The nemesis of moral arrogance is the fury of the people. In Greek mythology, Nemesis, who represents justice and revenge, beguiles Narcissus to die by the doomed pool, staring at his own reflection. The pool represents his ego.
If Narcissus was a rapist in India, Nemesis is sure to be thwarted by human rights professionals who bask in pools of fake virtue. Early this month, the Hyderabad Police shot dead four men who had assaulted, raped and murdered a young woman. Two days after this Sunday is the seventh anniversary of the Nirbhaya gang rape, which woke up the national conscience. But her mother is still waiting for the sentence to be carried out and the monsters to be hanged. So, was the Hyderabad encounter, which civil rights activists today label murder, justified? In an ideal word, no. If the court is bound to hear the arrogant mercy petition of Nirbhaya’s unremorseful rapist based on the frivolous grounds that his execution is unnecessary because Delhi pollution itself is fatal, it is mocking the law. There have been many more Nirbhayas since December 2012, whose rapists have escaped or delayed their nemesis: Justice.
Because justice is at the mercy of the law. The law is at the mercy of loopholes, red tape and judicial delay. The law is not an ass here, it is a snail.
Political correctness be damned; have any of the daughters and wives of drawing room activists who rush to court to champion criminals been raped and murdered? Have any of the human rights celebrities ever witnessed the horrifying sight of their raped daughter torched alive or wept at the sight of her burned body? Have any of them been ordered by a khap panchayat to be gang-raped on grounds of caste?
I think not.
By championing fiends, their moral defenders become like them. When a parent dies every day tortured by agonising imagination, a sibling is traumatised by the violent absence of a sister, vengeance brings closure. When public fury applauds the police for bringing evil to a higher justice, it unites society as strongly as it divides it when cops protect politically powerful killers. Murder moralists caution us, “Today it is them, tomorrow it will be YOU.” Seriously? Are YOU the supari don who operates freely from jail to kill, kidnap and extort? Are YOU a rapist of babies and little boys? If not, there is no cause for fear. Public anger forced the government to give teeth to the law against rape—multitudes of men and women faced water cannons and lathi-charges to get Nirbhaya justice. Public fury sent Jessica Lal’s killer back to jail with candlelight vigils. It is the might of the people that brings justice to the land when the law is crippled by its own flaws.
The Narcissuses of today are arrogant self-righteous activists who bathe in the pool of their sunlit egos, waiting for a cause to justify their moral existence, NGO funds and media interviews. The Hyderabad vet's rapists were not human beings. They were monsters. There is only one way to bring monsters to justice. Put them down.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com