Shikha Dalmia in TIME on Why the Conviction in the Delhi Bus Rape Case is No Cause For Celebration

An Indian court Friday handed the death sentence to four of the six accused in the brutal gang rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student in New Delhi last December. (One of the defendants was charged separately in juvenile court where he got the maximum three-year sentence. And another hanged himself in prison.)

The main—if not the only—reason why the wheels of justice moved so swiftly in this case was the domestic outrage and the international headlines this case generated, notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia in Time. This episode got the attention of India's middle classes because they couldn't hide behind any special biographical detail about the victim or her behavior to tell themselves that this couldn't happen to them.

"The New Delhi rape victim deserved justice. She got it only because she gained celebrity status," notes Dalmia. "But if that's the bar that her fellow sisters will have to meet, her case will not just be a tragedy—but also a travesty.

Go here for the whole piece.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

What the Naraka is going on over there in India anyway?

[Heroic Mulatto]

+1 Yama

[PapayaSF]

My girlfriend has traveled there over the years, and says that Indian men are often incredibly sexist and rude. However, there was previously a big taboo about committing crimes against foreigners, and that seems to be decreasing these days. She was quite surprised about the gang rapes of foreign women.

[JeremyR]

If you want to fight injustice in India, then stay in India and fight it. Don't come to a better country and then simply write scolding articles that almost no one reads and has no actual effect in India.

This highlights why immigration is bad. If the best and brightest of a country leave and go to another country, than the original country is not going to get better, or do so much slower than it would have it they stayed.

Yes, the country they move too might get a short term benefit (though I think it mostly pushes down), but in the long run that country would also served by the home country becoming more developed and civilized.

[Calidissident]

"This highlights why immigration is bad. If the best and brightest of a country leave and go to another country, than the original country is not going to get better, or do so much slower than it would have it they stayed."

So you're essentially saying immigrants should be slaves to the collective they were born into? I mean, screw whatever they think is best for them, right? It's not like they're actual individual human beings or anything?

[Heroic Mulatto]

JeremyR, you have written one of the stupidest comments on a reason Hit and Run post in recorded history. Stupider than when Tulpa insisted that for a Jordanian Olympic athletic, the sight of Israeli athletes practicing was equivalent to the sight of public gay sex.

[Calidissident]

You should have just put this link as your response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

[Agammamon]

Since when do we belong to a country?

And I'm pretty sure that one of the freedoms I have is freedom of association - not because the constitution 'guarantees' it but because its an inherent human right that everyone (including foreigners) has.

As such I'd think that its perfectly fine for someone to leave one association (because that's all a nation is, an association of people who create a government to do the things that are best done as a group) because its not to their liking and strike out to join another.

How would you like it if you were told you can't leave your job for another? That you're leaving leaves the company worse off and that's not fair to the rest of the company?

[Marshall Gill]

Shikha might be addressing a larger issue, but her premise is absurd. The fact that the middle class girl got justice is NOT bad because others will not. It is a tragedy for those who do not but a sane person simply can't define the conviction of these criminals as bad.

[Calidissident]

I don't see where she said it was bad. She said she deserved justice. I think the travesty she is referring to is pretty clearly not that she got justice, but that the only reason she got justice was because of media attention.

[Marshall Gill]

After I posted, I realized the error of my wording. "No cause for celebration" is the term she used, not "bad".

Any time someone who commits a violent crime against someone else and gets justly punished it IS cause for celebration. What kind of fucked up sense of collective "justice" follows the thinking that it is not cause for celebration because everyone does not receive the same?

What difference does it make the reason she received justice? If everyone doesn't receive justice then no one should? Sorry, in my world shit-stains getting what they deserve IS a reason to celebrate however rarely it occurs or doesn't occur.

[Calidissident]

I see your point, and would place myself between you and Dalmia in this argument. It's good that she received justice. It's not good that it took media outrage for her to get justice, and it's not a good thing if that is the standard going forward for Indian rape victims to receive justice.

"What difference does it make the reason she received justice?"

I think the reason is very important, because it can reflect on the likelihood other victims receiving justice in the future, which IMO is obviously important

"If everyone doesn't receive justice then no one should?"

I don't think that's what she was arguing

[Marshall Gill]

I don't really think that those were her intended points but she has a tendency, IMO, toward poor wording.

Are you familiar with this crime? I realize the points that Shikha was trying to make but this conviction is a reason for fucking celebration, even if the rest of the world is shit. My icy soul felt all warm inside when I read about it earlier this morning. Some people just need killin'.

[Calidissident]

"I don't really think that those were her intended points but she has a tendency, IMO, toward poor wording."

What exactly did you think was her intended point? That she was pissed off these guys were convicted and was hoping they got off?

Like I said, I'm in the middle here. I would agree this is a cause for celebration, but I would qualify that with Dalmia's concerns over why this conviction happened, and what that means for other rape victims in India going forward.

[Zakalwe]

Shikha Dalmia in TIME on Why the Conviction in the Delhi Bus Rape Case is No Cause For Celebration

Let me guess: is the answer that we're not letting them immigrate?

[Acosmist]

zing!

[PapayaSF]

Is gang rape a job Americans just won't do?

[JJ Thompson]

This case highlights why borders are so oppressive. It's not FAIR that Indians have to fear gang-raping and Americans don't. We need to spread the misery around.

[JJ Thompson]

This case highlights why borders are so oppressive. It's not FAIR that Indians have to fear gang-raping and Americans don't. We need to spread the misery around.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I know - unequal justice and so on. But the result in *this* case is satisfying.

My head is at war with my heart here. My head says the death penalty is almost never right. But my heart says drop these fiends in human form from a gallows as high as Haman's. What a conflict!

[Eduard van Haalen]

Shit, my heart says bind them, cover them in Purina Cat Chow and drop them into a cage of starving tigers. But that would be cruel.

[buybuydandavis]

Dumb premise.

Of course the conviction is a cause for celebration. Would she have rather celebrated an acquittal?

Yes, there are other things to be angry about, other crimes, other injustices. But hanging murdering gang rapists has the sweet smell of justice to me.

[4thaugust1932]

Jyoti Singh Pandey - forward caste
Judge Khanna - forward caste
Culprits - backward caste

Did you expect a different verdict?

"But at the same day, the news of gang-rape of a 10-year old Untouchable girl and who was burnt subsequently was tucked away in the inside pages devoting only five to ten lines" --Kabir, Chief Justice of India

[4thaugust1932]

If you support capital punishment for rapists, 90% of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_caste men in India will be hanged.

tehelka.com/violation-is-the-norm-here/

[4thaugust1932]

When a 17 year old Untouchable girl was gang-raped by 12 forward caste men in Dabra, her father killed himself because Police refused to take his complaint.

When a 23 year old Brahmin girl was gang-raped by 6 backward caste men, Prime Minister had Amended Law and setup Special Court to prosecute/punish the culprits.

Google 'Independent Nation For 300 Million India's Untouchable People'.