The banner news in all dailies on January 2 and top headlines of news bulletins of news channels on the New Year Day was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha’s announcement of a 13-point action plan to make Tamil Nadu a state free of crimes against women, even as the Centre has appointed a three-member commission presided over by former Supreme Court Chief Justice J.S.Verma to recommend proposals for amendments in laws to tow award harsh punishments to perpetrators of rapes and other crimes against women and for speedier judicial trial in such cases. In fact, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde had sent letters to all State Chief Ministers and leaders of political parties to send their suggestions to the Commission and said the Centre would decide on holding a special session of Parliament to amend laws after receiving the report of Justice J.S.Verma Commission. Immediately suggestions from various quarters including NGOs and feminist activists had started pouring and reported widely in the media.
It was at this juncture, that Jayalalitha had suddenly woken up from deep slumber before proceeding to her Kodanad mansion for a few weeks of sojourn, and announced this action plan to make the State ruled by her free of crimes against women, directly admitting that right now under her regime the State is full of crime against women. But her motive is to put up a show of taking the lead in the country in resolving to protect women and their honour.
Even on the day Jayalalitha’s statement were prominently published in all newspapers, dismal news of continuing sexual offences poured in from different parts of Tamil Nadu on Dec.2. A 17-year-old girl was abducted from a bus in Puducherry and raped by two men, while similar offences targeting minors were reported from Villupuram, Thanjavur and Virudhunagar districts.
In Salem, a teacher in government school for the blind was accused by parents of several girl students aged between seven and nine of sexually abusing them, and the police were probing as prima facie evidence was being gathered by the district child protection officer who interviewed the victims.
In Thanjavur, a 55-year-old man was arrested for raping his 11-year-old relative, who was also his neighbour in Orathanadu taluk. The Nannilam police, meanwhile, arrested a 32-year-old bank employee in connection with the rape and murder of a woman, whose body was found near a railway track a few days ago.
The Seithur police in Virudhunagar district were on Jan.1 night questioning a mason who had allegedly raped a minor girl based on a complaint from her parents.
But how far she is serious and sincere in her commitment to protect the honour and lives of women in Tamil Nadu in particular and the people of the state as a whole in general, is very obvious from the prelude she had given to this announcement. The very first paragraph of her statement on January 1 stated: “ In the capital of India in which Bharathi, who sang ‘Women too along with men live in perfect equality’, was born, a young woman was subjected to very cruel and barbaric sexual violence, admitted to hospital following it and lost her life due to failure of treatment and this tragic incident has caused great distress and mental agony to all.”
After this paragraph she, as usual, goes on boasting about ‘the measures taken by her in her previous regimes, which were pioneering in the world in protecting the rights of women and doing away with atrocities against women.’ ‘due to which compared to other states, although crimes against women are lesser in Tamil Nadu…’.
These opening lines of her statement themselves establish the monumental lies and biggest hoax she plays on the people of the state and country. Even as she had claimed that Tamils Nadu (under her regime only) is comparatively reporting fewer crimes against women than other states, the records of her own TN Police Crime Statistical Bureau show otherwise. According to a report even in the’ ADMK’s unofficial organ’ “The New Indian Express’ on December 30, under the headline ‘Two Rape Cases a Day in TN- State recorded 528 cases till September this year, 9 percent jump from last year’:
“Two women on an average were raped in Tamil Nadu each day this year, if the data available with the police is any indication. Police records show that 528 cases of rape were reported in the state till September this year, which works out to 59 per month. Last year the figure stood at 677. In other words, 56 cases per month.
If you compare the figure till September this year with the corresponding one last year, you will notice a sharp rise of nine per cent in 2012. Last year, there were 484 cases of rape till September. According to police, the percentage of minors being the victims of rape was higher compared to the 18-plus age group. “All cases of sexual harassment involving minors are booked under the section,” a police official said recalling the recent rape and murder of a 12-year old girl near Thoothukudi. …..Finally, a look at the conviction rate: this year, only three cases (out of over 1,700 cases pending trial) had reached the stage of conviction while 26 others resulted in acquittal.”
While issuing this statement or speaking only to her own Jaya TV alone on her return from Gandhi Nagar after attending the swearing-in ceremony of her personal friend and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, (which was shamelessly telecast by all other channels except one or two and very faithfully published in all dailies the next day), Jayalalitha had not even an iota of sympathy or indignation for about 12 minor girls, children and women who were raped by individually or gangs and some of them also murdered after inflicting the crime, within 10 days after the gruesome Delhi incident of gang rape of a 23-year old paramedical student in running bus on December 18. She told her own TV channel that Delhi rape incident was ‘most shocking’ and ‘highly condemnable’. Asked about such reports in some places of Tamil Nadu, she had only said “the police immediately took steps”. She did not condemn or consoled family members of victims leave alone paying some relief amount. Going by the past record of police investigation and prosecution under her regime, the ‘steps taken’ were only for bluntly denying the charge of rape or cover-up of the crime. Yes. That was the horrible experience of the victims of rape and their families during the previous regimes of her and even now in this tenure.
From Vachathi incident in 1992 when 269 police and forest personnel raided the village, ransacked houses and properties of Tribal villagers and gang raped Tribal women, a Dalit woman Padmini was gang raped by 11 policemen in Annamalai Nagar police station after beating to death her husband Nandagopal in custody in 1992, to four Irula tribal women were gang raped by policemen in Villupuram district in July 2011, gang rapes by policemen had taken place in Tamil Nadu only when Jayalalitha presides over the regime in the state. Much worse is that whenever she presided over the regime, the government machinery goes to any extent to defend and save the perpetrators of these heinous crimes from punishment. And the party led by her tries to denigrate and tarnish the image of the affected women by decrying their character.
While they dutifully publish the interview given exclusively to Jaya TV or publish this statement of Jayalalitha, not a single TV news channel or newspaper in Tamil Nadu and the whole country recounted if not the decades-old cases of rapes under her regime at least the 12 incidents of rape and murder that had occurred in Tamil Nadu after the too much talked about Delhi incident. On December 31, it was virtually sickening to read pages after pages of all English dailies on the death of the victim of Delhi incident and statements of condolences and articles, news analyses etc, etc., but even after patiently scanning through the volumes of newspaper pages, not a single sentence on the gruesome incidents in Tamil Nadu in the previous 10 days could be located. On the first page of the TNIE there was a box which mentioned rape incidents in various parts of the country but not on the day a single one of Tamil Nadu. This daily with headquarters in Chennai, is published Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchi in TN and other dailies also have editions in Chennai. We don’t know if they also have to be sensitized about women and people of Tamil Nadu! If the so-called enlightened editors and journalists of these dailies are so short sighted and suffer from amnesia of even events of present fortnight, the readers of them could not be expected to be alert to the situation of the day. Comments on their websites except few, sing lavish praise for Jayalalitha for her ‘initiative’ and lead in the country! It is unfortunate that feminists and social and legal activists, whom the newspapers had approached for their reaction to the announcement of Jayalalitha, did not mention a word on the incidents in the state and the apathy of her regime to the plight of women but welcomed the announcement and praised her. Or the dailies themselves censored their opinions against her regime!
Jayalalitha is not only insensitive to the incidents of rapes and atrocities against women in the State but also insensitive to the plight of farmers of delta district due to the complete loss of kuruvai and samba cultivation and the incidents of suicides of farmers unable to stand increasing debt. While the petition filed by the State government in the Supreme Court for Cauvery waters mentioned suicides by farmers, Jayalalitha refuses to acknowledge the incidents and her party MPs denied in Parliament any suicide by farmers of the state.
Even though the Prime Minister, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and all in power had condemned the Delhi incident, taking all actions, meeting agitators and accepting all their demands, condoling the victim’s death in spite of all efforts to save her life and going to the graveyard for the funeral etc., the media and protestors and the ‘much-enlightened’ social activists and social media persons are still training their guns on them and ridicule the Prime Minister in most obnoxious terms. But here is a Chief Minister in whose regime there were so many such incidents since that Delhi incident but still she had not even acknowledged them, leave alone condemn or act. But she is praised to the sky. Why this dichotomy? The mainstream media during the past few years have shed any pretentions of neutrality and objectivity and have openly taken up an anti-UPA agenda. In that campaign, they project undeserving and even much-tainted individuals opposed to UPA. If it was the man from a remote Maharashtra village Anna Hazare in 2011, Arvind Kejriwal first and in the last month of the year 2012 two other chief ministers whom the same mainstream media decried and exposed in the past, Narendra Modi and Jayalalitha.
But the people of Tamil Nadu have become wise by their grueling daily experience in the past one and a half year with 18 hours power cut a day, total loss of crops and agricultural operations, increasing incidence of murders, thefts, chain snatchings and robberies and now 12 incidents of rapes in 10 days and are no more prepared to be carried away by the rosy presentation of the situation obtaining in the state by Jayalalitha in active connivance with the media.
By civilization Tamils are most cultured and sober, but once they raise up no force on the earth can stop them. They will certainly sensitise not only Jayalalitha but also the media on the crimes committed against women in
Tamil Nadu! r
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