Social awakening is key to fighting heinous crimes

Aneemuddin Ansari of Ranchi recently took his sick wife for treatment at the Rajendra Prasad Ayurvigyan Sansthan (RIMS) — a 200-kilometre gruelling journey away from their residence. It was the beginning of an ordeal for the unsuspecting couple. They weren’t aware that doctors at the hospital had struck work as part of a nationwide stir. Their hopes for getting quality treatment for free at RIMS were snuffed out. The couple had to spend the next 11 days in the corridors of the hospital.
When Dainik Hindustan brought their plight to light, senior medical officers took note and ensured medical attention to the couple.
The Ansaris weren’t the only ones who suffered as a result of the doctors’ stir. People across the country did. If it was a pregnant woman who suffered in one place, it was a newborn elsewhere that bore the brunt of the stir. Does this mean the demands of the doctors are unjustified? Not at all.
Whatever happened at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital was unacceptable. The perpetrators of that crime should receive the harshest punishment. Yet it was perhaps inadvisable for doctors across the country to stop working on account of the crime.
Doctors and paramedics — especially women — do need special security, no doubt. Paramedics, in fact, require even greater protection, given that they are touchpoints of patients and health care systems. They are the first to come in the line of fire and bear the brunt of the ire and grief of people who accompany patients.
Also, while discussing doctors, we will have to take into account hospital assets and support staff in the health care system. But we aren’t accustomed to taking holistic views. That is why the important issue of women’s safety remains relegated to the background.
In 2012, after the brutal gangrape in Delhi, the whole country stood up for the victim and her family. The strict laws that followed the incident gave rise to concerns that they may be misused. As Parliament is a reflection of people’s will, the charged atmosphere around the nation demanded such a law.
However, did such strict laws help stop rapes around the country?
The Kolkata hospital incident again makes it amply clear that heinous crimes such as rape and murder can’t be stopped by laws alone; social awakening is essential to eradicate them. It is time we begin early and start teaching our kids right from their primary school days how to live confidently and compassionately in society.
After the 2012 Delhi gangrape, you too would have noticed one positive change: Kids, empowered by their mothers, are exposing those relatives who have exploited. Critical mass in social awareness is necessary to confront the political gatekeepers who are addicted to exploiting every tragedy for their narrow, selfish gains. Do remember that what unfolded in Kolkata has happened in Hathras. Before Hathras, we witnessed the same outrage in Badaun. It is not a matter restricted to a political party or a leader, it is one that concerns India’s daughters. We need sensitivity and not politics while dealing with the issue.
Despite the outrage and sit-ins over the incident in Kolkata, we have witnessed incidents of grave misconduct with young girls in Pune’s Badlapur, and Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. Why is it so? Our society and politicians will have to sit and work out a framework to deal with this menace. In its absence, we will keep oscillating between outrage and uprising.
Following the incident in Badlapur, people agitated by the incident resorted to rail roko, disrupting services. For hours, the train traffic came to a halt. Justice for the victims will happen in a certain time frame, but thousands of train passengers suffered immediately on that day as their lives came to a standstill. Our society has grown accustomed to lumbering from one crisis to the other.
If you have any doubt, then look no further than August 21: On one hand, people were suffering and struggling to get medical treatment, and on the other, they were stopping trains, burning buses, and blocking roads in support of reservations. Who suffered? The government or the common person? We’ll have to learn to make this distinction.
Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. The views expressed are personal
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