There are matters on which one cannot take sides, at least not
clearly. Things are, at times, so hazy and complex that whatever side you take is
wrong. The matter of Leslie Udwin’s documentary “India’s Daughter” on the
infamous Nirbhaya rape case, is one such matter.
It is hard to understand the opposition of the documentary.
Beyond a decibel level, every truth ceases to be truth. The noise on rival
channels makes one doubt their outrage. The same channel sometime back got the
same lawyer for the accused rapist on their debate. How come the same man
making similar arguments in a debate is not outrageous while doing exactly the
same thing on a documentary proposed to be run on a rival channel is insulting
to the victim? The whole campaign smacks of hypocrisy. It is absurd to be up in
arms about the documentary on the fact, and not be concerned about the fact
itself.
Eloquent politicians who went silent when their own party chiefs
made obnoxious statements like ‘Boys will be boys’ have suddenly got their
eloquent tongues back from the cats. In parliament, they cry hoarse that this
is insulting to the victim. It is not the public admission of thoughts which is
a matter of concern; it is the thought itself which is of concern. What good it
would be if the lawyer, the convicts, does not speak but the thoughts keep on
creeping into creepy minds, looking for a dark alley, an empty bus to come out
like evil creatures of the night? Why not introspect, not only about the
ghastly crime, but also the response of the establishment to the spontaneous
outrage which spread out on the street in response to the crime. What happens
to the false murder case slapped on young men who went to protest? Who orchestrated
that brutal action, which failed only because the movement could muster enough
numbers to challenge the might of the state?
On the other hand, the making of the documentary itself was an
act of absurdity. The claim of the maker of the documentary that her making of
the documentary is justified because she herself is a rape victim is similar to
the claim of erstwhile Home minister that he could be trusted with rightful
action since he himself was father of daughter, and is as erroneous. Her rationale for making the documentary
itself is skewed. What is there to understand about the mind of the criminal? It
always leaves me uneasy. This whole club of untrained psychologist is an
institution of idiocy. All men (I mean, Human beings by men) are not same.
There are people who are evil. There is no reason, no logic of them being evil.
Why would one want to understand them? They are evil whether rich or poor. It
has nothing to do with their societal status or economic status. Evil rich is
evil because he is rich and evil poor is evil because he is poor. This is just
crap. Evil is evil because it wants to be, not because it has to be. Chesterton wrote famously, “..This
is a real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as
disease..of healing sin by slow scientific methods..The fallacy of the whole
thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.”
Furthermore, there is nothing specific about Indian men. It is a
universal situation. We consider moral education outdated and legal system
lingers on forever without reaching anywhere. Now that the documentary has been
made, however stupid that endeavor is, blocking it is even more stupid. Leslie
makes strange arguments like this is an attempt to understand the mind of an Indian man, as if Jack the Ripper
had migrated from India, and so are all the ISIS fighters. On the attempt of
government to block the documentary, a guaranteed to fail attempt, she says, “This society is sick” which I would hope
was a statement out of desperation only. The resolution of such matters is not censorship;
it is to look inside, inside the smallest unit of humanity- the family. The way
to counter crime is not to restrict crime-reporting, it is to restrict crime. We are being stupid. Why are we not asking why the Nirbhaya fund is lying unused, and what is the point of adding another 2000 Crores to unused 1000 Crores? Why that fund cannot be used to put CCTV cameras, to light up the dark roads, to fund fast tract courts?
Also when it comes to this particular case, it wasn’t even
crime. It was evil. It was not the act of criminal passion, nor was it the
question of illegality or immorality alone. It was all these things added. When
a person in power exercises it merely to crush those who are less powerful, it
is not crime, it is pure, unadulterated evil. If such evil was ever allowed to
propagate, human race or any race for that matter has little chance. It was not
a crime against woman, it was a crime against nature. Therefore it was evil and
there is no point in wanting to understand evil. She would have done better to
have interview the earlier CM of Delhi and asked her, what did she mean when
she advised women to not be adventurous, or asked the earlier police chief
about who directed him to file false cases against the protesters and also she
ought to have asked the news channel anchor crying hoarse as the guardian of
social morality that when will it stop giving air space to the political party
whose chief made the Boys will be boys statement. She should have interviewed
the power –that-be that why justice is such a long-winding road when the
criminals are not even attempting to deny the crime, they are merely explaining
the crime. This study of evil is plain stupid and this banning of the stupid
study is stupider.
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