Shame, Haryana

FOUR rapes in two days, one worse than the other in depravity, have jolted the collective conscience of Haryana. That must be the result of either the nature of the specific crimes or the way it is presented in media, because the fact is the state witnesses well over a 1,000 rapes in a year, around 200 of them gang-rapes. That is more than three rapes a day. It is hard to imagine which day should not leave us in shock. There are also around 4,000 kidnappings a year. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar would have realised by now that all the divine intervention invoked by the government is not working. He must recognise the imperative of governance.

This is not to say the state was much better before the BJP took charge. The reason for that has been as much the self-serving ruling elite as the caste-ridden moribund structure of the society. Rapes largely fall in two categories: those perpetrated by unknown people on random victims, and those known to victims within their families or neighbourhood. The government has to be held responsible for the kind of rape seen in Faridabad, where a woman returning home was abducted and assaulted in a vehicle. But the other kind, of which there are far more, even as many go unreported, is the responsibility of the society as well as each one of us individually. There is far too much mental instability, depravity, and detachment within us for the government machinery to address by the force of law.

Haryana has a unique, formalised yet unofficial social forum called the khap. If only it could have kept pace with the process of social evolution, the institution could have served wonderfully to keep the wayward in the countryside in check, especially in places where the police can’t reach. It could also intervene with the youth at a social and personal level, given the moral authority that khaps wield. Alas, the syndicate of wizened grey men has allowed itself to regress even more than the aimless young men fouling the streets.