Like every woman reading this column, the story of the 23-year-old woman who was gangraped and tortured inside a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16 sickens me. Like every mother, I am terrified by the shrinkage in safe public spaces for our daughters.

If a woman cannot watch a film with a man in India’s capital without risking life and limb, and if everyone who has to use public transport after sundown is quaking with fear, then it is clear that this nation is failing our women miserably. The way forward, however, does not lie in treating this horrific episode as one which concerns women alone. Nor is the death penalty the magic bullet that will deter would-be rapists, though that is what so many have been arguing vociferously on television channels for the past 72 hours.
As I write, the victim is fighting for her life in the intensive care unit of Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. We don’t know whether she will survive. Her friend is reportedly out of danger; much of what we know about the grisly crime has come from what he has said.
Everyone is horrified and outraged. The police have arrested five people, including the bus driver, and are looking for one more person. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has announced a special task force headed by the Union home secretary to look into the safety of women in Delhi. Members of Parliament, cutting across party lines, have been loud in their condemnation and anger.
We have been hearing about the long list of things that need to happen so that such violent crimes do not recur: More police personnel on the streets, better training, more community policing, more street lights, CCTV cameras inside the buses, a fast-track court, more stringent punishment for rapists and so on.
What is missing from the discussion is a time frame. None of those ventilating their anger and angst on television are willing to tell us when all this will kick into action, and the sequence in which it will happen.
This ambiguity brings me to the core issue — governance. The latest horror is not just a crime story. It is also a telling reflection of our level of governance. Current rules say that chartered buses can ply only between specified destinations and are not permitted to pick up sundry passengers as happened in this case. The bus was used, terrifyingly enough, to ferry schoolchildren and was taken out Sunday evening for a joyride. The bus also had tinted windows, a violation punishable under the Motor Vehicles Act. But no police post or PCR van noticed any of this. This begs an obvious question: is this so common that the cops did not even consider it extraordinary? Delhi police say they penalise private cars that have tinted windows, but not buses. Why? And what explains the complete absence of the fear of law? Is it due to the general perception that “contacts” can subvert law, as is the case far too often?
There are more fundamental questions. The first thing the rapists on the bus did was to question the character of the victim because she was out with a man after 9 pm. Where does that mindset come from? It comes from people and institutions that persistently seek to make women who are coming of age and asserting themselves against the old feudal order the villain of the piece. Incidents like this are the result of statements by public figures exhorting women to dress in a certain way and limit their lifestyle choices. They create an atmosphere where assaults on women who seemingly transgress patriarchal socio-cultural mores are seen as legitimate.
Instead of raising these questions, Sunday’s incident has led to one big shout for the death penalty. It is argued that this is one of the “rarest of rare” cases and that nothing short of death will do. Several MPs have joined the public clamour for death to the rapists. One MP argued on a television channel that “depraved rapists” deserved death and nothing less would suffice. Anyone who has a contrary point of view of course risks being sneered at as a “liberal”.
Speedy justice is a must. But will hanging the culprits be an effective deterrent? I doubt it. There is little credible evidence to suggest that capital punishment has actually achieved what its advocates claim. Take the United States. The Washington Post recently quoted Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, saying that “capital punishment is becoming
marginalised and meaningless in most of the country.”
This is happening not because everyone has turned into a bleeding-heart liberal. It is simply because death penalty is not seen to be delivering. In its recent report, Deterrence and Death Penalty, the US National Research Council concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The real issue, the new report says, is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments such as a life sentence, without the possibility of parole. None of the research that has been done so far in the US accounted for the possible effect of non-capital punishment on homicide rates.
Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard, was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl on March 5, 1990, in her house in Bhowanipur, Kolkata. Chatterjee was in jail for nearly 14 years before he was hanged. The example has not reduced the number of rapes.
Sunday evening’s tale of horror has put the spotlight on unsafe Delhi. But rapes and other violent crimes against women are happening not just in this city and the national debate and response need to take on board the situation across the country. There is another troubling trend: by labelling this incident as the “rarest of the rare”, are we slipping into the dangerous terrain where we start dividing rape into different categories — rapes by depraved people, rapes by not-so-depraved people, routine rapes, rare rapes, high-profile rapes in Delhi and other megacities, low-profile rapes where dalit or tribal or poor women are the victims? In which cases should we have death penalty? How do we distinguish one rape victim from another? What hard evidence does India have to prove that death penalty is the only way to enforce the rule of law? These are not questions that concern women alone. They go to the heart of how we see ourselves as a society and as a nation. The answers will determine the shape of India to come.

The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies.