The Hindu : New Delhi News : Community role needed in conflict resolution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 14, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Community role needed in conflict resolution

DISCUSSIONS ON crimes against women in the Capital are often replete with rather familiar responses about a weak criminal justice system, an insensitive police and media resorting to sensationalisation. These factors may be important but the role of the community, which has been mostly neglected, in dealing with such conflicts needs to be seriously looked into.

It is more a rule than an exception that only a major incident brings the issue to centre-stage. Certain degree of sensationalisation and voices raised from various platforms cause a hue and cry for a few days after which it is relegated to the backburner.

Again, while a dithering criminal justice system is blamed for most of the problems, the demands for new laws are always there. But without a political will, which has seldom looked strong for any reform whatsoever, such demands will inevitably turn out to be long drawn debates. Once framed, a system as sluggish as ours will render such legal provisions fit only for further debate.

In such a scenario, it is worth taking a look at the role of the community, which has somehow been ignored almost completely, in dealing with such problems. For instance, two cases of young women refusing to get married following the demand for more dowry from the groom's side had come to light last year. In the first case, which occurred in neighbouring Noida, the groom was sent to jail and the woman in question became an overnight star. In the second case, which occurred in the Capital, the community stepped in and the groom was asked to return all that he had taken earlier. The marriage stood cancelled without any sanctions or stigma being thrust on the girl. However, while the first case may remain fresh in memory of everybody concerned, the second case might well have been erased from public memory. That is, if it got registered in the first place!

Too much emphasis on laws, provisions, their implementation and subsequent failure of the system actually seem to take the focus away from the social evils which they were supposed to curb. For instance, even as the relevance of Section 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting the woman to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code is being debated, the evil has refused to die.

For that matter, even in the West -- which is looked upon virtually as a guiding light for the people dealing with the problems here -- the number of crimes against women under every head is quite alarming despite presence of many bodies for grievance redress and a lot of funds available to keep them going. And yet, the authorities there too suspect that a lot many incidents go unreported.

The point is legal provisions and grievance redress bodies essentially perform negative function in the sense that they are complaint based. The role of community can come in handy to prevent the situation from reaching to that level. In fact, now an attempt is being made in the West to encourage parents to teach their male children how to respect women and speak out if a woman around them is being abused.

An increased role for the community in conflict resolution, however, should not be construed as a licence for the system to conveniently shake off its responsibility. The criminal justice system, which creates more power centres than platforms for grievance redress owing to its colonial hangover, does need wide-ranging reforms. Still, the community needs to believe in itself more and shed the belief that only the system can resolve all the conflicts.

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