The boo hoo around victimization and the judicial system.

I was watching this debate last night on tv on one of the news channels. It hosted a lot of prominent personalities like Kiran Bedi, C J Thakker(ex – CJI) etc. The debate was about whether the people should react as the lawyers of the Ghaziabad court did in the Pandher case. There were a lots of points exchanged. The debate also included an audience of the “victims” of the Indian Judicial System.
There were a lot of interesting views exchanged. Some of them I have mentioned below:

1.”How many people here in the audience know about the Police reforms proposed by the Supreme Court rulings of September 11 and January 22.”
-Kiran Bedi on being asked the shortcomings in police role in the Nithari killings.
2. “The change has to be made at the core of the system.”
- C J Thakker
3. ”The women killed Yadav because he was released on bail 14 time and he had raped 22 women. And such incidents will happen again.”
- A social activist from Nagpur who was defending the action of 5 women who had killed a serial rapist in court.
4. ”Why is there time to attend to high profile cases and not the regular ones.”
-Barkha Dutt
5. ”Its been 10 years that I have been waiting for justice, this is despite the fact the Supreme Court in its ruling had put forward to dispose off the case by 2002.”
- A victim and a mother of one of the victims of the Upahar cinema.
6. ”Do you know how the rape victims have to go through when the appear in Punjab and Harayana High Court?”
- A victim and a mother of one of the victims of the Upahar cinema.

This discussion got me thinking again. And I thought of the following points:


Whenever such cases (Nithari killings) come up the blame game starts up. The people blaming the police. The police blames the judicial system and finally the blame lands on the politicians as in this case as well. Except here there was no representative from the politics side, so as expected the whole blame landed on them. We as a country are all responsible for any of such negligence. Isn’t it true that the accused has come out from one among us the “society”. They all talk about improving the system but you can’t change the system unless you try to become a part of the system. Is it not true that you will grab the first opportunity that comes your way to cheat the system for your own personal gain? If you want to improve the system first improve yourself. Stop taking the easy way out!!

There was an argument that such examples of taking law in your own hands as in the case of Ghaziabad is just the beginning of many such cases to come. That the middle class society is now arming itself for a future revolution against the system. But my thoughts are otherwise. According to me people do not care as to what happens to others and the attitude is such that its not our problem unless it happens to us. And when it eventually happens we all cry foul and cry for victimization. Tell me how many of us will be willing to carry a man hurt in an accident and lying on the road to the hospital. We all believe in social activism, such a simple and hip word isn’t it. But wearing a kurta and jeans and walking around with a jholla is not social activism.
Social activism begins with being socially aware and then followed being socially active. You have to become a responsible citizen first and then wait for results rather than becoming a “victim” first and then striving for social justice.