Skimming the surfaces of sexism isn’t enough

All mass media (including computer games) with violent scenes where victims are killed or tortured mercilessly, where gang violence is inbuilt — and guns are treated as toys — need to be looked at far more carefully.

As we saw even in this extremely tragic case, gangrape is very akin to mob violence when bloodlust takes over and people are degraded to the most bestial levels. India has had a long history of mob violence — the most ghastly, affecting millions of people, especially women, was during Partition. Most of the perpetrators of that violence, and of later incidents, continue to remain unpunished. Indeed, there are many families which turn into mobs against women and girl children, within the domestic structure. As a society with a skewed gender ratio, we need to be extremely vigilant about the delivery of justice in crimes against women and in trying to bring disaffected family members, especially alienated and marginalised young men, back into a civilised discourse. Censorship, and regulating what women do and wear, is not the answer. The answer lies in correcting the manner in which families value men and women, and the emotional disconnect between them.

Desai is the author of 'The Sea Of Innocence', a novel about rape, to be published in early 2013

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