Fury of the masses

For one week, the capital of the country was in turmoil. On the night of 16th December 2012, one girl was gang-raped by 6 people and she and her boyfriend beaten and thrown out of a bus and left to die. It all happened in New Delhi. When the news broke, people were enraged, women all over the country were incensed. But what happened from 20th of December onwards, was completely unexpected. A mass of people,mostly students of DU, around 5000 in number gathered around India gate and Raisinia Hill, and started a candlelight vigil. slowly more and more people started to come in, and by next day people from all walks of life, like teachers, doctors, retires govt servants, professors,you name it. and it was gender neutral, i.s male and female were equal in number. While the 23 year old girl continued to struggle in Safdarjung Hospital, the crowd increased, and increased constantly. By this time the girl had to undergo 3 major surgeries, and her intestine removed, to save from sepsis.

On 22nd December the police started lathi charge on the crowd, thru-out the day several times the crowd was lathi-charged. But they did not move from there. So the police shifted some of the demonstrators to outskirts of Delhi and left them there. But to no effect. While the leader of the opposition Mr.s Sushma Swaraj demanded an emergency meeting of the parliament.On 22nd evening, Mrs Sonia Gandhi met some student leadesrs of DU, this crowd was not there to take mere verbal words as guarantee. On 22nd evening the union home minister Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde, came on TV and declared some measures like setting up a judicial commission to investigate the need for legal reforms.

Next morning 7 metro rail stations around India gate were closed down by the police, so that demonstrator cannot come to India Gate, and section 144 was declared all over Delhi. But nevertheless, the crowd returned to India gate and demanded immediate action from the government. In the middle of this, Sheila Dixit, Delhi CM, appeared in an interview and gave her opinion that she is willing to give up her security cover, because the main demand of the crowd was that while the citizens were insecure the VIPs enjoyed triple security.While there was 3 policemen per VIP in Delhi, there was one policeman per 716 people in Delhi. Then the entire area around India gate took the shape of a battle ground and police fired tear gases several times, as well as fired water canon and lathi charged 7 times thru out the day. On the morning of 24th, came the news that one constable of Delhi police has suffered serious injuries in the hands of the mob, and his condition was serious. And the condition of the rape victim remained serious all the while, and he crowd refused to budge. On 24th December evening came the news that the injured Constable of Delhi police, has succumbed to his injuries. And that gave Delhi police arsenal to paint the entire crowd as illegal mob. A complete different controversy erupted now. And the focus shifted from safety of women and general safety of people to how best to paint entire crowd as criminals. But the condition of the rape victim became worse and on 26th evening she was shifted to Singapore by flight for better treatment. But the mute question remains, why did so many people gather spontaneously, why did they refuse to budge even when govt kept on making promises and what drove them to be so persistent for so long? To my mind, the answer is intricate and not so simple. There are several reasons for people, mostly young people to not accept govt's answer as acceptable. Only recently everyone has seen that govt gave assurance to Anna Hazare that they wil pass effective and strong lok pal. But what happened after that can at best be described as farce. govt introduced a much diluted bill, which got sent to standing committee, and then to select committee. And what was the essence of lok pal? That people of this country will get services promised by govt, and govt servants will be bound to do their duty. Now compare this with the situation under which this gang-rape took place. Police did not perform routing patrolling , and none of the bus driver/conductor had requisite ID cards. That is failure on the part of government service. So no reason for the public to trust mere words from government.