Sometimes Prevention is not better than Cure .

After Delhi became the rape capital of India the government passed an ordinance that bars and pubs should not employ women after 8PM. While I believe most of the people in country would be in agreement with this move by the government, a majority of the twitter folks and other main stream media elites were aghast and expressed outrage. Their outrage stemmed from the fact that the government let rapists walk away free but penalize employment of women who are innocent. 

While the topic of why tweeters and "common man" have divergent opinions is an interesting topic by itself - lets set that aside for another day. This post is about why I think GoI is correct and why I disagree with feminists, many journalists, and most tweeters writing on this topic.

Allow me to express my disagreement via these five categories of elementary logic that many arguing on this topic don't seem to understand.

1. A person is a rapist only if he commits rape:  

I generally assumed this to be common sense. Its as simple as saying only fruits that are mangoes can be branded as mangoes. But such is the sad state of affairs that this needs to be spelled out. If a person has already committed the act of raping someone, he is a criminal. It would be accurate to brand him a rapist. The police should be searching for him and work on arresting him. That is a separate topic. Not directly relevant to the topic of discussion here - which is preventing rape. 

From reading the news it appears that the police/government have identified that there are areas, time-of-day, situations where the probability of women getting raped is very high. This means that there is some evidence and statistical backing to conclude that in these situations the observed instances of rape is alarmingly greater than the mean. If a government is a sensible one - it is common sense to prevent exposure of women to that kind of probability. 

This preemption does not mean that government is letting rapists walk-away free. And you know why that is so? This is because in this instance the occurrence of rape has been prevented. By not letting women be in that dangerous situation, the act of rape did not happen. 

Unless there is a pre-existing threat by a specific person, you can't arrest arbitrary strangers who may have raped a woman if given an opportunity. Legally, they aren't rapists. therefore should walk free. You can only arrest people who have raped. So claiming that government let rapists walk away scott-free while punishing women is an inaccurate statement. There are no rapists in this situation.

2. In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is: 

Pause and reflect on the previous phrase for a moment. This paragraph is based on this theme. My biggest accusation of tweeters, journalists and social media experts is that they are very theoretical about laws and constitutional provisions. I accuse them of being greatly out of touch with some practical reality. 

For example; I can leave the door of my house open and legally expect that no citizen will steal from my house. In theory this works. In practice this wont. If all citizens open their doors, they are entitled to expect that the police will prevent criminals from entering. In theory it is the responsibility of police to ensure this. In practice the size of police force will not scale up to match the crime rate increase in this situation. In theory and practice the people who steal in such situations are criminals and deserve jail sentence. But there aren't enough policemen in the force to arrest everyone. 

The only way the government can deal with this situation is make it illegal for you to leave the door open. Extend this to wearing a Rolex watch, wade of $1000 bills in your pocket and a Ferrari and go to a crime neighborhood. If you do this everyday - you will get robbed someday. 

Yes, the people who mug you are criminals. In theory you have the right to expect police to protect you at all times. In practice they can't. In theory the police shouldn't be judgmental on you and protect you. In practice, they will be and they won't. In theory you can go in a bikini to a pub, get slosh drunk, hitch a ride with complete strangers in an call-taxi and not expect to get raped. In theory the police force should assign 1 policeman with  a revolver to protect every single woman who exposes herself to such dangerous situations. In practice...

3. Human Beings can do more than 1 thing at a time.  

This may sound surprising to many tweeters but human beings can do two things at the same time. I can watch TV and eat a muffin at the same time. Really, I can. I have seen many people do two things at the same time. Some comb their hair and whistle. Some talk on the phone and type on their computer. But many tweeters assume mutual exclusion when none exists. 

If you accuse a person of being careless because he left the door of his house open, these feminists assume you are forgiving the criminals who entered the house and burgled stuff. This is patently not true. Blaming someone does not mean "shifting the blame". It is not a zero sum game. I can accuse the victim of being careless and at the same time agree that the burglar is a criminal. You know why? because human beings can do two things at the same time. 

So if police has given explicit instruction to women citizens to not venture into dangerous areas beyond a particular time, consume alcohol and hitch-ride with strangers. And if a woman ends up doing all the above and gets raped. I.. (wait for it) (wait for it) will blame her for being careless and irresponsible. I will blame her for not putting a premium on her personal safety. 

This does not mean I condone and forgive the rapists. They are criminals and will need to be arrested. Punishing a criminal and calling someone careless isn't mutually exclusive. We can do both things. And we should be doing both.

4. Post-rape situation is different from preventing rape:  

If policemen act indifferently to complaints of rape they are not discharging their duty and deserve reprimand. My personal view is that rapists deserve capital punishment. Eve-teasing deserves multiple years of jail sentence.There are no situations where a rapist can be condoned and the blame shifted to the victim. No girl ever "asks for it" because of the way she dresses or walks or drinks.  

It is true that many times women lie about rape. It is also probably true that the instances where they are genuinely raped far outnumber the other instances where it is a cooked up lie. Once it is established that someone has been raped the police should not be biased by the other cases they have seen where women have lied. They should act in an unbiased manner to pursue justice. 

However, when it comes to preventing rape - the 'prevention' must be given maximum priority. If this comes at the cost of marginal economic opportunities for women then - so be it. If a government is forced to make a trade-off they should always trade-off economic opportunity to prevent rape.

5. It is not 'All or Nothing'. It rarely is: 

Sometimes RBI doesn't allow me to transfer  larger amounts of money across countries at the same time. I am inconvenienced but not dead. I can still transfer some money. I can't go tell the RBI that if they don't allow me to transfer $1 billion it means that they are a non-entity. It doesn't mean I live in stone age. It doesn't mean that I can't transfer $1 if I wanted to. I can still transfer some money. 

Some kind of jobs may not available in the place where I live. That could be my perfect dream job. But that is okay - I can find a job that is reasonably close to what I want that matches my skills. If  the government has failed in giving me employment that is 100% to my liking, it doesn't mean that they have killed all my hopes for employment. They haven't failed. 

Unless I have enormous sense of entitlement, the fact that I have employment means the govt is doing a good job. Theoretically they are supposed to help me. But needn't satisfy my every whim. So lets face it. The government has asked women who work in pubs after 8PM to not go to work. This doesn't mean we have regressed back to the Mughal era where women have to be covered head to toe and never venture out of their house. You guys need to get some perspective. Working in a 'saaraya kadai' doesn't require you to have 3 PhDs and embellish a 3-page resume. You probably have transferable skills to work somewhere else. It doesn't mean the government will completely stop women from working everywhere. 

This is not a slippery slope. It doesn't mean government will prevent women from working in a place/time/situation where 1 instance of rape happens. It is not "all or nothing". It is an equilibrium. It is  a trade-off or balance where reasonable employment opportunities are provided for reasonable costs/restrictions. You may ask "who decides what is reasonable". It is the elected government. Live with it. If you don't like it change the government. Any other questions on this will fall into one of these 5 categories.

In conclusion: This is a situation where a government has traded-off employment opportunities for women in pubs after 8PM to reduce their exposure to rape crimes. It is probably because of practical difficulties in ensuring safety for women in all bar/pubs across the country/city/state. It is not a kick back to stone age for women. Its a practical trade-off. Stop over-reacting. This leads to "grease the squeaky wheel" situation. The upper class elitist twits make such a big deal about careless women who get drunk, party and hang out with questionable strangers. And there is generally no noise about impacted women who dont fit into this class description.

The underprivileged voiceless women are used in an argument only as an embellishment. They are never the main topic. just a side act. And they are talked about only as a support act when some rich delhi girl gets raped when she's partying at 1AM. In this context the poverty ridden Ranganathan street cloth shop women are mentioned in passing to give the journalist a noble purpose. If these feminists and jounalists truly cared they would've protested against a specific (very very specific) element of injustice in that space. Its not like it never happens. It happens everyday but its never news.




On the other hand nonsense news such as kudigaara bar hopping reckless teenagers (and in the kolkata case: 37 yr old kudigaara mom-of-two was bar hopping and hitch-rided with strangers) getting raped is front and center news. This drains the resources and focus of the govt and makes them focus on unimportant issues. The fakeness of this issue makes an average guy cynical. which further contributes to poor response to real issues.