My Thoughts while in Fastrack and studying the Criminal Law of our Country.
Firstly, all the trigger warnings from my side for this blog post, because the very origin of writing this Blog Post (very first) goes back in 2020. It may be enlightening and can be harsh at the same time.
Since the current situation makes everything virtual for us, I had some time to revisit some former subjects that I might not remember. I started with the compelling, Indian Penal Code of 1860. Damn, 511 sections! Law has been and will always be that overwhelming even for a person who knows the field or someone who does not. I for one, this is my confession of the year, don’t know even 1% of the law. But a person can try.
After reading certain sections of the code, I realized one thing. In our country, punishments are given based on the principle of proportionality. For example, A did a crime X, therefore punishment Y will be given. Crime X is defined in the code. The prosecution needs to prove the ingredients of Crime X and the judges have the discretion on the larger part to pass an appropriate punishment with maximum limited mentioned in the code. Which is absolutely fine and the most objective way to go about providing justice, isn’t it? Well, my thoughts lingered around the fact that some crimes leave much more impact than their “punishment” and what is justice to a person is so ‘subjective’ in itself.
For instance, if a person outrages the women’s modesty (may include acts like forcing oneself on the woman) is liable to be punished for a maximum of five years. On the other hand, if a man rapes a woman the punishment extends to life imprisonment. A very objective person would be satisfied with the difference in punishments of those two crimes. I could not help but think that both the women would be going through the trauma which isn’t comparable. When the onset of a crime is attached to someone’s body, the result does not matter. The fear is instilled in the mind of the woman. For the rest of her life, she will feel targeted for the slightest instance where losing control of her body would make her insides scream. Is the woman, for the lack of better words that I can think of, with a lesser crime punishment to get over her pain sooner? Does justice take into account the fear developed in the mind of the victim? Are we just rationalizing everything? Is imprisonment the only way justice can be met? Why aren’t we providing court-assisted therapy for these victims? Why does litigation have to be a tedious process where all spirits die down? Just thinking about these questions makes me feel exhausted. I’m just going to leave you with thoughts of these because why should I suffer alone.
A friend recently said something so profound, very casually – the small feelings we brush off on a daily basis to be functional human being for the society, culminates into something bigger that we cannot control later. You want to solve the big questions of the world, hold your ground, have a discourse about them, but solve the small questions of your life as well. Don’t ignore them. For example: fix your sleep schedule, cry often, communicate your needs, stop behaving as if you’re happy if you feel otherwise. Feel free to add more.
Have you been shocked, angry or amused by the court judgements our Indian judiciary passes on a daily basis? Have you questioned yourself that ‘wow, law really supports this?’ like me. Ah, the dilemma of serving justice. Recently Justice JR Midha said –
After, hearing this, everything started falling into place.
For me, online courses were a sham. EdX course from Harvard University, Yale and Stanford. Wow. Solid marketing. I even went ahead to enroll myself in few to console myself of not being able to study in such universities. But for the first time, I attempted and completed an online course on EdX – “Justice by Micheal Sandal”
I laughed, smiled, got provoked, questioned my law school journey and finally felt so proud of going through that journey. It was philosophy made easy. Someone who was sacred by Jurisprudence subject (philosophy of law), this course was a welcome treat. 10/10 recommended even if you aren’t a law student. Well, especially if you are not a law student.
Instagram is a funny place for me. Since I recently added lot of unknown folks that followed me. Recently, Tanya (one such follower) approached me to review her new app. While, she was explaining me what her app was about over gmeet, I kept thinking to myself – we don’t need more apps. We need more humanity. But I am a very curious person. Like, I need to know – ‘WHY’ & therefore I downloaded the app. It’s called ‘Lishash’. It’s a music sharing app (they should really hire me in their marketing team now). You can share music with friends, hold group sessions where multiple people are queueing songs, talking about how this particular song made them feel or you could just discover new music yourself. I’ve made a separate community of people there who share the same taste of music like me. Accidently, one of the beautiful things that happened to me.
Finally, I’ve decided to write frequently on this blog like never before. I have a new ideas brewing up & I am so excited! I’m not great at writing, but I can say, I’m really honest in whatever I write. Does half of the job, I guess. If there’s something you wanted to do for the longest time & couldn’t, this is your sign! Untill, next time folks.
-By Sarthak
