The depressing truth about India's Daughter
I set an hour aside, and watched India's Daughter. What depressed me most about the documentary was that it had nothing new to offer, nothing that I didn't already know, nothing that hadn't tired me to the bone over the last couple of years.
Of course it's exploitative of the victim's family, as all documentaries are.
Of course it humanises the basest creatures on earth, as all documentaries do.
Of course it tries to find socioeconomic and geopolitical excuses for extreme human behaviour, as all documentaries do.
It leaves me drained. I am tired of people offering "impoverishment" and "upbringing" and "cultural seasoning" and "mentality" as reasons for rape.
This is not about India. Look at the trailer of The Hunting Ground.
This is not about education. Look at the trailer of The Hunting Ground.
When the verdict came out, the defence lawyer - an educated man - said, "If my daughter or sister engaged in premarital activities and allowed herself to be disgraced and to lose face and character by doing such things, I would certainly take her to my farmhouse, and in front of the entire family, douse her with petrol and set her alight." Two years later, he stands by the statement. This man is rich enough to own a farmhouse.
What I find chilling - more chilling than the defence lawyers' assertions, and the rapist Mukesh Singh's rationalisation of the rape - are the reactions of the liberals to the documentary.
Do we still think rapists should be given a second chance?
"These men are ours, our society has to take responsibility," we say. NO. These men are not ours. These men are brutes. If you and I wouldn't do such a thing, why ought we to claim responsibility for these men?
We preach tolerance in the "spirit of India's history". What history are we discussing? When has tolerance ever been practised in India? And when has tolerance of crime served us well?
Here's a chunk out of the documentary: An NGO worker says, "There are people who have committed two hundred rapes, and have only been punished for twelve. They do it over and over again, because they don't realise it is wrong".
They don't realise it is wrong?!
I don't know, maybe they do it over and over again not because they don't realise it is wrong, but because they are addicted to the sense of power they have while they are doing it, and because - just a thought - they can get away with it, over and over and over again? Here's another chunk out of the documentary: The rapist Mukesh Singh compares this rape to other rapes, and says, "In one case, they cut out her eyes; in another, they poured acid on her; in another, they set her on fire". While all he and his friends did was to pull out her intestines. He argues that the death penalty for rape could actually put women in further danger - now, rapists will not "spare" the victims, as he and his friends did, "spare" her by disembowelling her, but will kill them so that they cannot testify.
It does not even occur to him that rape should stop.
Our takeaway from the documentary, if there is a takeaway at all, should be that the only way we can put an end to rape is to lock up the perpetrators, and throw away the key.
Those who argue that the death penalty will not deter rape ought to chew over this - hanging a rapist may not end all rapes, but it will deter more rapes by that particular man. And those men who have committed more than 200 rapes would not have been able to commit 199 of those if they had been punished right away.
Don't tell me this is about patriarchy, and how women are perceived. A male friend of mine was raped. Shortly before he was raped, he was sexually harassed by a police patrol. When he tried to complain, he was asked why he was wearing effeminate clothes.
Don't tell me education will change things.
Don't tell me that second chances will change things.
Mukesh Singh has no remorse, and he deserves no sympathy. Even if he were remorseful, he would deserve no sympathy. Don't tell me that he didn't know it was wrong to assault a woman. Don't tell me it was because he had grown up witnessing women being slapped around in his slum. Millions of people work their ways out of slums. Millions of people are horrified by violence because of early exposure. This is a man who respects a woman with whom he indulged in a quickie at a wedding, because she was culturally sound enough to object to kissing on the mouth. On the other hand, the rape victim was loose enough to be out at a movie with a male friend, and object to the advances of the men on the bus. Why ought she not be taught a lesson?
Because that is the word he uses - "sabak" - lesson. He calls it an "accident", and reasons, "Sabak ke liye hua hai". It happened so that the victim and her friend could be taught a lesson.
If there is anything we need to learn from the documentary, it is this - it is about time we stopped confusing poverty and morality and culture and mindset with crime, as the documentary does. We could listen to talking heads compare women to flowers and diamonds till kingdom come. We could watch the parents and wives of the rapists crying for all eternity. But the truth is that a lot of people who are not yet in jail ought to be behind bars. A man who says on camera, twice, that he would set someone on fire for going on a date ought to be locked away from society.
Our failure is not in producing these brutes. Our failure is in not recognising that they are beyond redemption.