Recently, a committee,
headed by retired high court judge Chandrashekhar Dharmadhikari published a report to outline measures to to curbattacks on women and reduce crime rate in Maharashtra. Instead of presenting
findings in an objective and evidence backed manner, and putting the
accountability on the responsible parties (police, government,
judiciary) to provide active policing, improved crime prevention, better criminal investigations, and swifter prosecution process, it finds easy, but wrong scapegoats, and
recommends curtailment of human rights and free speech.
these relics of the past who
sit in our government and such committee
force their own prejudices and opinions, without actually bothering to study the evidence on the effectiveness of the
measures they propose.
They especially detest and are opposed to things
that they don't understand. Facebook/Whatsapp can be very
easily made scapegoats as they are popular channels which the old fogies don't
understand or have used. Both are used for productive or even entertainment
purposes far far more than they are used to harass people. They may be used to share
pornography, but so is a lot of the internet. Does the government need to
frame a policy on the internet. What point is framing is a policy, if the
government has rats chance
in hell of actually implementing the policy.
The bias demonstrated here is
the interpretation that pornography and morality has anything to do with
sexual crimes. There is no causation or even correlation. In fact, if at all,
there is inverse correlation
between the two. http://goo.gl/CfzJ8Y If at all, these ancient
creatures should recommend we encourage pornography (just kidding!).
Another confirmation bias is the interpretation that
dance bars led to drop in cases of crimes against women.
Even if we assume there was a drop in crimes against women, just considering the
insignificant number of
dance bars within the state and their concentration
is parts of cities only, it is highly improbable that there was any causative
association between the two.
The only way to substantively confirm the committee
view is check the crime statistics in areas near to dance bars and check
where the bar dancers are now (probably plying their trade underground where it is
very difficult for them to report any crimes due to the nature of their trade).
Another bias - "the committee held social
networking websites responsible for rising divorce cases"
– where is the evidence Sir. Your report should cite studies/surveys
undertaken either in India or elsewhere to justify your claims. Probably, when TV
came about, the dogmatic folks probably said they were leading to infidelity
and divorce.
“Vulgar activities carried out through Facebook,
mobile and computer, social networking sites need to be tackled
urgently, because it has been observed on a global scale that divorces are on
the rise in marriages taking place through Facebook" - This statement is
utterly meaningless and incoherent. Marriage taking place based on
meeting/connections established to facebook have NO relation to vulgar activities. Just
because you put a BECAUSE between the two doesn't make them related. If
marriages happening by virtue of people meeting through facebook are failing, are you
going to stop people marrying if they meet on facebook? Are you in charge
of Hindu arm of Taliban?
