“It’s unfortunate, strict action should be taken. Parliament passed a stringent law; it should help punish the guilty.”
Meira Kumar, Lok Sabha speaker
 
“There should be strict action against the accused. We should use them as an example to ensure that no one else would dare to commit such an act again.”
Naresh Agarwal, Samajwadi Party MP
 
“This is a ghastly crime…. My only appeal is to the Mumbai police, to catch those responsible for this incident.”
Rajiv Pratap Rudy, BJP MP
 
“These people do not fear the law. I condemn this horrid crime. The government must take action.”
Najma Heptullah, BJP
 
“It is the responsibility of the government to provide security.... Will law be confined only to paper?”
Smriti Irani, BJP
 
These are but only some of the remarks of the members of parliament. They are anguished for an obvious reason – they were speaking just a day after a 22-year-old photojournalist was gangraped in Mumbai on Thursday (August 22) evening.

But a casual look at the ostensibly cursory anguish is enough to give away most. While those close to the treasury benches are horrified and are calling for stringent action, those on the other side are pinning the blame on the government. It’s the ruling coalition’s fault, they seem to say. So give us a chance in 2014, or even earlier if the next elections polls are nearer, they seem to imply.

What no one seems to address is the sloppy implementation of laws these anguished lawmakers pass. They said, in no unequivocal terms, after a 23-year-old was gangraped and battered in a bus in south Delhi on December 16 that such crimes should get “exemplary punishment”. There were tears and tens of emotion-choked voice in parliament when Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 – the “new law”, as Meira Kumar puts it – was passed by both houses in March. But the fast-track court to try the accused in the Delhi gangrape was up and running much before that.

It was also decided to try all rape cases in Delhi in such fast-track courts. In fact, according to a report in the Indian Express on January 27, the three fast-track courts set up in Delhi to try rape cases received over 500 cases within just the first three weeks.
 
ALSO READ: Gangrape: pause for 14 days, how fast is fast-track in India?
 
But nearly eight months on, the trial in the December 16 gangrape case itself is still far from conclusion. And that is precisely where calls for “strict action” and “stringent”, indeed “exemplary”, punishment end – winding up their tails and off to sleep, at least for the next few months till the next big rape (small ones in small towns do not count for most part) takes place.

But instead of seeing how the legal system can move at a faster clip, or fast-track courts can respect the adjective ‘fast’, these worthies in parliament, more so the government that is expected to move things forward, do their own, arguably inane, things. Like law minister Kapil Sibal taking on Narendra Modi or the planning commission’s definition of poverty, or discussing how best to challenge the supreme court’s ruling on disqualification of MPs and MLAs who are convicted in criminal cases.

Or information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari suggesting making it mandatory for journalists to take some sort of common examination and get licence to practise.

Both, by the way, are lawyers by qualification. It might just be better for the country if they use their legal, political and other wisdom and acumen on streamlining and fast-tracking the legal system. If you cannot stop rapes from taking place (home minister Sushilkumar Shinde remains down with foot-in-mouth syndrome half the time), at least you can try the suspects faster and give the victims and their family and friends a sense of justice.

Till then, it might just be better for the nation to suffer, protest, rage and fume on their own without parliamentarians letting the people know that a gangrape is an “unfortunate” incident.