DIG loose talk: Why we must stop making the symptom the disease

Social legislation in India is a vacuous morality exercise, nothing more. That explains why laws drawn up to address social maladies are a spectacular failure in the country. Laws and the society operate on completely different wavelengths. The chasm between them is too big to be bridged easily. When a DIG openly advocates killing of eloping women, doctors advise female foeticide, cops routinely says girls invite rape by behaving in a particular way and even well-heeled professionals indulge in dowry killings, there’s reason to be worried. It is obvious that such sociopathic conduct transcends boundaries of class, caste, gender and educational abilities. It is spread across the society in varying intensities. [caption id=“attachment_307282” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“No such consensus in the country is the primary reason for the failure of our laws to bring changes in social conduct rooted in our many cultures and subcultures.  AFP”]  [/caption] It is also obvious that the wide-ranging laws to stop such conduct have either made little impact or are too inadequate to address the social malaise that runs so deep. The law criminalises issues such as dowry, female foeticide and honour killings but branding these as ‘criminal’ makes little sense in the absence of a broad consensus that these practices are reprehensible and unacceptable in a civilised society. There’s no such consensus in the country. That is the primary reason for the failure of our laws to bring changes in social conduct rooted in our many cultures and subcultures. If crime is connected to deviance, there is no common agreement whether social killings constitute deviance. Rural communities in many parts of the country still consider khap panchayats more important than the modern judicial system. The practices of dowry and child marriage still have widespread acceptability. Given this reality, the failure of our laws hardly surprises. It is also a fact that we are brilliant at making laws but hopelessly incompetent in implementing them. But think of it. The people expected to implement laws aimed at eliminating social evils are drawn from the same social stock that the laws are directed against. The cops railing against the behaviour of rape victims belong to a society that is culturally programmed to treat women in a certain way. That society is guided by its own standards, own rules and own interpretation of changes around. The worldview here is community-centric as opposed to the modern laws which are built around the individual and his rights. The distrust between the two has been a constant in the country’s social history and the clashes frequent. Probably, we need a new approach to social issues. Law alone is not sufficient. It punishes the guilty but does not strike at the root of the problem. No law would work if people refuse to accept the criminality of the act it is directed against. There has to be a way to convince people that practices like dowry, etc, are immoral and inhuman, not just criminal. Suspending a DIG or other officials over insensitive remarks sends a message, but it is hardly anything when it comes to addressing the core problem. It has to be a total effort, starting with education at the lowest levels to initiatives at awareness generation from a multiplicity of agencies apart from the government. The biggest weakness in the country’s bid to address social issues has been our failure to engage traditional institutions. Let’s face it. The combined power of the legislature, the government and the judiciary is too limited to bring any social change. The only solution is to be more inclusive in our approach and bring other players in. Khap panchayats are a discredited lot, courtesy their outrageous stand on issues which in many cases should be strictly personal. But they are powerful community institutions, too. If they are persuaded to take a positive stand on social issues, the impact would certainly be significant. It has worked wonderfully in some states, albeit in a limited way; there’s no reason why it would not work in other cases. The religious and spiritual gurus could be another instrument of change. Their popularity and reach among people needs no overstating — think of Sri Sri Ravishankar, Baba Ramev and even the controversial Nirmal Baba. Historically too, such people have been agents of change in Indian society. Their services could be used to attack abhorrent social practices. The basic advantage with both is they are closer to the people than the government can ever be. In the absence of the idea of inclusion, social legislations won’t work. They will continue to remain an idle exercise in idealism.