Why Death Sentence to Nirbhaya’s Rapists Doesn’t Assuage My Fears

While on one hand, I felt vindicated, the more I thought about it, the more I felt weighed down by sadness.

(Photo: The Quint/Lijumol Joseph)

(On the 5th anniversary of the Nirbhaya case, we are still a long way from creating a safe space for women. A set of recent incidents involving gruesome rapes of women across the country has yet again raised several questions about the Indian society and the judiciary. The Quint is re-publishing this article to commemorate from its archives to commemorate Dec 16th.)

Like the lakhs of women in this country, the Nirbhaya case impacted me too in many ways, leaving an indelible scar on my identity as an Indian woman.

It made me suspicious of every man I crossed on the street, filled me with paranoia every time I was getting back home too late.

While walking through a deserted road after sunset, it made me quicken my pace, all through the journey, getting terrified of the possibility that at any moment, a man could grab me from behind.

Earlier unapologetic about my clothing choices, it made me self police my dressing, as a voice in my head warned me how my perceived impropriety would seem like a free pass to a man, thinking of me as a piece of meat waiting to be raped.

As strange as it sounds, it made me feel guilty as a woman too, as I thought of all the instances I, or my friends, had taken similar decisions of being out at 10 pm, just as Nirbhaya had taken that night. Of how Nirbhaya could have been any of us.

Reading detail after detail of the mindless violence that had been perpetrated on that fragile body, I was filled with rage against the six rapist-murderers. In those faces, I saw the shadow of every man that had molested me on the street, every lecherous guy who’d made me feel vulnerable in a public space, every uncle that had inappropriately touched my friends, who were then little girls.

Perhaps that’s why when the SC upheld a lower court’s decision to award death sentence to the four remaining convicts, I felt a mix of emotions. While on one hand, I felt vindicated just as every Indian woman, the more I thought about it, the more I felt weighed down by sadness.

Because even though these four would now be executed, the deeply patriarchal and misogynist structure that gives rise to rapes and assaults in the first place, wouldn’t be taken to the gallows.

In 2013, the year following the December that Nirbhaya died, there were 33,707 rape cases as reported by National Crime Records Bureau, up from 24, 923 the previous year.

In 2014, it further increased to 36,735 rape cases – every percent increase a numerical testimony of the impunity with which men continue to commit the crime.

Further, if rape could lead to such a harsh punishment, the rapist would be incentivised to murder his victim too, sure to wipe off any chance that the victim might be able to testify against him.

In the same 2014 NCRB report, it was found that 28.0% (54 out of 193 cases) of murders were during committing rape in Uttar Pradesh. Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh together accounted for 54.5% (3 cases each out of 11 cases) of murders after gangrape.

These numbers tell the story of how the enemy of the country’s women were not only those four men, and how their death cannot be equated with the victory for women’s safety and dignity.

See, that’s the problem with retributive justice – it aims to redress the wrongs, punish the wrongdoer and make him pay, and glances over fixing the malaise in the first place.

This doesn’t mean that the guilty shouldn’t be punished in a diabolical crime as in the case of Nirbhaya’s. It just means that we have more to rage. And we can’t gloat over this collective closure, for the fight will only get tougher moving forward.

One fact about capital punishment astounds me, and has influenced my stance very much so in this case: Of how the US has the highest murder rate in the “developed world” even as first degree murder is punishable by life imprisonment or death in the country.

Perhaps the real execution has to be of our ridiculously low conviction rate in matters of rape. According to Delhi Police data, it stood at an abysmal 29.37% in 2015. In my opinion, that would be a tougher deterrent when a rapist knows he will get convicted and be sent to 20 years in jail.