Fear and respect

A bit on Indian government

The crime of intruding into a family

Now, let us deal with the issue of physical violence. Physical violence can be done by anyone on anyone. The husband can beat up his wife; the wife can beat up her husband; father can beat up his children; the children can beat up the father; they can beat up their mother; the uncle can beat up his niece etc.

Fear and respect: In many ways this is part of the vernacular culture. For example, the policemen beat up the common man; the government officials harass the public; the forest officials harass the forest dwellers, and also their womenfolk; the army do atrocities in the houses they enter; schoolteacher beats up the children under him. Well, this tendency to use physical violence as a method of bringing in discipline is part of the vernacular. For, a reputation of a ‘softy’ can wreak havoc on discipline. Fear brings in words of ‘respect’. A polite man is not a higher-indicant-word-assigned man. However, if the same man can suddenly display his power to create fear, immediately he goes up in the indicant word ladder.

A husband who is nice may end up as a lower respected man in the indicant word scale. It has a crippling effect on his stature. Everyone, including the Police Inspector is worried about this factor. He would also use violence to get back his ‘respect’. Now this issue should be understood before making a unidirectional and extremely partial law.

It may be understood that if the Police Inspector beats up a common man, it is a crime. However, I am not sure if there is any particular Act that focuses on this alone. For, there are other common laws that prevent this. There are also laws that say that if a member of the public beats up a policeman, it is a crime. Similarly if a teacher beats up a student, it is a crime. There is a Supreme Court rule that states the severe penalty for this crime. This is a crime that takes place in many schools in India. Yet, how many cases have been registered in this regard?

A bit on Indian government: It may be noted that in all cases where the government employees do a crime, even if there is a law against it, not much actions come up. For, it is government one is dealing with. The saying that it is the people who are government is a dictum meant only for the bird-brained. The actual fact about India is that the people are not the government. The government is the class of government employees. The people only get a chance to participate in the periodic circus called elections, wherein they are hoodwinked to feel some supernatural importance for a brief period, and feel that they are in charge of the nation.

Beyond that, it is true that the people on a whole are also not fit to be in-charge of the nation. At the other end, the people who are in charge of the nation are also not fit to be in charge of the nation. They simply are usurpers of power, which they are not fit to have. For, the governance of this nation was British-designed, which has no business to be in the hands of such petty persons.

The crime of intruding into a family: Now, coming back to the subject of physical violence, when it is a fact that the husband’s rights and privacy can violated by the many members of the wife’s or his own family members, it is not correct to bring in a law, that focuses only on the husband’s misdeeds. For, the wife’s father, brother, cousins, uncles are also males. The limits of their rights within the other family should also have been specified in very clear terms. An intrusion into the family, even by a mobile call to the wife, to thwart her from doing her husband’s bidding should be termed a crime. Can the drafters of this daft law dare do this? Well, it is possible that they wouldn’t have the calibre for that.