Indifference To Rape

"It is a matter of shame that these incidents recur with painful regularity and that our daughters, sisters and mothers are unsafe in our capital city."
Sonia Gandhi

It is also rather ironic that Sonia Gandhi, wife of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and daughter-in-law of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, mother of Rajiv, (both assassinated in this violent society) and now herself leader of the ruling Congress Party, was born in Italy, another country for which female safety and security remains a problem in a patriarchal society.  Molestation of women is rampant in both countries.

But in India, violation of women's human rights and the sanctity of their person has become hugely endemic.  Groping in crowded public transportation vehicles has become all too common.  And violent rapes - against girls and women - have reached epidemic proportions.  In the wake of a bestial rape of a medical school university student that has left her on medical life support the country is enraged.

In India there are so many complaints to authorities about sexual intimidation, about sexual crimes and rapes and dreadful acts of violence, no one in authority seems to be taking them too seriously.  All too often there is no follow-up, and nothing is done to apprehend the criminals who prey on women.  Now, in the wake of an international embarrassment that has brought women out in droves to protest in the streets, politicians are taking notice.

Indian activists shout slogans outside Delhi's chief minister residence during a protest in New Delhi on December 19, 2012.(AFP Photo / Sajjad Hussain)

Now, opposition lawmakers have joined the protests outside Parliament, calling for rape to be considered a capital crime.  Home Minister Sushil Kumar has ordered an increased police patrol presence on city streets, particularly during the dark hours.  The government has introduced bills to increase punishment for rapes and other crimes committed against women, but they haven't been moved to legislation.

From rare prosecutions of rapes and commissions of other forms of violence against women, capital punishment demands. Thousands of demonstrators have thronged onto streets before New Delhi's police headquarters, made their appearances before Parliament, and swelled their numbers in front of a major university where angry university students put up roadblocks causing traffic jams.  Demanding the attention of the public.


The anger against the recent gang-rape of a student on moving bus found reflection on streets and in Parliament as well. Students and women activists came together on Delhi streets to protest outside police station probing the rape case even as the victim is battling for her life in the hospital.  The attack sparked new calls for greater security for women in the national Capital. (Sanjeev Verma/ HT Photo)

"We want to jolt people awake from the cozy comfort of their cars. We want people to feel the pain of what women go through every day", Delhi University student Aditi Roy announced.  "This is not about sexuality.  It is about power and violence", said Anupama Ramakrishnan, a sociology student at Delhi University who blamed a "deeply held sense of patriarchy".

The 23-year-old university student who was in the company of a male companion and who boarded a bus home from their night out at a movie theatre was beaten, along with her companion, with an iron rod.  She suffered severe injuries to her head and intestines, requiring multiple surgeries.  She was gang raped, thrown off the bus and left to die.  Although the bus passed several police check points while the violence was occurring on the bus, there were no stops.

There are now calls to outlaw heavily tinted vehicle windows.  "A terrible, terrible atrocity has happened.  I am not going to allow this incident to become another statistic", claimed a member of Parliament during a noisy session in the Upper House.  While leader of the opposition in the Lower House called for the death penalty for rapists: "She will live her whole life as a living corpse if she survives.  Why should there not be the death penalty in such a case?"

And even as India raged against the atrocity that has brought world attention to its reputation as a haven for rapists, catastrophic news came forward of two more young girls who were gang-raped.  The body of a ten-year-old girl was taken out of a canal in Bihar, one of India's most backward states, while a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl was in critical condition after she was raped by four men.