The outpouring of public angst, protests, and frustrations against the horrific rape and murder case in Kolkata is sadly following a trend that has been seen repeatedly, but one without a course-correction for posterity. Political classes across the board jump in and sully the narrative to gain a political finger-pointing opportunity and poison the mood against one another, but the underlying situation remains as grim as ever. Over time demonstrators convene under various partisan flags to suggest the laxity or complicity of the ‘other’ in order to indulge in political one-upmanship.

Usually the side with the situational ‘monopoly-on-truth’ triumphs in the blame game, and then the issue is milked towards building partisanship. Even worse follows, as gradually the issue is forgotten as some other headline grips public attention and consumes public passion ~ till some other tragedy repeats itself. Why aren’t lessons learnt? Why isn’t the ‘system’ improved to ensure safety and security for all? Why do some institutions/bodies attempt covering up instead of acknowledging concerns and failures? Why isn’t anybody held accountable, ever?

It is disconcerting to note that the answers to such basic questions are rarely answered in all honestly, and it is especially strange as such incidents have the entirety of society, government and even the opposition parties supposedly on the same side ~ yet, beyond platitudes and multiple protests, the fundamental situation remains as is. Perhaps the closest that any stakeholder has come to zeroing down to the epicenter of failure fault lines in this case was when the Supreme Court noted that the incident had, “shocked the conscience of the nation” and explicitly criticised ‘authorities’ for their handling of the investigation. While the term ‘authorities’ is still very generic and not sharply defined, it can be construed from the case that the ‘authorities’ in this specific case were the hospital authorities, the law-and-order agencies, and the overarching ‘authority’ culture of downplaying instances (even of such severity) to maintain the charade of normalcy and performance.

To be fair, it is the same cover up sensibility and spirit that afflicts the various other authorities, be it in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala or Manipur. So, the moot question is, what can be done to disallow ‘cover-ups’ and bring the guilty to justice? For starters, the various agencies need to be independent and act without fear or favour and there ought to be a culture of accountability and responsibility. The political classes, be it at the Centre or in the States, should not be allowed to politicize a criminal case. Whataboutery surrounding the case to score political brownie points must be completely disallowed.

The media must be emboldened to question the stakeholders, be it the ‘authorities’, political classes, or even individuals to ensure that the truth, rather than conjecture triumphs. For too long, every time such an incident happens, there is a media-trial bordering on a meaningless circus, and the positions that the various media houses take is already predefined. Facts get muddled because vested interests go on an overdrive and hijack the incident towards partisan ends ~ it happened during the ‘Nirbhaya’ case, it happened with the Sushant Singh Rajput case, it happened with the Manipur riots etc.

The problem can be finally funneled down to the diminishment or compromise of the various institutions of checks-and-balances that have sadly succumbed to acute partisanship or pressures from partisan stakeholders. Period. Contextualising the dark and infamous period of Emergency, LK Advani had rightly blamed the media, “You were asked only to bend, but you crawled”. Not only had the media pandered to selective news but many had justified and contextualised the same in order to remain on the right side of the powers that be. The media had forsaken its vital duty of questioning without fear or favour.

That is what the absence of truly independent institutions can do towards covering-up a wrong. It could be argued that instead of just focusing on the issues pertaining to this specific case, the media today is seemingly busy taking partisan sides and not asking questions shorn of political considerations. Similarly, the issue of law enforcement agencies or more specifically the policing services being the proverbial ‘caged parrots’ is an old hat that is often raked up, but never addressed. There are heaps of police reform reports gathering dust in the corridors of power, which effectively suggest the ‘detachment’ of police services from political oversight and influence yet these remain ignored. This simple disengagement can add immeasurably to professionalism, speed and unbiased conduct of issue-resolutions, but the political classes of all persuasions have knowingly ‘caged’ law enforcement agencies, hence the sloppy and unreliable operations of these agencies.

The parallel example of the other ‘uniformed’ services i.e. the Indian Armed Forces, which are thankfully afforded relative independence and non-interference of the political classes, speaks for itself.The other important lever or deterrent of such heinous crimes is the virtual absence of fear from legal conviction. According to the National Judicial Data Grid there are more than 50 million cases pending in the courts ~ to expect speedy trials and conviction is a pipedream. Delays are endemic with about 77 per cent of prisoners awaiting trial, compared to a global rate of just one in three. Adding to the already heady mix of issues is the trust deficit and taints of corruption especially in the lower judiciary.

Lastly the perception of the judicial system collapsing into ‘executive courts’ i.e., favouring the executive’s actions, has gained perception. Why don’t the powers-that-be invest in and expand the judicial personnel to expedite cases or take strict action on the issues in the lower judiciary or disallow political imperatives hereon (disallow postretirement carrots or the proverbial stick), baffles many. If only the police, press, and judiciary, had been operating efficiently and without any external angularities ~ the rot could be contained. The bane of such institutional compromise, control and disallowance is that it protects the political class from hard questioning and accountability.

They get away by deflecting, dog whistling and politicizing issues and the obsequious cadres are happy to score meaningless partisan points. The protests that are underway need to take up the issue of policing reforms, judicial reforms, true freedom of press and insist on a culture of questioning ~ that is the only way authorities like the hospital management in this case or the local police would not have been unable to cover up. It truly isn’t about one party or the other, but about us as a people who have failed to call out the bluff of politicians, who are the most important reason why such incidents happen with impunity and without resolution.

(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)