Letter to Justice Verma

The recent incident of gangrape and brutalization in Delhi has shaken the consciousness of the nation and there has been a huge protest in Delhi. The establishment has been lackadaisical in its approach and there is confusion of whether to tackle this particular incident by fast tracking justice delivery (when the victim is fighting to be alive, I don't what can be called justice) or bring in better laws to punish the perpetrators or shut down protests. Justice Verma is seeking our opinions. Please do write to: justice dot verma at nic dot in. 

My thoughts to him below:

Respected Justice Verma,

It is very kind of you to have sought inputs into the recent very unfortunate episode of unprecedented brutality in Delhi. To say that the act was bestial would be an insult to beasts. Humanity touched a huge new low on that night. By not responding to that particular event and providing justice and not addressing the bigger issue of what ails us we’ll be shoving our society to a low that’ll be beyond redemption. Therefore, this expression of anger, this expression of rebellion, this expression of solidarity is most welcome. In my mind it represents a churning like what we have read in our mythology – that of the milk ocean which gave out various goodies while also subjecting the worlds to the poison of kalakuta. Again like the Lord saved us on that fateful day, I am hopeful He’ll do so again through learned people of the society who’ll bring wisdom and enact laws that’ll serve as deterrents.

What ideas can aam aadmi give to the learned benches about laws? Aam aadmi represents mostly emotion and doesn’t always see the big picture. Even the honourable law makers called in unison for capital punishment for the perpetrators in the recent episode. The recent perpetrators of the crime deserve this punishment for more than one reason, viz. Rape as well as attempt to murder and many other acts of utter cruelty that have dented and shaken our consciousness. However, on second thought I keep wondering would there be a deterrent at all for this trait which is probably few moments of utter madness? This led me to thinking what is better – deterrent or prevention? I’m conscious that the latter will be the preferred, although lot harder to implement.

In my humble opinion the moral fabric of the society is fast disintegrating and this is the reason for all the myriad manifestations of greed, cruelty, immorality and crimes. To be moral today is to be old fashioned. To talk right things is to sound absurd. Values have become archaic. We gyrate to Sheila ki jawani’ with family. The definition of family based entertainment is changing for worse. More and more of unparliamentary words are finding place in our regular vocabulary. What was taboo 20 years back has not only come to passé but embraced warmly. This is not an old fashioned rant about how bad the society has become. These are all small symptoms that are manifesting as bigger crimes with alarming frequency. Sir, in order to tackle these crimes, we must urgently re-introduce moral science in the primary schools. There is no shame in being moral. It is only the right state of man.

I read painfully about how hypocritical we are in celebrating women as adi shakthi, the primal power and worshipping her and at the same time heap abuse on them. Sir, our festivals have gained in color, lost in spirit; we spend more, enjoy less; we celebrate pompously, imbibed hardly. Therefore, while we worship the Goddesses for mythical reasons we hardly treat our fellow women as expressions of that divinity. Bereft of conviction and spirit our festivals have become demonstrations of opulence that are at best pompous pastimes.

I strongly believe that bringing back moral science into the curriculum and providing a value based education to the children and parents (parents read through children) will secure us a more peaceful and healthy future. Let mothers be worshipped, let fathers be worshipped. Let them also be worthy of it. Such worship worthy mothers will mould their children in a manner that they respect fellow human beings, be good citizens and not be burden on the society and judiciary.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba famously declared while opening a college for women at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh several decades back that the aim of the college is to generate adorable mothers not desirable wives. We need more such colleges and more such orientation in our education.