The fact that our government shouts "death sentence" and the National Commission for Women ex-chairperson follows it up by calling for castration of rapists just shows a warped belief in a weird linkage between increasingly barbaric and sensational punishments and greater liberation for womankind. If only they'd look at mundane nitty-gritties.
All these new demands, death penalty for rape and long terms in prison for harassing women will only have the offenders roaming free because the burden of proving "beyond reasonable doubt" will become the victim's problem.
Sitting in a metropolis like Delhi, it’s easy to pass a judgement that laws are being misused. But we should look at the larger reality where the laws are yet to reach the minimum standards of use.
Section 497 is based on Old Testament values. It doesn't protect the rights of women, only protects the proprietorial rights of men over their wives' bodies.
It's a routine thing women go through with cops. They treat women, particularly from the lower classes or those they think of as "loose", in a very humiliating, lecherous manner.
Dancing and singing are legitimate professions, not new to women. Banning such bars, would violate the right of these women to earn a livelihood, as laid down under Article 21 of the Constitution, as well as the right to carry on a legitimate profession under Article 19.
He does not seem to have understood the gravity of the offence. India's elite lauded the amendments to the IPC, widening the definition of rape, little realizing that they did not apply simply to lower-class men, but could affect them too. While there has been much clamour for the death penalty in cases of rape involving the lower classes, would the elite now like to apply this to themselves?
How are all the details relevant to the case and the actual crime? When it is a case of an upper class woman, there is a titillating curiosity and over interest in her life. Her life becomes a free for all.