Letters: Men singled out

This refers to the report "Demographic dividend fast becoming a curse" (August 30). The views expressed by the author in the report, we are tempted to describe, are "feminine public altruism". The author says, "many (men) are single and sexually frustrated, as the sex ratio has been skewed for several decades". And that "there are about 37 million more men than women in India". According to the Census of India 2011, India's total population is 1.21 billion with a break-up of 623.72 million males and 586.47 million females. It does not mean 37.25 million "extra" men are "single and sexually frustrated".

The author claims that a large body of social sciences research establishes a strong relationship between unemployment and the incidence of crime. However, the positive association between unemployment and crime, in general, and crime against women, in particular, has not been established the way it has between poverty and crime. Take, for example, Moninder Singh Pandher, who was the main accused in the 2006 Noida serial murder case. He was rich. Clearly, he was neither single nor unemployed. The monstrosity of his acts was high, and the subsequent opportunity cost higher. Some of the heinous acts of child sexual abuse that occur within the familial domestic space also remained outside the report. According to research conducted by Julia Whealin, approximately 30 per cent of the perpetrators of child sexual abuse are relatives, most often brothers, fathers, and uncles. How are we then to defend the cases of those countless fathers and uncles who are married and bear kids of their own? One, thus, cannot argue that an unmarried perpetrator's criminal act entails a lower opportunity cost and, therefore, he is more inclined to commit it. To say that single and unemployed men are more prone to engaging in criminal behaviour would be an offensive remark on the entire single male race.

S Naseer Mohamed Jaffer and Ankita Sahoo Bangalore

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