In an era where reading bad news has become a daily staple and the severity of crimes have turned ghastly by the day, the incident from Satara, where a father raped his own daughter and impregnated her, is exceptionally disgusting and repulsive. What does this say about our plunging moral ecosystem?

One of the worst crimes that can be committed is where one violates a person who one is expected to protect. A father’s relationship with his daughter is fiduciary, ie. one of trust. He is not just a financial provider to her, but is also her greatest source of protection in a dangerous world. When the protector turns defiler, can there be a crime worse than that? In this situation, it’s not just a sex crime that’s being perpetrated. The real crime in this situation is betrayal of that trust. Having been violated by her own father, the 13-year-old, has lost the ability to strike any healthy relationships during the course of her life. Her ability to think and believe in the inherent goodness of mankind has perhaps been tarnished forever.