(April 19, 2015)
The heat was oppressive. And it’s just April. Identity politics and its attendant vulgarities -- jingoism, mob justice, religious bigotry -- are in full display. And its just the dawn of muscular nationalism in Indian democracy.
I’d be vain if I claim to paint a holistic picture of the scourge. Perhaps some day; not this weekend. Frustrating episodes tenaciously dog us hacks. This weekend is for deconstructing one such instalment.
10.15 pm, Friday. An hour ahead of crescendo, the temperature had begun to rise at the newsdesk. Nothing unusual. At this leading daily, its always taut nerves in the two hours approaching 11.15pm. Yet, nothing prepared me for the next 15 minutes of stomach churning.
It began with a news report of what appeared to be another gruesome case of rape and torture. After Jyoti Singh’s forced martyrdom, any story remotely resembling it was “must carry”.
This instance involved the violation of a three-year-old by the lover of her mother. Reading the headline, copy editor P, desk head R and I let out a collective sigh of horror. It read: “3-year-old raped by mom lover, assaulted with iron rod”.
That hellish image of Jyoti Singh’s innards being pulled out with bare hands by one of her rapists hammered its way back into my mind -- I presume other minds too. God, not again, I thought. Three-year-old. Iron rod inserted into her privates (like in Jyoti Singh’s case). The story was promptly slotted for the opening page of our section. Downhill from thereon.
It would have been an innocuous remark if made by a neighbourhood uncle or aunty. Coming from R, a man who had given 20 years of his life to the profession, it was shattering: “Such people ought to be shot dead. No questions asked.”
Copy editor P agreed with the by now freely used expression. I demurred, but remained unnoticed.
“Now some bloody human rights activists will hold forth on the rapist’s rights,” R continued. “It should be done in Che Guevara style. ‘Did you do it?’ ‘Yes’. Bam!. Instead we will now have a trial that will go on and on.”
I disagreed again, this time assertively.
P let loose. “Why shouldn’t it be? This is so gruesome. There should be no mercy.” R agreed: “There shouldn’t be any shilly-shallying.”
I reminded P of the many cases our own newspaper had reported where convicted persons were found to be innocent years after he/she had served the sentence.
“But this is a clear cut case,” P protested. Nothing can be “clear cut” until it goes through judicial scrutiny, I said, not bothering to add “sometimes even after judicial scrutiny". P shook her head in disgust.
I continued, “The process of law cannot be circumvented because you and I are emotionally charged.”
P had more though: “There are so many cases where the case has been going on for years.” Notice that she has nothing to say about the investigation and the prosecution here. The blame is implicitly on the court.
I asked, “Show me one such so-called ‘clear-cut case’ where the trial has extended for long.”
At this instance, R chipped in to take the discussion to a whole new level, “How about Kasab? Can there be a more clear cut case?” (20 years in the profession. don’t you see the qualitative leap from petty theft to rape & murder to arson to terror attack to war?)
I remind him, Kasab trial was completed in record time. I added that the 9/11 attack trial was yet to begin in the US. Pat came R’s unbelievable answer: “But look at how they responded. They destroyed a country in retaliation. They destroyed the al-Qaeda. And what are we doing about Hafiz Saeed?”
Incredulous, I said, “R, that is war! Here we are referring to a local petty crime.” Using the word “petty” didn’t do any good. Not at all.
P retorted: “You think this rape was petty?” I said, “Compared to a war it is.”
P switched the self-righteousness button on: “You know what? You are so inured to rapes after reading about them day in and day out.”
I said, “That may be, but the comparison itself is superfluous.” At this point, R walked away in disgust, “You are arguing for the sake of argument.”
I held back, returned to my page. The edition, and Friday, were put to sleep. Soon we headed home. Usually I read in the cab on my way back. Early Saturday, I wasn’t reading. I didn’t realise it till I reached my drop point.
I tiptoed in home around 3pm, changed, washed up and lied down to read and eventually sleep. Didn’t seem to work. Something had rattled me. I tried to figure out what and traced it to R’s, “You are arguing for the sake of argument.”
Was I? I retraced the points I had made. R was wrong. Nevertheless, I was still tossing and turning; didn’t know if I was hungry, but the tummy burned. Gulping down water didn’t help. Reading didn’t. Not even my prayer beads. 4.30am
An old spiritual companion restored sanity. 30ml of Old Monk eased my nerves. And I was thinking more clearly. Retracing the sequence of events, everything fell into place this time. The key lay not in the argument itself, but in what happened after I pulled back.
Flashback:
The rape story was slotted finally and P began working on it. Shortly, she said, “Boss, this is turning out to be something else. The mother knew her three-year-old daughter was often raped by her lover. He used to beat the child up with the rod when she protested. Nothing extra-ordinary.”
R comes in, “Oh, I thought it was like Nirbhaya. Then it doesn’t carry much.”
Eventually, the rape story was demoted -- from the top half of the opening page in the first edition to the bottom corner of the last page in the second. Why? It was not gruesome enough to warrant an opening page slot. In other words, it was a petty rape. Not a big one.
Nevertheless, I wonder if P thought about this: If, after being subjected to the simplest of filters applied by a mere copy editor, this rape case turned out to be completely different from what was expected, why should the far more elaborate and consequential judicial process be grudged?
The headline conjured up images of something vastly different from what it eventually turned out to be. The first impression evoked cries of “shoot him on the spot”. Ultimately it was “no big deal” -- at least compared to other important stories of the day.
There are umpteen cases rubbished by various levels of judiciary, besides the ones that reach the point of conviction, of course. So why shouldn’t a case -- however gut-wrenching and “open & shut” it may seem -- be subject to judicial scrutiny? Can we really afford quick fix justice, if you can call that justice in the first place?
Most importantly, can journalists afford to be inclined to mob justice?
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