Rape of the law, repeated

Many years ago a Delhi school bus fell into the Yamuna. Children trapped in it couldn't be rescued because the windows had been barred.

- R. PRASANNAN

Following public outrage, the city fathers ordered that school bus windows shouldn't be barred.

A few years later, a child was killed when he leaned out of the window of his school bus and his head hit a pole. Again, the city fathers listened to public opinion, and ordered school buses to have their windows barred. Lawmaking in India, like these two orders, has become whimsical, reactive to public outcry, and self-defeating.

Mamata Banerjee’s new law, that proposes death to rapist-murderers, is no different. Following a public outcry over the rape-murder of a doctor in a college, she drafted a law that would hang the rapist if his victim dies or slips into coma. The bill was passed with opposition support—all guilt washed, consciences cleaned, catharsis achieved.

Would it make any difference? Not to the dead doctor nor to any living woman.