[One of the most
gruesome incidents has happened on 15th March 2013,when a Swiss women was
brutally gang raped right in the presence of her husband. As reported by the Journal,
A SWISS FEMALE tourist was gang-raped in central India in front of her husband,
police said today, renewing the focus on the issue of sexual violence against
women in the South Asian nations. The woman was on a cycling trip with her
husband in impoverished state of Madhya Pradesh, when seven to eight men
attacked the couple on Friday night while they were camping, sexually
assaulting the woman and robbing the pair, police said. The attackers “tied up
the man and raped the woman in his presence”, local police official S.M. Afzal
told AFP, adding that they stole 10,000 rupees ($185) and a mobile phone from
the woman. The attack comes just months after thousands took to the streets to
protest against India’s treatment of women following the fatal gang-rape of a
23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.]
By Adeela Naureen and
Umar Waqar
As reported by Russian
TV (RT), a young Indian woman was hospitalised in critical condition after
throwing herself off a moving train in an attempt to escape molestation. It’s
the latest in a number of incidents that have exposed the vulnerability of
women in India. The 25-year-old woman jumped from the carriage of a moving
train after allegedly being molested by a soldier. The attack occurred in
January while the train was en route from Darjeeling to Delhi. The man groped
her after she had visited the lavatory. After pushing him back, the woman
jumped from the Brahmaputra Mail line train. The mother of two is being treated
in hospital in the city of Patna.
( Video: The Himalayan Voice)
The data provided by
official sources in India indicates that on the average a women is raped every
ten minutes across Incredible India (this does not include the three out of
four cases which are not reported, making it one rape in every two minutes).
One of the most
gruesome incidents has happened on 15th March 2013,when a Swiss women was
brutally gang raped right in the presence of her husband. As reported by the Journal,
A SWISS FEMALE tourist was gang-raped in central India in front of her husband,
police said today, renewing the focus on the issue of sexual violence against
women in the South Asian nations. The woman was on a cycling trip with her
husband in impoverished state of Madhya Pradesh, when seven to eight men
attacked the couple on Friday night while they were camping, sexually
assaulting the woman and robbing the pair, police said. The attackers “tied up
the man and raped the woman in his presence”, local police official S.M. Afzal
told AFP, adding that they stole 10,000 rupees ($185) and a mobile phone from
the woman. The attack comes just months after thousands took to the streets to
protest against India’s treatment of women following the fatal gang-rape of a
23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.
In our opinion there
is nothing surprising, we have probably not realised that Indian culture has
undergone transformation over the last
two decades or so. The Eastern culture was abandoned and lead to
westernized culture copied without much thinking and soul searching. Half of
Bollywood films and TV soaps have been cultivating culture of hooliganism and
rape mentality, where the villain or Khalnaik was eulogized as something big
and symbol of muscularity. For immature youth searching for jobs and identity
in the poor neighbourhoods of Indian cities and villages, rape has become an
expression of anger and frustration. As the yawning class gap between haves and
have-nots is reaching a breaking point, the bewildered youth is becoming
disillusioned and frustrated. On one side we have some cultural warriors
disguised as Hinduvta moral flag bearers, beating innocent young girls for not
following norms of prescribed morality, on the other side are gangs of youth
committing heinous crimes like the few described in this article.
Delhi is unofficially
known as the Rape Capital of the World and India is becoming notorious for
being the Rape Haven of the Globe. One of the commentators on the news of this
rape in the Hindu Newspaper had following to say, Disgusting beasts are roaming
everywhere. We are getting the reputation of a filthy society where women are
raped, tortured, killed. Gone are the days when we were boasting ourselves as a
very old civilization. If the things will continue like this nobody will
venture in our country. When there will be tough law to protect girl child and
stop infanticide of girl child?
Although India
champions the women rights and democracy, the tradition of Sati has lived till
not very distant past, as reported by RT, India’s most infamous Sati case took
place in the village of Devrala exactly 22 years ago. 18-year-old Roop Kanwar
committed Sati on the funeral pyre of her husband right in the centre of the
village in 1987. It shocked the entire nation, and it strengthened the laws
against Sati. Yet the villagers of Devrala have erected a makeshift shrine to
Roop Kanwar . So even though the practice itself is banned, the glorification
of Sati lives on.In fact, India has at least 250 Sati temples, including 11 in
the district of Sikar alone. Women who commit Sati are worshipped as Sati Devi
or a goddess. In Hindu tradition, Sati is an act of piety, and is said to purge
a woman of all accumulated sin. No wonder then that villagers from the
surrounding region visit this temple for her blessings.
The question of women
rights and women equality in India appears to be an eye wash when cases of rape
are combined with infanticide of the Girl Child. The Atlantic in its article
published on 25 May 2012 described the female infanticide as, thousands of baby
girls are abandoned each year, an extension of sex selection practices that,
according to a 2011 study in The Lancet, include half a million abortions in
India every year. Most abandoned babies die, but a few are rescued. While the
statistics on the number of babies killed or abandoned at birth are murky , the
vast majority go unreported — the radically skewed sex ratio of children under
six years of age is an inescapable indication. One study concluded that Indian
households actually killed 3 million girl children through systematic
infanticide from 2001 to 2011.
The question of women
rights and her ability to breathe freely in Incredible India is deep rooted in
Hindu culture and history. From Rajput women burning at the pyre of their dead
husbands in the inglorious tradition of Sati to onslaught of a naked culture
prescribed and promulgated by Bollywood to mass scale infanticide of girl
children, India has to not only clean up her past but also find a way out into
future, as present is laced with mine field of suffocating space for Indian
women.