WHAT IS BEHIND HUMAN KILLINGS IN INDIA?

The lowest reported homicide rate in the world is 0.2 per one lakh and the highest are El Salvador with 82.84 and Honduras with 56.52. Major factors contribute high rate of murder in a country are corruption among the authorities, poor rate of weapon control and a flawed system of justice. Countries with lowest homicide rate are, Japan (0.2), Singapore (0.2), Hong Kong (0.3), Luxembourg (0.3) and Indonesia (0.4). In the highest rate category, after El Salvador and Honduras are Venezuela (56.33), Virgin Islands (49.26) and Jamaica (47.02) are on top. Among the major countries, the rates are, Russia (10.82), USA (5.35), India (3.22), Canada (1.68), France (1.35), UK (1.20), Germany (1.18), Australia (0.94), Italy (0.67) and China (0.62)

Let us now focus on India. In India the number of homicides fell from 48,167 in 2000 to 46,460 in 2010, 44,373 in 2015 and 42,678 in 2016. Some of us may think that in a country like ours such amount of homicides are not much. On the other hand we my look into those countries where population is less than 50,000.

 

According to NCRB data, love affairs is one of the major motives of homicides in India. NCRB registered 36,202 cases of murders in 2001 and 28,653 in 2017. Of course, there is a downward trend. It is worth to note that while there were 252 terrorist killings in India in 2012, the murders committed were 43,355. Other than love affairs, conflicts among different religious faith also significantly contribute for homicides in India. However the fundamental cause for killing a person by another is nothing but lack of proper education. The prime motive for education in our country is to make the students to earn their livelihood. What are the problems an average citizen faced in our country each day is not at all listed in our syllabus for teaching. Another major cause for killings is ineffective law and order system prevailing in our country. Even people used to say that if one have money and political power, such one can commit crime and get scot free here. Drugs and alcohol too have considerable influence in committing crime. Television and cinema too have their own share in creating criminals. Lack of care from parents may also tend to take one on the wrong path. Poverty too remains to be an influencing factor. The most heinous crime must be killing one's own wife in the name of dowry. According to National Crime Records Bureau, every hour one woman becomes a victim of dowry death in India. We have Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Home Affairs, Nirbhaya Fund for enhancing safety and security for women. National Commission for Women is the statutory body of the Government of India generally concerned with advising the government on all policy matters affecting women. More than all these there are countless numbers of women's organisations all over the country. Despite all these the safety of women remains to be a distant dream. According to reliable sources Kerala displayed stark and persistent dowry inflation since 1970s and has the highest average dowry in recent years. The inflatory trends follows after Kerala are Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat.

However the truth behind all these is that if a ruling government earnestly make an attempt to resolve the whole issue, towards that goal we may have to strengthen the law including strict adherence. Create a purpose oriented educational system. Ensure religions to remain in their marked boundaries without interference with the social activities. Narcotics may be totally banned from the country. Above all, ensure that the law is strictly adhered to.

We in India have all major religions of the world. Unfortunately, none of these religions could reach the hearts of the people. We have hundreds and thousands of gods here but none of them could reform the people. Large number of age old religious scriptures we have but none could teach the people to love one another.

(Indebted to world populationreview.com and UN report quoted by business-standard.com)

K V George