and modernisation. The new 'zamindars' of India have
happily inherited that feudal mindset and become the new exploiters, not in
remote villages but in India's modern cities.
As by now the whole of India knows, Ruchika Gehrotra, a 14 year old child, was
not only molested by an Inspector General of Police, but was
driven to suicide by the harassment that she and her family was subjected to
by him because they chose to not keep their mouths shut and let him get away.
Molester SPS Rathore, who effectively killed Ruchika and destroyed her family,
not only continued to serve in the police but was even elevated to the rank of
Director General of Police, Haryana, backed as he was by powerful politicians.
19 long years after the incident, Rathore, supported by feudal mindsets in the
top echelons of many wings of the system, has walked off with a with a
victorious smirk. Thanks to his 'zamindarni' lawyer wife and a judge who was
more concerned about of the age of the accused than the offence committed by
him, Rathore has been not only got just six months imprisonment and a Rs 1000
fine but has been granted bail too.
The Ruchika case is another of the innumerable examples of what the aam admi has
to face whenever he crosses swords with any instrument of the state. In perhaps
99% cases, he chooses to keep quiet and bear the humiliation and harassment
because there is nowhere else that he can go to, without facing the same, even
worse, treatment. Our police, in particular, has an anachronistic
colonial-feudal organisational structure that is tailor-made to enforce its writ
through force and exploitation, right from the constable upwards. The higher the
rank, the greater the protection and force available to an exploiter.
When someone asks for a bribe to do what he is paid to, you just pay up. When
someone feels a minor up, you just keep shut. The price to be paid for taking
the system on can be very high, even fatal, and the one who makes you pay that
price does not think twice before making you pay it and then release a smile far
worse than the dirty one Rathore sported on walking free. All colonial
instruments of state, including the police, are above and superior to you.
Democracy does not touch them. Worse, they insulate even elected political
leaders from democracy and help them become the new colonial emperors. The
king-slave equation continues unbroken.
It is not an individual police officer's crime that is involved in the Ruchika
case; it is the relative status of the instruments of state and the ordinary
citizen that is being disturbed by it. That is not acceptable. If the Maharaja
of Patiala, as revealed by Diwan Jarmani Dass, could pick any girl/woman he
liked on the street, if zamindars could do so too, if the British did it when
they were here, then how can you and I question the right of the new royals of
today to perpetuate that tradition? We have to be told that as graphically as
possible, and as often as necessary, so that others do not even think about
throwing a pebble into that exclusive pool.
That is why when a Ruchika decides to fight, the system closes ranks and fights
back harder.
In Nishant, the villagers eventually
mustered courage and slaughtered the zamindar and his family. In Ruchika's case
too, thanks to the huge outcry, Rathore may get much harsher punishment than he
has. But will this change the equation between the rulers and the ruled? Will it
alter colonial-feudal mindsets? That will not happen till the whole architecture
is replaced by a people's-up edifice.
Till that happens, notwithstanding what happens to Rathore, what do you think I
will do if something similar were to happen to my daughter? Whatever I have to,
to ensure that she does not lose the smile on her face, even if that helps the
criminal gets away. That's the chilling lesson for me. If that makes me a coward
and makes the system mock at my helplessness, so be it. It is the society that
must feel ashamed, not me. Will you risk your child's life?
Courtesy: http://vinodksharma.blogspot.com/2009/12/ruchika-case-chilling-lesson.html