Year: 2018

'Can The Builders Pay For My Unborn Child’

By LokMarg


Jaswinder Singh Bedi, 43, a sales manager with a pharmaceutical company, sold off his ancestral house in Noida to move into a gated housing project which promised to be a mini-town with international security features. But, the project never materialized. His entire savings stuck, stress mounted in the family. Bank loan, monthly rental, child education… hard put to meet the expectations, Bedi sunk into depression. His wife suffered a miscarriage. Today, the Supreme Court is his last hope. “If the court also fails, I will move back to Punjab,” he says.

I had an ancestral house in Noida but was smitten by the glass-and-concrete high-rise housing societies. The ads said these were self-sufficient, secured mini-towns with First World facilities within the housing compound. I sold off my house to invest into a posh housing society of JayPee Group. Even the name, Kensington Boulevard, had a ring of English elite to it. The plan looked awe-inspiring. The builder promised to deliver the apartment in 2013. But knowing how most contracts go, I had mentally and financially prepared myself for one extra year to move in. But, when bad luck strikes it never rains, it pours.

The first indication to our misfortune came when we visited the housing site a few months before the possession deadline. The project had barely moved. I had moved into a rented accommodation. And I was already struggling to match the high rent as well as bank instalments. I had invested more than Rs 70 lakh into the house and naturally I began to get jitters. The stress began to tell on the family too.

We had planned our second child with the expected time of our moving into the new house. With the trouble and tension mounting, my wife suffered a miscarriage. There were health complications that required costly care but our financial condition was such that we survived only by the sheer grit. But things were only going downhill. For some time, my wife and I went into depression and needed expert help. Every day we prayed for the bad times to end and waited for a miracle to give our children a better living space and conditions.

Eventually, the rent of Rs 20,000 for a 2BHK begun to burn our pockets. We had been living in the apartment for five years. My daughter moved to Class 3 and a second child happened at this time. But instead of moving into a larger house, I was forced to move into a 1BHK. One solace was that it was bought by me with several years of hard-earned money. The finances are in such conditions after exhausting all my savings that I till date do not have the money to pay for the registry of this house.

With cost of living becoming expensive by the day, I often consider moving back to Punjab in an affordable city like Amritsar where children can too be brought up in a safe environment. My wife and I have spoken to some schools in Amritsar that accept admissions towards the end of the year. I am waiting for some more time to sort out my finances and soon we may be leaving NCR for good. All of us want to move upward in society to provide our children a better surrounding to grow up in.

The builders and real estate agents thrive on this weakness of middle class. I wanted to give my best to my family. I had hoped that my children to go to best western modelled schools and grow up in a healthy environment. The housing project took away all my ambitions. There is some hope for homebuyers like me after the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of the matter. But every night when I close my eyes I think if I had invested in a housing project that would not be abandoned, life would be a dream. For now, the nightmare continues.

‘Low-Cost Spa Workers Often Treated as Prostitutes’

By LokMarg


Meenu, 32, moved from Manipur to Delhi a few years ago for better work prospects. She was lucky to find work at a reputed spa chain in the national capital region. That was a time when massage parlour business was mushrooming across NCR and she was soon offered better salary and ‘perks’ by a lesser known spa. “That was the biggest mistake of my life,” Meenu tells LokMarg.

Seven years back, when I moved to Delhi from Manipur, I was happy to be selected for training as a therapist by an international wellness chain. The group had branches in south Delhi, west Delhi, and NCR. I was posted in their Noida unit and was happy with the HR policies of the spa management.

Although we had an eight-hour shift, we were allowed to decline more than five hours of therapy sessions. If the number of sessions exceeded five hours, we would get incentives. Yes, there would be odd clients who asked for various favours, like ‘happy ending’ (a term used for masturbation performed at the end of a massage therapy), but we had management support in walking out on such clients.

Yet, most of the therapists obliged ‘decent’ clients for a ‘generous tip’. Things changed when I switched job to another local spa for want of better pay. This is when I realized the dark practices in those low-cost massage parlours that were mushrooming all over the city and offered services at half the cost, sometimes even lower, than the more organized establishments.

The high cost in my previous group discouraged or filtered the ill-intentioned clients. But in the new unit, I would meet patrons who made lewd passes, enjoyed talking dirty, flashed their genitals (often refused to wear the disposable underwear) and offered money for fellatio and ‘home-services’.

At times, some of them will take advantage of Valentine’s Day offers, come with a female partner and used the premises as ‘love nest’. When I complained about a certain regular client about his unruly behavior to the manager, the response was shocking.

The manager asked me insensitively if he had raped me. ‘Keep quiet and don’t ruin the business. The competition is tough,’ he said. I soon learnt that most of my fellow therapists had little training about a human body or muscle relaxation. They were there only to give the ‘services in demand’.

I also learned their operational terminology: ‘B2B’ meant body-to-body massage, which meant lying over a client with minimal clothing; Topless meant the client will touch or fondle your naked breasts and; ‘Full Service’ meant sleeping with the client.

Massage was never the call a client came for. As soon as the door was locked (in my previous spa centre, the door was closed but never locked) the deal would begin between the ‘therapists’ and the patron. It was nothing short of organized prostitution. The clients looked at you as if they were examining a commodity before purchase. I felt cheap.

I took leave and started negotiating with my previous employer for a return. They asked me to wait as they were facing low clientele due to tough completion. Then one day, my former manager called up to tell me that two of their therapists had left and there was a vacancy.

My first reaction was to call those who had left the job and ask them if they were joining some low-cost ‘massage parlour’; I wanted to tell them the risks involved. But, I let it be. We all learn about the perils of easy money our own hard way.

(The names of the therapist and her employers have been withheld at her request by LokMarg)

Kabootarbaazi: Inside Details Of India’s Immigration Racket

By Pankaj Molekhi

Raj Kumar is a kabootarbaaz, literally a pigeon handler but now the slang word in northern India for those who organise illegal immigration. People like Kumar make money from kabootars — those desperate to get to promised lands where jobs and social security are available. Here’s what this business is all about, in his own words:

You may call me a trafficker, illegal immigrant pusher or kabootarbaaz, but I take pride in my work. Most of us consider our profession as an instrument to level the playing field and bring an end to economic disparity. My clients are largely from rural Punjab or Gujarat, lured by the glamour of a western lifestyle. They approach us by word of mouth. We never make or help make forged documents.

Our services are procuring a valid visa and ensuring that the client reaches the destination, often with the help of a ‘carrier’. After that, how the banda (colloquial for person, here client) dissolves into the foreign country is not our headache. For European countries, barring the UK, we charge around ₹5 lakh. For the UK, Canada and the US, the fee is double.

The payment is made part in India and rest after the client reaches ‘home’. I specialize in Schengen countries. Most of our clients want to go to Germany as their family circle is there. We have mapped lenient or ‘pliable’ embassies. When we find German embassy ‘uncooperative’ in a case, we get the Schengen visa through countries like Malta (the most preferred one), Czech Republic, Spain, Slovenia, etc.

From there, the banda travels by road or train to reach Germany. There are two tricky parts in this game. Not papers, but visa and the immigration. Documents like passport, IT return and PAN card must always be genuine. Normally, embassies suspect young people leaving India for Europe. So, we need a carrier, with respectable track record, to vouch for the client as an assistant or an employee of the traveller (carrier).

The carrier, depending upon our client could be a failed sportsman, B-grade musician, retired Army officer or bureaucrat who has fallen on bad times. I have personally used all these categories of carriers. For a group, since the stakes are high, we first visit the destination country ourselves and go through their annual event calendar. We mark events like a trade fair, local cricket tournament or an Indian classical music programme.

Now, depending upon the pack, we decide how to plan the ‘departure’. If our pack is an athletic looking young lot, we mark local sports events. Else, a business expo or a local music event. The next target is to search for the right carrier to lead the troupe or team.

Here is how it works: I place an ad in newspapers looking for retired officers who are well travelled, and willing to work as partners in a new venture. I then screen the unscrupulous or desperate ones, luring them with a free return ticket to a foreign country, a brief stay and $500. We then disguise our clients as junior musicians, a sports team, or representatives of an exporters group looking for printing tech, and apply for the visa.

The invites are mostly genuine and the carrier has his/her career record to back the ‘team’. Very few European embassies seek personal interviews. Besides, the language barrier works to our advantage. Only in a rare case is an application rejected.

WHO MAKES WHAT
Agent: ₹5-10 Lakh Carrier: $500-1000 plus return ticket and boarding expenses Immigration Officials: ₹25-50,000 Embassy Officials: Unspecified

The next barrier is the immigration desk. There are many agents who try to bypass this barrier to save loose change. This is foolish. Immigration officials, often drawn from security services, can easily tell a genuine traveler from a kabootarbaaz. Their fee, called cutsey (probably derived from courtesy), barely crosses ₹50,000.

If you ever come across a case where illegal immigrants or fraudulent travelers were caught at airport, you can be sure that the agent hadn’t paid the immigration desk. Since immigration desk works under CCTV cameras, last-minute deals are impossible or very expensive.

What happens when the banda reaches destination? I told you this is not our concern. But to your information, mostly they contact their community, hide their passports and find local jobs. These jobs could be night shifts at various 24X7 shops, or in remote areas.

When the support is good, mostly in UK or US, the banda hires a lawyer and applies for asylum and, later, citizenship. Some stay there in jobs to later apply for social security number with the help of rights groups. In that case, Canada is the most benevolent.

In other places, the banda can get away by either bribing the cops or by destroying their passports and preferring a jail term while simultaneously applying for social security benefits with the help of rights groups. The real Ram Rajya for an illegal immigrant is not in India, Sirji. It is in Europe. Try it.

(Name of the travel agent was changed to maintain anonymity)

An e-rickshaw and one happy migrant

By LokMarg


Bhola, an e-rickshaw driver in Trilok Puri, east Delhi, has few complaints in life. Three-and-a-half years ago,  the Delhi government launched electric rickshaws as an environment-friendly mode of short-distance transport. Bhola, then a pedal rickshaw-puller, was among the first few in his slum cluster to opt for the new vehicle.

In hindsight, I consider it was the best decision of my life to switch to e-rickshaw. I realized that I wasn’t getting any younger, and there were three children – two girls and one boy – to feed and educate at home. I mined all my savings and borrowed locally to raise ₹86,000 for the vehicle. On the first day, I found it difficult to manage its speed and manoeuvrability but in a couple of days, I got the hang of it.

The rigour of pulling and pedalling was gone while my income more than doubled. The summer is the worst time for a pedal rickshaw-puller but now the routine is comfortable. I start my day at 8 in the morning. Every afternoon I go to my house for lunch and a siesta for two hours.

After that I get the vehicle charged for ₹120 for the evening ahead. Once the batteries are charged, the vehicle can run for six hours straight. I drive slow and cautiously but there are others— actually many many others, who drive e-rickshaws very rashly.

Most of them don’t own their vehicles and ply on a rental basis. They indeed are a nuisance. But to be fair to them, every extra commuter and an extra trip means an extra buck. In my colony, nearly everybody wants to own an e-rickshaw. Some have left regular security guard jobs to run an e-rickshaw.

For, the money is good. I earn about ₹500 daily. This when I take it pretty easy; others may be making plenty more. Hence, there is competition around busy routes, shopping sites and at Metro stations. There is a flood of e-rickshaws on the road nowadays.

I have heard that on busy routes, where e-rickshaws operate with bulk commuters, they are managed by their own ‘leaders’ who not only manage discipline and turns of the drivers but also dole out regular tip to the local cops. I prefer to stay off from such a rush. I have never paid a single penny to a policeman in my three years of riding.

Owning an e-rickshaw also means I have to pay for the upkeep. Most often, its tyres are very fragile. Then there is the wear and tear on its metal body, as well maintenance of the batteries. Yet, I would say I have little to complain about. I came to Delhi in the 1990s from Bulandshahr in western Uttar Pradesh.

I often talk to my wife about our struggle in the village and in Delhi. This e-rickshaw has changed all that. I have begun to save for a rainy day. I have more time to spend with my family and there are no debts due. I have made peace with my life.

-With editorial assistance from Lokmarg

Discrimi-Nation III: ‘Caste Is A Dormant Volcano’

By LokMarg


For Devashish Jarariya, getting to grips with his caste was a life-changing development. He became a student activist and then joined the Bahujan Samaj Party to fight the caste discrimination he experienced during his school days. His perspective:

I was born in a middle-class family. My father was a government employee. We moved to the city when I was about six years old. I didn’t face any comment on my caste until I came to Class 9, though it’s not like I didn’t know what my caste is. In primary classes, I used only my name without my surname.

My father used the surname Jatav so my teachers added it to my name. It was in Class 8 that I used my family name for the first time. Some people still ask me why I don’t use the surname my father did.

The first instance of discrimination I remember is from Class 9 when a classmate refused to eat with me, saying I was a “low caste” and that his parents would thrash him if they got to know. Some classmates supported me, and I faced that situation. Later on, that classmate became one of my best friends. As one grows older, caste becomes like the air you breathe day in and out. I got by, however, because most of my friends were from the general category both in school and college. We did talk about caste, but it was peaceful: it seems caste has its boundaries, and if nobody crosses them coexistence is pretty much easier.

In my village, every caste has its own cluster of homes. I rarely visited other caste neighbourhoods in my childhood, something I don’t do even now as a matter of fact. I don’t remember going to any wedding in village that was between people outside my caste.

We never questioned this because it was the existing system. I didn’t have the intelligence to understand it then or I didn’t try to. The caste system works in different ways in rural and urban settings. Caste is a dormant volcano; if you work within the limits of the system, it is peaceful but things change rapidly if you start exploring and questioning it.

Caste differences for me were tied in with the issue of reservation; it was the flashpoint. I knew how to defend my position on it but also understood that contrary views on this cannot be harmonised. You can support reservation or you can hate it. The reservation policy doesn’t hurt relationships with people from the unreserved categories because a certain level of acceptance has been reached.

But things changed for me when I started taking a stand on issues as my public life commenced. I start writing about what’s happening in society which the middle class doesn’t bother to look at, or at least as I presumed.

I realised my growing understanding was at odds with the balance of system; the dormant volcano inside began to rumble. The more I wrote on caste atrocities, the more real my own caste identity became. It was like my whole life in the system was made up, and that the foundations of society were rotten.

With my Dalit identity coming to the fore, all those who knew me for years saw and felt the change in my outlook. For them, I am a changed person now. There were no caste problems in their world but I had injected harsh reality into it. When a Dalit was killed in Gujarat for twirling his moustache, I started a campaign #MrDalit #DalitWithMoustache.

My friends asked me what had happened to turn me to caste politics. I have tried to question the system. For instance, during the recent Dalit agitation on the dilution of the SC/ST Act, I confronted media houses to tell them that no Dalits were responsible for the violence. Now, being Dalit is my only identity for my friends and acquaintances; that’s how powerful the embed of caste in our society is. Even writing this piece will only add to my caste identification.

More From Discrimi-Nation 
Part II: The Dalit Life Sentence
Part I: Northeastern Distress

—With editorial assistance from Lokmarg

Discrimi-Nation I: Northeastern Distress

By LokMarg


Our Constitution makes us all equal, but India remains a land of all sorts of discrimination—caste, gender, religion, race. For all its melting pots and cosmopolitan bravado, New Delhi is no different. Thirteen years ago, Alana Golmei, a Ph.D. from Manipur, came to the Capital in search of a better life. Her story:

Every man and woman from the Northeast is distressed with the way they are treated in the capital city. They survive rapes, face sexual advances, brave physical assaults from locals and what have you. The worst-case scenario is for the girls who work late hours, or are employed at spas, massage parlours or other unconventional means to make a living.

My first job here was with a charity organisation in Nehru Place. I would commute from Dwarka to Nehru Place in a jam-packed bus. Men took opportunity whenever there was one to pass lewd comments or touch inappropriately. They would call me names (that I would prefer not to mention here as I still find them demeaning). Some bluntly made jokes about my Mongoloid features.

With poor job opportunities in Manipur and big responsibilities on my shoulders, I had come to Delhi in 2005. That was the time when there was a ban on women employment back home. Despite being a Ph.D in Sociology, I could not find a decent job. No matter how educated you were, in Manipur you would not get more than a ₹4,000-job to begin with.  Like every girl from the Northeast, I stepped out in want of a better financial future. I always wanted to teach. After coming to Delhi, I started applying to colleges. Not being well-versed in Hindi was a major handicap. I would be called for interviews, but the language barrier spoiled my prospects.

Harassment and racial slurs are common. I still believe that men and women from the northeastern part of the country are relatively more stylishly dressed. This is not to do with money or class; it is a cultural thing. And because we have a strong style statement, many people take us to be women of easy virtue.

On the rare occasions that I approached police, I could notice them jeering and sharing jokes about me with other colleagues right in front of me, for I didn’t know Hindi. Such experiences on a daily basis could break any aspiring youth. But the need for a better life and opportunity kept me going.  Two years after moving to Delhi, I met a group of boys and girls who shared their experiences of sexual abuse and racial slurs in Delhi. We decided to form a support group so that others from Northeast do not have to suffer what we did. Or at least, they have someone to approach for redressal of their issues. I soon realised the magnitude of the challenge before the group.   

Our support group would constantly face threats from the locals for approaching police. The local community would even resist our intervention and help. People would not give us accommodation on rent; those who did would charge us more than water and electricity bills. Indecent advances were common even at the time of negotiations for housing or work.  

Dealing with the police initially proved a huge challenge. They would not take our complaints seriously and more often found fault in our conduct. We often needed to pull strings to push the police take us seriously.

But I find satisfaction in what I am doing now. Our foundation helps the community in distress and also assists them in the tiresome process at court or police station to get them justice. Apart from my job as a researcher, my regular day includes holding sensitization workshops with the locals and the police.  Political statements are one thing but we have to make people realise that the Northeast is a part of India and we are Indians, just like them.

 

(Alana Golmei, 42, is a researcher and the founder of the North East Support Centre & Helpline)

More from Discrimi-Nation
Part II: The Dalit life sentence
Part III: ‘Caste is a dormant volcano’

 

—With editorial assistance from Lokmarg

 

Slaughterhouse Diary III: Blossoms of Hope

By LokMarg


, a 55-year-old mango-grower from Dhanaura village in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, saw his trees go barren because of effluents from a nearby abattoir. His annual income dwindled from a few lakhs of rupees to nothing. Today, with the closure of the slaughterhouse, he looks forward to revived fortunes.

It was almost a decade ago, in 2009, when we first saw this slaughterhouse coming up in our village. Behanji (Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati) was the chief minister then I remember, and many of us felt it would create jobs for the local youth and improve the roads linking our village to the highway. Our optimism was shortlived, for we soon realized the slaughterhouse had only brought misfortune.

It was not just my mango orchard but all the farmland falling within a radius of 3 km of the slaughterhouse was affected. Grain crops, fruits and vegetables: all suffered in quality and yield. The following season, my trees stopped flowering and bearing fruit. We sought help and were told that the chimney of the ‘butcherkhana’ spewed toxic and chemical-laden fumes.

This had a disastrous effect on the crops. We also ran from pillar to post, raising the alarm on this environmental disaster in our lives, but nobody cared. The owner of the slaughterhouse had deep pockets and high reach in the establishment. My income dried up. I left the orchard to the mercy of Allah and diverted my focus to our fields that were far away from the factory.

I managed to keep the kitchen going at home. With a change of guard in 2012 (when Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Government came to power), we saw hope as the Yadav family had roots in farming. We went to Lucknow several times but all we got were false assurances. Apparently, an ex-minister and SP leader was a partner in the factory.

The problems only grew from there, affecting not just the air but the groundwater as well. Our water pumps started pulling up dirty- foul-smelling water. It had become quite unbearable. In August 2014, we organised a huge panchayat in Dhanaura where hundreds of farmers gathered. Our protest continued for 95 days, and the authorities finally woke up and took note.

The factory was sealed by the administration. It didn’t last. The owners of the slaughterhouse approached the High Court and the closure notice was stayed. I have three children and during this time, all were studying in Meerut. My children would often advise me to sell all the land we had and move out. But I am a firm believer in Allah, and decided to wait.

A farmer will sell his land only when all options run out. The Yogi government was an answer to our prayers. In less than two months of his assuming power, district officials sealed this house of evil. The problems have not gone immediately, but did we didn’t expect them to.

In time, the land would heal itself, I knew. Then, one day, for the first time in the last eight years, I saw blossoms on some of my mango trees. I cried. I am thankful to Allah and confident now that my good fortune will return.

More From the Slaughterhouse Diary

Part I: ‘Yogi govt butchered my job’

Part II: A School Reborn

-With editorial assistance from Lokmarg

‘Our society hasn't changed after Nirbhaya’

By LokMarg


By Asha Devi

Six years after my daughter was raped and murdered in a moving bus in the national capital on a cold December night, our society has not changed a bit. In fact, the situation has deteriorated as rapists have become more brutal now.

They are worse than animals. They crush a five-year-old girl with a boulder after raping her; not even an animal does that. More worrying is the fact that such rapists are being defended by people in government, politicians, lawyers and even cops. In the Kathua case, a cop was involved. Where we will go when the protector becomes the predator?

It is so disheartening that to divert attention from the gruesome crime they are also trying to give a communal colour to a five-year-old’s murder. Rape can never be communal. I can’t believe that a rape victim can be identified by her religion. That comes from politics. We have no options left. Our system has made us helpless; we have nowhere to go but to hit the streets for justice. In our country, a father goes to a chief minister’s residence seeking justice for his raped daughter but he gets beaten to death.

What can we do now? It is sad to see that the ones who gave the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save our daughters, educate our daughters)’ slogan are now defending their own legislator in an alleged gang-rape case of a minor girl and her father’s custodial death. People now see hope in us but I can’t help thinking how little I can do for them when I have failed to get justice for my own daughter.

Nirbhaya died in 2012 and after six years, we are still clueless when the accused will be hanged. Our pain and trauma is their politics, no matter which political party is in power. If they are serious, they should hold a one-day session in Parliament to discuss such brutal rape cases and find a solution. Even these politicians have daughters, mothers, and wives at home. Not even women politicians take up such issues; even they are quiet. TV debates are just more political blame-games.

When there is a solution to everything, then why there is no solution for rape? After my daughter was brutalised, the politicians who were in the Opposition then had organised candlelight vigils and marches and had forced the government to make the law more stringent. How many daughters must we lose to get a stringent law that works? I demand that these criminals should be hanged. And, of course, there’s a Nirbhaya Fund.

But who is using it and how is it being used? Who’s been benefited? I have got no response from the government so far. It is so shameful that people are questioning rape victims. I feel all these things are being done to divert attention.

If they continue to ignore it, more such cases will happen. People in power are sleeping as poor people are getting raped but if they continue to stay quite sooner or later their own daughters will have to pay the price as these rapists are only getting bolder.

(Asha Devi is the mother of the December 16, 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim Nirbhaya, a horror that sparked a nationwide outrage then and led to a strengthening of the Indian Penal Code section on rape) — with editorial assistance from Lokmarg

‘A Harsh Rape Law Is Only The Beginning’

By LokMarg


By Sanjeev Jain

It was a gut-wrenching experience the first time I was part of the prosecution in a case relating to the rape of a minor. An eight-year-old girl visiting her grandmother in one of the Capital’s suburbs had been raped by a neighbour. It shocked everybody.

Now it seems to have become one of the usual crimes. It’s an epidemic out there. It just doesn’t stop, having mutated into several common forms now. One such horrible development is more cases of rape of minors, like the Kathua case.

The ordinance okayed by the Cabinet recently is a step in the right direction. Following the outcry after the Nirbhaya rape case of 2012, the law was strengthened to enlarge the definition of rape, bring juveniles above the age of 16 into the pale of the law for such cases, and fast track courts came up. I fully support the introduction of capital punishment where brutality or unnatural offences, especially in case of a minor’s rape, is established.

In cases where brutality is not established, punishment must still be severe, if not death. That did not really address the issue of police investigation, and more importantly, the appeal process. Even if trial courts ensure speedy trial, the appeal process becomes long-winded.

Look at the Nirbhaya case; this is the one that brought these legal issues to the foreground, but there’s still no closure yet. Now police probes and the trial have been set time limits, as has the appeal process. The higher quantum of sentence in cases of rape where the victim is of tender age, plus the fact that judges are to have a free hand to sentence convicts to prison for life in cases where the victim is below 12 are, in my view, long overdue corrections of the law.

It must be noted that making penal provisions harsher does not directly translate into reducing instances of rape. What it does is to empower the victim and society at large, raising the issue in the national consciousness and sending out the message that the law in the books is in step with the reality in the street. Of course, implementing the changed law will put the police and courts to the test.

Investigation and prosecution will have to rise to a whole new level, and that I chose to remain sceptical about, simply because such things are easier said than done in the creaky-giant systems of our country. And all this will require governments to spend large sums. A couple of things I want to draw attention to is what we lawyers have observed. First, the explosion in rape cases between former live-in partners and between people with active sexual relationships, including those who elope and those indulging in extra-marital sex.

Some lawyers even call these cases Facebook rape because social media is the new source for the growing number of rape cases. In my view, for rape cases figuring people with access and activity on social media, no less than half would be a ballpark figure for relationships gone wrong or where the family of the victim converts elopement into rape to avoid the stigma. I’m no sociologist, but maybe our society at large is not mature enough to handle the power and vitality of social media.

My point is that these cases do not reflect growing criminalisation of society; rather they are a symptom of a social change, a sexual ferment that is muddling to and fro across the lines of the law. With time and clear judgments, this is bound to be minimised. My other point is about rape of minors.

While sexual abuse of minors by family members or known persons is rampant across income levels, almost all of the brutal cases of minors being raped come from lower-income groups. A little child being raped by a neighbour in a slum is the most common kind. Read the papers and this will become evident. This high correlation needs to be addressed.

I would also add the growing amount of substance abuse, alcohol included, to the study of this problem. Most social scientists say there is little or no correlation between porn and rape, but I differ—the combination of poverty, drug abuse and easy availability of porn on mobile devices is an unholy mix. It’s time to cut through the political correctness and address the problems we see on a daily basis.

(Sanjeev Jain is a noted criminal lawyer in the southern part of the National Capital Region who has practiced for over three decades in four districts of Haryana) — with editorial assistance from Lokmarg