When in doubt cut it out, says an old axiom of journalism. The UPA government of Manmohan Singh, too, tries to adopt it at times. When in doubt, the government fields home minister Sushilkumar Shinde. The former cop, certain to be diagnosed with a foot in mouth the moment he steps into an expert’s office, is an expert in making remarks with zilch meaning in the midst of statements that also mean little.

He might — nay, in fact does — sound asinine, what with his sheepish grin polishing off an inane remark, but never really too bright to sound caustic. As a result, the uproar does not take time to die down, for you cannot take umbrage against and fight with a daft idea for too long.

So guess what the government did as the protests outside Delhi police headquarters, Sonia Gandhi’s 10 Janpath and Shinde’s own residence, among other places, began to feel stifling in the late April heat? With the heat inside parliament too rising — over coal block allocation and 2G spectrum scams — it fielded Shinde to shave a bit of temperature off. It helped that the I-grin-you-bear Maharashtrian manoos is also the country’s home minister. So he made a suo motu statement on the latest rape to rock the national capital.

In a bid to assuage the raging protests, Shinde said rapes are taking place not just in Delhi but across India, reports PTI.

Like his one-line comment during the demonstrations after the December 16 gangrape and brutality — “Tomorrow, if political parties or Maoists protest why should the home minister go there (India Gate, to hold a dialogue)?” — today’s one-liner, too, would need some deft fire-fighting from the Congress spokespersons to bury.

What it means is best left for Shinde to explain but here are three rejoinders to Shinde’s purported attempt to salve and soothe the raging opposition (the protests this time has been restricted to them thus far, with little participation from the civil society — at least so far).
 
1. Yes, rapes do take place outside Delhi, and even a cursory glance at the national crime records bureau (NCRB) stats would tell us the depth of the menace — a total of 393 cases of reported between January 1 and March 31 this year — but does Shinde want the debate (over security, seriousness and concern from police and ministers) and protest (against perpetual lack of security, seriousness and concern from police and ministers) to fold up? Or does he want to move it off Delhi — anywhere, just anywhere but Delhi with its scores and scores of mediapersons?
 
2. Even in reading the data put out by NCRB, which, ironically, is under his own ministry, Shinde is woefully short of tolerable intelligence. According to NCRB’s 2011 stats (the latest available), there were 4,489 reported incidents of crime against women in “Delhi (city)”, narrowing down from the rural belts skirting the capital, that year — a hefty 13.3 percent of the total. In the break-up of over 50 major cities, the second one in that list was Bangalore: at 1,860 cases reported, and 5.6 percent.

Zooming in on rape, Delhi city reported 453 cases that year — head and shoulders ahead of Mumbai’s 221.

So is there any wonder people are worried, concerned, fretting, fuming, raging and revolting in Delhi? More so because the police here, among the best in the country, is directly under Shinde’s ministry. So even if you try to shift the argument, the accountability rests firmly with you — of course the others need to pull up their socks, and fast, but you need to pull it up first. And fast.
 
3. Or does Shinde mean since rapes are so common, and the perpetrators are going about their ‘business’ with such alacrity, there is little reason for people to fret and fume over them? Is Shinde tone deaf? Or is he blind to whatever happens around him?

Wake up, sir, smell the coffee and save your ministry further blushes. Shinde should remember his party president Sonia Gandhi, to whom his first salute went after being elevated to the post of home minister (a day after north India saw its worst power outage in history when he was the power minister), has said in the past that there should be zero tolerance for crimes against women. But with his statement in parliament today, Shinde showed quite a bit of tolerance for rape, among other crimes.

But fortunately for Shinde, it might just be mistaken for another of his slip of tongue. Or is it tongue of slip?