(This maxi-post is in multiple parts but carried on single page)
From the poorest family in a slum to the richest in mansions, all
Indian families share a common practice; we clean our house every single day.
There can be those rare days which are exceptions but we do sweep and mop the
floor every single day. We do this routine in our offices too. This is one of
the routines of our lives as with other hygiene ones. It’s one thing common
between the rich and the poor. If we don’t, dust accumulates. If dust
accumulates disease follows or possessions rot. As simple as that! Crime
prevention is not very different. Keeping
cities free of crime is a daily routine. And when crime does happen we
expect justice will follow and swiftly. The recent incident of the Gangrape of
a 23-year old woman and her death brought people out on to the streets. The
response of the govt and police merely indicate that they aren’t following the
daily routines. Lathi-charges, water-cannons, shutting down metro-rail, buses
and barricades are all responses in a ‘contagion’.
Although this Gangrape acted as a trigger people weren’t really out in anger
for that alone. Delhizens are simply fed up to their necks with the frequent crimes
in the city-state. This is a long story, in multiple parts, and not to do with
the media alone.
The ‘moment of truth’ as I
call it is when a guest or visitor first comes in contact with a city or a
service. When a flight is cancelled or delayed beyond tolerance, irate
passengers don’t call up the Chairman of the airline to scream at; do they? They usually crowd around the hapless check-in
girl and give her a harrowing time (see image and also see video on Youtube). The poor girl has
absolutely nothing to do with the aircraft, cancellation, delays or flights
except checking you in. Yet, she is the
one facing the brunt of public anger. She is the ‘window’ of the airline. She is the ‘moment of truth’, the first point of contact. For most visitors to
Delhi that first moment of truth or point of contact is a Taxi or an Auto. The
behaviour of some of them is quite uncivil and makes you feel unwelcome. To top
it all they don’t run on meters even till this day; 65 years after independence.
Isn’t it astonishing, that those who claim to be in charge of law and order, crime-prevention
and justice haven’t managed to get taxis and autos run on simple meters? Why in
the world should Delhi airport have a system of ‘prepaid’ fares for yellow taxis which should just flag down their
meters? This is true for all metros with the exception of Mumbai and for most
other large cities in India. Lately, private taxis run on meters and even issue
receipts. Crime doesn’t start with tragic rape and murder cases. It starts with failure in daily
house-keeping.
As frequent as eve-teasing has been in Delhi, this daily hygiene issue
doesn’t seem to be getting the daily treatment in requires. In buses or on the
streets, a woman being teased or molested doesn’t seem to be seen as a symptom.
Like that poor airline check-in girl who is your first point of contact? Yeah, he’s
the nearest cop on the street or at the police station. The lowest one in the
rank! Do you want to meet this cop in your worst nightmare? Most people dread
the experience and contact a policeman only in very compelling circumstances. If
eve-teasing is allowed to pass, it becomes the dust that gathers into a
contagion called rape. This poor cop, like the check-in girl, is the lowest
rung of the ladder, the Police Commissioner is the lowest rung in the political
order and currently the PM and the ministers are the lowest rung of the dynastic
order. The same poor cop faces the brunt of public ire during protests. One of
them collapsed and died. The pic of PM and his ministers lining up for a guard
of honour usually reserved for PMs, Presidents or State-Heads says a lot. And
where are you, the people? We are the
lowest fish in the whole food chain. Ironically, you should be the BOSS! You are the ones who either vote
these people and/or pay their salaries. Yet, you are in a system where you, as
the customer, come last.
In Bangalore autos have a picture
of the driver, his license details in a large enough frame behind the driver’s
seat. It’s something every passenger can read and note and lodge a complaint if
the driver breaks traffic rules, cheats or is lawless. It also tell you whether
the license is valid and whether the real, licensed driver is the behind the
wheel and not a proxy. Now, does that take some extraordinary intelligence or
judicial panel to do? We don’t find this in Delhi or many other cities. Why
should Delhi autos or taxis which don’t run on meters be on the streets? Why
shouldn’t drivers of such vehicles have a deterrent of 5-10 years in prison if
they don’t follow rules? Nothing! Unfortunately,
it is one such bus which wasn’t street-worthy, which wasn’t licensed to be on
the streets in which this terrible Gangrape happened. It’s that window
through which the criminals sneaked in. That
window wasn’t fixed.
The Broken Window
(This is an edited extract from the Wiki article about fighting crime through the theory of
‘Broken Window’ and how quickly it needs to be fixed). The broken windows
theory was first introduced by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L.
Kelling, in an article titled "Broken Windows" and which appeared in
the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. The title comes from the
following example:
Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not
repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually,
they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become
squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates.
Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of
trash from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars. Before the
introduction of this, Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, arranged an
experiment testing the broken-window theory in 1969. Zimbardo arranged for an
automobile with no license plates and the hood up to be parked idle in a Bronx
neighbourhood (in New York City) and a second automobile in the same condition
to be set up in Palo Alto, California.
The car in the Bronx was attacked by "vandals" within
minutes of its "abandonment". Zimbardo noted that the first
"vandals" to arrive was a family – a father, mother and a young son –
who removed the radiator and battery. Within
twenty four hours of its abandonment, everything of value had been stripped
from the vehicle. After that, the car's windows were smashed in, parts
torn, upholstery ripped, and children were using the car as a playground. At
the same time, the vehicle sitting idle in Palo Alto, California sat untouched for more than a week. Then
Zimbardo himself went up to the vehicle and deliberately smashed it with a
sledgehammer. Soon after, people joined in for the destruction. It is believed
that in a neighborhood such as the Bronx where the history of abandoned
property and theft are more prevalent, vandalism occurs much more quickly as
the community gives off a "no one cares" vibe. Similar events can
occur in any civilized community when social barriers – the sense of mutual
regard and obligations of civility – are lowered by actions that suggests
"no one cares"
Broken Windows In Our Society
The theory of broken windows above quite explains the phenomenon of the
crime culture in Delhi and neighbouring states. Ask yourself a question. If you
leave your car in a public place in Delhi and another one in a public place in
Ahmedabad, where do you think chances of it being stolen are higher? Anyone can
easily guess. Rudy Guiliani and his
police chiefs partly used the ‘broken window’ theory and test to fight crime in
New York. Guiliani was successful in dramatically reducing crime in NY. How? He
didn’t stop with thugs and Mafia-gangs; he also dealt with small offences like
graffiti on public walls. Some crimes affect ordinary people directly some
don’t. Insecurity in public places affects all. This is the reason Delhizens
came out in numbers to protest. At the same time, not only Delhizens but people
in many other cities in India do not demand performance from public service
operators. The little auto mostly operates on a meter in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and
Bangalore. In Chennai the auto driver may run the meter but will have a
pre-condition: “20 rupees extra Saar”.
Now, that 20 extra varies, depending on the distance you travel. Auto drivers
suddenly turn into crooks at most railway and bus stations in India. Some years
ago when I was in Kolkatta, even the fully depreciated, run down Trams had two
classes: first and second. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the
two.
In Delhi it’s not just the public transport but every sphere of public
life, be it medical shops, small restaurants, hotels, police stations, govt
departments you will find it. Delhi also has the reputation of producing the
most number of duplicates of branded products and even pirated IP products. There
was a joke once that a Delhi trader was an outcast if he hadn’t bounced at
least one cheque in a month. Encroachments, land smuggling, illegal extensions
are all crimes and windows that are broken every single day in our cities. Rapes and murders are just a lot more
dramatic; some more brutal than the others. Not surprisingly, when 9/11 happened, Rudy Guiliani was among
the first-responders. He was with his people and his city. He was managing fire
fighters on the ground and also talking to his citizens directly and through
TV. In contrast, what did our leaders in Delhi do? They were mostly on TV and
some were the ‘last responders’.
Having gotten nowhere with justice for 26/11 (except for hanging the captured
Kasab) our govt is now playing Cricket with Pakistan. That says a lot, doesn’t
it?
Sheila Dikshit was
tear-jerking on TV. Sushil Kumar Shinde
was explaining why it makes no sense to meet protesters. Sonia Gandhi meets hand-picked ‘honey-bunnies’ in private. The PM makes a limp statement on TV days
later to a comic finish with ‘Theek Hai’.
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party’s
super-hero future PM, is the last responder with a typical text-book statement.
And Oh, who was the first one with the soundbites? Of course, the intellectual
bank of the party, Renuka Chaudhary. She was telling the world rapists
shouldn’t be allowed to open bank accounts and shouldn’t be given insurance
policies. I suppose banks and insurance companies can easily tell which
customer is a potential rapist before opening an account. There are other MPs
who found protesting women to be “dented and painted” and media morons who
found “lumpens” among them.
And our media? Oh they get all types to give us a running commentary
with strange people. They even bring in Bollywood divas. Shabana Azmi was on TV from 6am in the morning on December 29 till
about 10 in the night. The most pathetic and filthy response was, obviously,
from the filthy ubiquitous Bollywood spokesman in the media, Mahesh Bhatt. He
wants temples to be shut down. This comes from a man who regularly produces
soft-porn movies and lip-kisses his own daughter. This is the broken window in
Bollywood and our media. The response of Kartikeya
Tanna (who often writes for FirstPost) quite sums up Bhatt’s stupidity.
Even in a tragic crime of rape and murder Mahesh Bhatt spews hatred for Hindu
culture or religion. And these are the guttermouths leading protests. You know
where security and justice is headed.
Duct-Taping Broken Windows
On the night of December 27, Thursday the Delhi govt suddenly decided
to shift the rape victim to Singapore
for better treatment. The news broke around midnight and naturally people were
suspicious. The woman was critical all through and chances of survival seemed
thin. So it was indeed surprising why such a decision was taken. The media was
cleared from the Safdurjang hospital. However, around midnight only one media
celeb was allowed to report from the hospital area; not hard to guess who.
There are now reports that the victim was in an irreversible coma and I
personally believe doctors may not have given her long to survive. It just
seems the govt didn’t want her to die on their “turf”. That would have turned a calamity into a complete disaster.
So they shipped her off to Singapore, brought her dead body back and cremated
her quietly in a hush-hush manner. These tweets from Minhaz Merchant, a media consultant and regular columnist, say it
all. Instead of handling the truth and showing the courage to face people with
reality, our govt was fixing the broken window with duct-tape. How long will
that Band-Aid last?
The only person I could see who made any sense in the clutter was Harish Salve, the noted lawyer. He
mentioned strongly that there was no need for new laws but that laws simply
needed implementation and justice delivered faster. He stated that the
punishments need to be the fullest under the law. The media even got former
president Pratibha Patil to lament.
She is the one who commuted the death sentence of around 35 criminals, some of
whom were sentenced to death for rape and murder. Some of their victims were as
young as 5-6 year old girls. The police rounded up the rapists in the current
case within 48 hours. Compare with Durai
Dayanidhi who was absconding for months in a Granite scam case before a
court granted him bail. He mysteriously surfaced after he got bail. Compare the
Gopal Kanda airhostess suicide case
where a witness has jumped bail and disappeared. The political parties are yet
to sack any of their MPs/MLAs who have rape or murder cases against them to
prove to the people they are willing to act. RPN Singh, the very honourable minister, stated GOI will create a
database of rape convicts. I wonder what he will do with it. Aren’t rape
convicts anyway supposed to be in jail? All it needs is to sentence for longer
terms or to death, if there is murder as well.
Sheila Dikshit blamed immigrants for increased crime in Delhi. P. Chidambaram had made a similar comment
in the past. Whether immigrants or not, how they license buses and drivers is
Delhi’s own turf. This is not a question of law or making more laws. It’s about
really turning public servants to ACT
as public servants. They need to do the daily sweeping and mopping to clean the
dust. Windows will be broken every day
and will need to be fixed every single day. Every politician in the govt
who spoke after the Gangrape has shown absolutely no real intelligence on how
they are going to clean up Delhi. Nothing! Except for changing the distress
call number to 181, which was reportedly busy during a mishap this morning.
This is also true for other cities and not Delhi alone. Carried away with all
the attention and TRP-getting shows, the media too won’t honestly assess the
crime situation. None even protested Manish
Tiwari’s threat to curb telecast of the protests. A govt that has been too
busy with scams and at election-time dishes out the regular doles is not going
to fix much. Duct-taping can only hold for a while. Appeasement of Some and
justice for None!
