[Kafila] A Modest Proposal for the Castration of Male Police Officers

Saturday, December 31, 2011

[Kafila] A Modest Proposal for the Castration of Male Police Officers

(via Shuddhabrata Sengupta at Kafila)

Dear Kafila Readers,

Here is a modest proposal to castrate police men and male police officers and security forces personnel in India who come into contact with women in the line of duty. I thought it would be an appropriately thoughtful, and at the same time useful and practical way to end a turbulent year. The context from which this modest proposal emerges is elaborated upon below. In a remarkably forthright statement, the chief of police in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Shri Dinesh Reddy in southern India has recently said that ‘fashionably dressed women’, including ‘women who wear salwar kameez in villages’ provoke and invite rape, as men are not able to control their ‘sexual jealousy’ and the ‘police are not able to control men’.The Indian Express and Asian News International (see below) have carried reports of this statement.

Incidentally, the last few years have shown a high incidence of custodial rape all over India, where police men and security forces personnel have raped women detained by them. According to some reports, these incidents are on the rise. In other words, police men are increasingly unable to control the men that they themselves are.

Since it is unlikely that women will not be arrested and detained by policemen and security forces personnel in India in the forseeable future, the only way to prevent the offense of ‘custodial rape’, following from Shri Dinesh Reddy’s insight, would be to castrate all policemen, male police officers and security forces personnel (for their own good). At least this way, police men and other masculine custodians of law, order and national security will be prevented from being ‘provoked’ by the mere presence of ‘salwar kameez’ clad women, or otherwise ‘fashionably’ dressed members of the female sex.

This way, our honorable men in uniform will be protected from their feelings of ‘sexual jealousy’ and the trap of being provoked into unwittingly having to rape the next woman who happens to be in their custody.

A good beginning can be made with the castration of the chief of police of Andhra Pradesh, Shri Dinesh Reddy himself,who has done us all the favor of pointing out the enormity of the problem that affects men in general, (and therefore, men in uniform, in particular). There are humane and painless chemical methods available, including multiple, high-dosage injections of that well known ingestible contraceptive depo-provera. if these methods prove expensive, there is a lot to learn from veterinary science, where the Burdizzo method (involving the skilled use of pliers) and sharp surgical implements (under localized anesthesia, so that the police officer concerned remains fully sentient and aware as he consents to be ‘protected’ from provocation) are also viable and affordable options. Of course, such operations should only be performed under strict medical supervision and in keeping with the highest standards of hygiene, as commonly found in police lock ups through out the length and breadth of our fortunate Republic.