The Pathology Of The Powerless

This morning we saw Amit's post on Delhi's shame.

A young woman was molested, and her family beaten up, in the heart of our capital.

Later, we read this Times of India headline: Woman gangraped in running train in Bihar

Another story: Man rapes housewife in Mumbai

What's going on here? Why is our society breaking down?

As most sensible people understand, rape is not about sex; instead, it's about power. Who, then, has the need to demonstrate power regardless of consequence?

What's happening, we think, is that some Indians, men mostly, are feeling a great loss of mojo. It's a fast changing world where old equations no longer hold -- Indian men, who've traditionally made all the rules, now are caught up in transformations they can hardly understand, much less make rules about.

These men, increasingly powerless, are lashing out in the only way they know how. Regrettably, Indian women are bearing the brunt of their emasculation.

Don't misunderstand us. This is not to offer root cause rationalization for unacceptable conduct. We seek no sympathy for these people. Frankly, we believe India is not harsh at all in dealing with such men. Indeed, some of our neanderthal leaders have even tried to blame the victims of these men's malice.

What we are saying is that, if our thesis is correct, there is more transformation on the way -- hence more powerlessness and more of the contemptible lashing out we're witnessing. Morality itself is vanishing in front of our very eyes. If we do not begin addressing this now in a strategic manner, rather than merely as law & order treatment of individual incidents, we are in for a world of hurt.

That there will be powerless men is a fact of life. But surely, our society can find intelligent ways to defend itself against them. That we are failing in this is a serious problem.

One reason we have a problem is that our police system is completely broken -- criminals don't fear it, the innocent are terrified. We are not blaming the policemen & women themselves -- they do a very tough job in impossible circumstances; rather, we are infuriated with our political system that prevents the police from doing the right things.

The resolution to this is that we, the people, need to demand a great deal more investment in police -- in training, technology, incentives, morale, and values. Only then can we can make deterrent examples of the powerless evildoers among us.

Another reason for our problem is the nature of our religions and, ironically, also a loss of our faith.

Our religions are either too non-prescriptive on morality or are too prescriptive in astonishingly archaic ways.

Still, they alone can instill moral instincts in our people; our society's cynical assault on faith does not help. Many of our smartest and very eloquent writers mock faith as superstition. Faith may be superstition to some, but even they must concede it can be a very practical superstition. If our masses, many of whom are losing their moral bearing, can absorb morality via faith, why destroy this very important mechanism?

This is a very complex issue, and we don't claim to have all answers. However, this very upset blogger thinks it may just be possible that a combination of harsh deterrence and renewed social morality (likely through religion) can begin denting this really shameful problem India now faces.