Nth RAPE IN DELHI – RIGHT ANGER AT WRONG DOOR

The Delhiites are understandably outraged at these unceasing incidents of rape. But I gravely doubt if they are directing their ire at the right direction – or more precisely, at all the right directions. Policemen are not the ones raping. And it is well nigh impossible for the police in any society such as ours to effectively stall rape. Can they possibly protect daughters from being raped by their fathers? Police is but one institution of our society. There are others, and perhaps even more responsible in shaping our character. Their collective failings can’t be blamed on the police alone. Why, for instance, should we not blame the religious priests [the gurus and the maulvis], the temples and the mosques that command so much of our respect and loyalty, unquestioned obedience and blind faith, for failing to tame the brutes in us? For failing to put the fear of God and of the hell, that they sell so assiduously, in the hearts of their faithful? Or the schools and colleges – and the teachers and the mentors – that failed to inculcate gender sensitivity and civility, norms of society and the fear of the law they are supposed to teach us? Or our parents that saw us grow with such abnormalities and were not alarmed at our inhumanism? Or the society at large, that tolerated for so long the barbaric tendencies of such obnoxious animals as this young brute who raped this 5-yr old Delhi girl and inserted all kinds of foreign objects inside her for his extremely sadistic pleasure? The administrative failings of the police – like other men in the govt elsewhere – must be challenged and repaired. But completely isolating it from the society, or expecting it to deliver us from rape and robbery while we conveniently ignore all obligations of citizenship [in this case the landlord did not report the tenant, nor check his antecedents, nor suspected him for two long days] appear neither wise nor helpful. Or does it?