Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Country in deep crisis) that was published in Newsband

Country in deep crisis

The 23-year-old student whose struggle against sexual assault, rape and death shone a harsh light deep into the ugly, rotting interior of our society is no more.

Maximum punishment should be awarded to the men who grievously assaulted the woman inside a bus as it sped along one of Delhi’s busiest roads. Punished they must be. But even if the six are hanged, will the problem get solved? Will it end the violence against women? Will it fetch security and justice to women across the country?

Laws to deal with rape and sexual assault exist but not the police, judiciary and leaders to work them. It is this leaderless vacuum that should be filled first only after which the rights of women will be respected - the right to be born and fed, and to study; the right to work and live with dignity, the right to dress and travel and love as they please.

There are specific steps — administrative, pedagogic, cultural — that must be taken to prevent sexual assault and rape. Can the problem of sexual violence get solved if half or even one-third of all legislators are women? Should the Women’s Reservation Bill be passed now? Would the passing of this Bill be the right way of honouring the death of the Unknown Citizen?

There should be Police reforms also to prevent such horrors. Also the women MPs from all the parties should come forward to do something drastic about violation of women’s rights. It is not enough to just shed crocodile tears and pay homage to the departed soul of the brave girl. One woman on top is not enough to change the system. There need to be more women in the public sphere so the ordinary males (including chauvinists) get used to seeing them as equals.

In the past, the word 'India' brought various images in the minds of people - a half clad human giant "Gandhi", Buddha, a billion people co-existing with more languages than one can count with two hands, arts and culture that traces roots to all parts of the world, an ocean of human potential, enterprise and spiritual wisdom. Six ordinary men in their most base existence took an eraser and clinically wiped out all the good work done by humans to bring us this far. We are now in a deep human-against-human crisis. To get out of this crisis we need an Education system which inculcates character, morals, ethics and mutual respect into our Boys and Girls. If this one reform is introduced, most laws will become unnecessary.