Which Hooligans?

Protesters against a society in which denigration of women in a contemptible dystopian view of women and girls as ready pickings for predatory men were subjected to tear gas, water cannon and batons in Delhi.  The government banned demonstrations but doing so failed to impress the thousands of young people outraged by the perilous security of women in that patriarchal society which has failed to protect women from atrocious male conduct.

The government has sought to close off all venues of potential protest sites.  Effectively shutting down transportation routes as metro stations were closed and roads into the administrative centre of the city were barricaded.  The violent protests against government inaction in the face of dreadful insecurity of Indian women commonly assaulted on public buses, girls abducted, gang raped and left for dead or just killed outright and left to be discovered, continues.

 An Indian policeman beats women protesters with sticks, during a violent demonstration near the India Gate against a gang rape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old student on a bus last week, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012. The attack last Sunday has sparked days of protests across the country. (AP Photo/ Saurabh Das) 

India proudly boasts of itself as the largest democracy in the world.  Most democracies pride themselves on public safety and security.  Most democracies are not venues for their female populations continually being assaulted by criminally violent rapists and murderers. For that matter, most democracies would resist the police temptation to harass and unmercifully beat protesters whose only crime is to decry the gang rape and murder of women and girls.

Scores of people required medical treatment as a result of these violent exchanges with the police.  Little wonder that protesters respond by tossing bottles and rocks at the police, in their turn.  The latest outrage over the gang rape and attempted murder of a 23-year-old female university student and the brutal beating of her male companion who attempted to protect her has activated public rage.  Less is heard about the dreadful atrocities committed on women and girls living in poor jurisdictions.

In a country that has made attempts to turn around long-held traditions that socially isolated and subjugated minorities and women, from the plight of the Dalit (untouchables), to the subservience and sacrifice of women who are widowed (purdah or familial abandonment), the acid attacks on young women, the violent maltreatment of women through intimate violence and honour killings, India has much on its hands.



Those covering the scenes of mayhem and outrage are themselves vulnerable to harm.  A 36-year-old Indian journalist was killed during a protest over yet another, separate sex attack in north-eastern India that took place in Imphal, Nanipur, where an actress/model reported an attempted rape.  Would-be rapists feel impervious to criminal justice, in a society which has traditionally treated rape as an inconvenience to women.

During the protest over the attempted rape when the actress appeared on television to demand justice because a local militant attempted to rape her, the journalist who was in attendance was shot in the chest once the protest turned violent and the police opened fire.  The police firing on protesters.  This is India's answer to its people whose human rights to security and safety are being violated.  The violators escape justice and the protesters are fired upon.

Police are claiming that what begins as peaceful protests degenerate into violence once they have been hijacked by hooligans.  One wonders at the definition of hooligans.  Those who throw stones in frustration at the inactivity and lack of adequate attention by the authorities to the viral assaults against the most vulnerable in society.  While the police, responding to the 'hooligans', use tear gas, water cannon, batons and guns to restore order.