Perhaps the most unfortunate outcome of the much-talked-about Delhi incident is that it has become acceptable to pass sweepingly degrading comments about the character of men in general. I saw many articles on the internet, posts on facebook, and even columns in mainstream newspapers that put the blame for the problem on boys not being brought up the way they should be, men not being taught to treat women with dignity, or roughly on the depravation of the male component of our society! It is unacceptable these days to pass comments that may be construed as sexist (i.e., not very encouraging of women), but it is perfectly okay to insult men on public platforms. (I think this is similar to how secularism and anti-casteism have come to mean minority appeasement and pampering of select classes respectively).

I am not very much for political correctness. So if there is any truth in an argument, I don’t care if some people find it offensive. So the first thing we need to figure out is whether it’s really true that men are the cause of all crime against women. Well, it does seem to be the case, considering that almost all crime against women are perpetrated by men. But if we stop our analysis here, we’d be deluded by the half-truth. So let’s look at some more statistics. Going by newspaper reports, I’m fairly certain, that most of almost ANY kind of crime are committed by men – extortion, kidnapping, financial fraud, murder, whatever. Now, before we can put the blame for crime in society squarely on The Man, we need to consider two more questions.

Firstly, what percentage of men are involved in these crimes? I think a very small minority, because having spent 10 full minutes, I am not able to recall a single criminal that I have met or personally known in life. Statistically this may not be a good sample, but for lack of better data I assume that criminals constitute less than 0.1% of men (I know it is actually a much smaller fraction). For the fault of these few, is it logical (let’s forget about being fair) to give an impression of men as not having moral values or being indifferent to the suffering of others?

Next, do we know if the lower involvement of women in crime is because of their more benevolent disposition or their, er.. lack of power? For example, if you let loose 100 tigers and 100 housecats in a city, the tigers are likely to kill more humans than cats. This is not because cats are herbivorous, but they don’t have the strength to kill humans and so have to be satisfied with smaller prey. Most of our soldiers are men, but does that mean men are more patriotic than women? So I believe the difference in rate of involvement in crime of the two sexes is not rooted solely in their natural tendencies, but also in their ability to convert their intention into action.

Apart from the fairness or logical sense in making such irrational statements or portraying this as a men vs women problem is that by doing so, they are tagging men as part of the problem and thus excluding them from a possible solution. What we need to realize is that values have eroded in our society at large, and that is what is reflected as social problems including crime. The solution, in my opinion, is neither in demonizing the criminal, nor in enforcing punishments that match the crime in brutality (as some seem to suggest), but in resurrecting our cultural heritage that is founded on spirituality and selfless service.