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Indian Society – An Engineer’s Perspective

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Can we correct the dysfunctioning of the society by just placing a stronger and stringent Law of the Land? Considering a better enforcement and implementation of it as well? Mohammad Behzad in an interesting manner tries to analyse this problem through an engineer’s point of view.  

In Engineering, a typical problem is of manipulating a system so as to produce desired results. Where a system is any combination of devices and instruments, and produces one or more outputs after processing one or more inputs. And a typical question is:

What if the ‘system’ is producing undesired results?

From this point starts the real engineering. And the first solution most engineers provide is supplying a “controller” for the system. The ‘controller’ is another set of devices and instruments that senses the current state of outputs and/or inputs and modify the signal going into the system, thereby trying to control the outputs nearly equal to the desired values. When a simple controller doesn’t work, more and more complex controller are designed and finally a satisfactory controller is designed that works for the given system.

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Now, let me give an analogy. Let the system of our SOCIETY with its culture, technology, communications, markets, environment and of-course with humans at the centre of all the drama, be the SYSTEM in consideration.

First, let us analyse what undesired results it is producing. We find that crimes like rape, sexual harassment, molestation and eve-teasing have become common news [1], so much so that we forget them by the end of the day. Even the ladies have learnt to ignore the scanning eyes and vulgar comments that welcome them on streets. Human insecurity, especially women insecurity is at all-time high. And all this, in a country where women are worshipped as Laxmi, Sita, Saraswati, Parvati, and other countless forms. But this alter-form of Goddess is pleading for dignity.

Like a typical engineer, all our elite minds and educated aristo are suggesting to improve upon the already in-place controller: The Law and Order System of the country. Some are pointing towards the flaws of our Judiciary quoting “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”. A few are suggesting novel punishments like “stoning to death in public” and even castration so as to induce fear in the minds of future perpetrators. Some are suggesting to improve upon the image of Police forces so that people can trust them.

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Photo: en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com

Let me put forward some statistics from the so called developed world, where we assume that the Law and Order situation is IDEAL or at least, better than ours.

The total sexual violence [2] reported at national level in the Ideal Civilized Society of United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) during 2010 was 99.13 [3] per 100,000 inhabitants according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). That will amount to more than 62,000 reported cases at National Level. Scotland alone reports 124.6 cases of total sexual violence per 100,000 inhabitants. The (reported) rate of “forced rape” leaving other crimes against women and children, in United States of America during 2010 was 27.7 [4] per 100,000 inhabitants as per Uniform Crime Reports published by Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA), amounting to 85,593. Also, it is widely accepted that sexual violence and rape in particular, is considered the most under-reported violent crime worldwide. In a Research Report [5] by U.S. Department of Justice 95.2 % of completed rape (95.8 % of attempted rape) of College Women goes unreported.

Comparing with these the statistics of India, we seem to be living in quite safe zone. In 2011, the number of rapes reported was 24,206 [6] at National Level, according to National Crime Records Bureau (India), given the population of over 1.2 billion. While Total Crime against Women (excluding rape) were 228,650 during 2011.

Now, check this in the preview of United States of America:

  • 27.5% of college women reported experiences that met the legal criteria for rape.[7]
  • In 9 out of 10 cases of sexual victimisation of college women, the offender(s) was known to the victim.[8]
  • 25 per cent (that means one in every four) of American women have experienced sexual assault, including rape. Approximately one-half of those cases involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, victim, or both.[9]

This is just a glimpse of what we are heading towards.

But there is another way to look at the problem and solve the issue. Yes, it is more trustworthy as well. We may go by first analysing the inputs to the systems. If the inputs are filtered off of any noise and dirty signals then most of the time system becomes easy to handle, and a simple controller can work avoiding any requirement to go for highly complex and costly controllers. The same approach must be implemented to the system in consideration, i.e. our Indian society. We should introspect what we are feeding into the system. What we are giving into the system is the ideology towards life, towards human nature, towards relationship between man and woman, and towards rights and responsibilities.

The projection of women as ‘objects of desire’ in the popular culture (movies, ads etc) leaves men and the society at large imagining them as soulless creatures. The philosophy that “(female) sex sells” has become the corner stone of today’s entertainment industry. Whether to sell a perfume or a fruit juice women are portrayed as sexual object showing evil desires. Be it male undergarments, a pen, a scooter, a bike, a candy, shirt or any marketable product, it seems men buy them just to attract and get women (and sometimes vice versa).

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I remember that case when a man sued Hindustan Unilever, when he failed to attract even a single girl after using all the AXE products for a period of 7 years. “Where the f@#$ is the Axe effect? I’ve been waiting for it for over seven years. Right from my college to now in my office, no girl ever agreed to even go out for a tea or coffee with me, even though I’m sure they could smell my perfumes, deodorants and aftershaves. I always applied them in abundance to make sure the girls get turned on as they show in the television.” He was quoted.

It doesn’t end there; the objectification of women has made them mere objects that are to be used for gratification of male senses. It is truly said that history repeats itself, and it seems we have done a full circle. Time has witnessed that once man even discussed “whether women are human beings?” Same is being practiced now.

Think of the kid who grows up in such an environment, nurturing these values. The image that has been created in their mind of women or of such women that wear skimpy outfits is highly delusional. The REALITY-SHOWS adds to this. The Hero of the day is the one who is successful in wooing a woman. A boy, who doesn’t approach a good-looking girl without the ambition of wooing her, wins the title of “naamard” among his friends.

But it is not a single sided affair. A girl who doesn’t catch male attraction is not beautiful. Being hot and sexy is the only acceptable mantra of the day. And there are SHOWS where female participants compete to woo a sexy handsome boy. Oh, to escape the wrath of Women’s’ Rights Activists let me add “its one’s right to wear and behave as one likes” and put this side of the story aside for the moment. Freedom of women is one thing but to objectify and glamorise her whole identity is another.

The question of the hour is: can implementation of Laws revert the situation? Keeping in mind however strict they may be, laws are made to be broken.

It’s high time to understand that only a “Better Controller” cannot guarantee the ideal results that we are expecting from our system. We definitely need to “filter out” the inputs and check what values are we passing on to our new generations? The philosophy of “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” had made us irresponsible. We stand for our rights but forget our duties, and wake up only when our sister has been assaulted.

In India because of high percentage of unreported sexual crimes and underdeveloped research infrastructure, we can’t deduce the exact causes, but we can learn lessons from the West. But it seems we are adamant on making the mistakes ourselves and then learn the lesson.

Only the foolish learn from experience — the wise learn from the experience of others,” I believe it’s time to implement this Romanian proverb.

References


[1] There are a lot more undesired results like communal dis-harmony, increasing unemployment, rate of suicides of youth and farmers, increasing number of missing children, and on and on. But let me put my view with reference to single issue.

[2] Total ‘Sexual violence” means rape and sexual assault; including sexual offences against children

[3] http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Sexual_violence.xls

[4] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1#overview

[5] www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf

[6] http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-CII2011/cii-2011/figure%20at%20a%20glance.pdf

[7] www.nij.gov/topics/crime/rape-sexual-violence/welcome.htm

[8] www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf

3 COMMENTS

  1. Mashallah. Muhammad Behzad’s article was a delight to read. The analogy was really apt to the current situation of our beloved country. Yes, it’s not the law and order a.k.a. the controller root of the problem but the values a.k.a. the values. Really, it’s so true. I once happened to read a poster at a railway station while visiting Chennai which said ‘Even if there’s no law, there’s conscience’. Conscience lives and thrives on values.

  2. Very beautifully presented Behzad.. Very true.. There is a proverb in Hindi “Jaisa Bowoge waisa hi katoge”
    Thats wat is happening to out society as well. I don’t know how we can stop all this shit. What we can do is to put in gud moral values in future generation, but at the same time the so called dirty signals (tv, movies ads…etc etc.. ) will again do the brainwash. I don’t know what is the end of this … 🙁

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