Crime and Punishment
The cause is more relevant than the act. The story is more intriguing than the conclusion.
When confronted by a choice of entertainment versus rationality, we often choose to slide with the former. I recall reading the stories of Panchtantra, Akbar Birbal, Tenali Rama, and Vikram Betal with much fascination as a child. Several of these tales revolved around solving crimes, punishing the culprit, and providing justice to the innocent. Often reminding us that in an ideal kingdom, the scales of justice are always kept in balance. Fast forward to contemporary times, and the crime rates are much higher than anyone in these stories could have ever contemplated. The issues of public inconvenience today aren’t merely one farmer taking the land of another or a potter trying to dupe a customer through a fake pot, we have an assortment of ideas conquering the minds of the bourgeoisie. We do not view crime through the black-and-white filters that our ancestors so eagerly used.
We are gullible; our golden, malleable minds are hammered into thin layers of self-deception. The glorification of serial killers, uncaught criminal offenders, and delinquents through popular media is enough evidence to prove the spectators’ fondness for evil heroes. Often, these villains are more popular than their heroic counterparts. The Joker, Hannibal, Cruella de Vil, and Darth Vader, to name a few, only lead to the question of whether a melancholic backstory aligned with cinematic storytelling is all it takes for the public to be sympathetic towards the villain. Of course, there is the thrill of breaking the norms, going against authority, or creating a revolution, but the thin line between causing an uproar for a cause or for the sake of amusement is debatable. The mass appeal of the heist-crime genre goes on to prove that a skilled robber is always appreciated, as long as you are not the one being robbed.
We are stubborn, trying our level best to achieve our targets, sometimes even defying ethical means. As we acknowledge our deep-rooted love for amusement and our conceited ways of driving the odds in our favour, we round back to the classic chicken or egg causality dilemma. What came first? The crime, or the criminal? It is a simple deduction that without the existence of the person who committed a crime, the very act would not have existed, and simultaneously, the person would not be a criminal if the crime existed but wasn’t committed by him. This cause-and-effect theory, however, leads to another dilemma: whether it’s okay to commit a crime as long as one isn’t caught. Apart from the moral repercussions on conscience, the person isn’t technically a criminal, hence finding the means to their ambition through a crooked yet successful way. It is this hope of having good enough luck that prompts us to take a bite of the forbidden fruit. Instead, we are exiled from heaven.
We are human. While we stand on a pedestal of our own making, we look down on the rest of the world, which doesn’t get us. It is the self-gloating of finding one’s own life more complicated than the rest that makes us more ordinary. If you ever commit a crime, it becomes an important event in the story of your otherwise mundane life. An assortment of ideas conquers your puny head. A feeling of caughtedness keeps you vigilant at all times. Or as Dostoyevsky puts it, "The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment." This matter of giving apt punishments has instigated several law books and constitutions around the world. Whether the purpose of justice is reprimanding the criminal or redemption, one certain thing is the influence of a multitude of factors while imparting justice. Justice is not the same for everyone. The whole idea of crime and punishment is an absurd cycle where the life of a criminal wrung out of society depends on the laws of society. In conclusion, it only feels justified to question our metaphors for life and ask: if life is a battlefield, who are we fighting against?