Short skirts, bad stars and chow mein: why India’s women get raped

FIRST PUBLISHED IN REUTERS

The 2012 Delhi bus rape case and an ever-longer list of rapes and murders in India have prompted politicians and public figures in India to cite plenty of implausible reasons why rape happens and why men brutalise women or portray women in ways that suggest they had it coming. Many people when speaking out tend to minimise the crime or rationalise it in ways that sound to ludicrous to many. We created this list of such comments more than a year ago, but it seems like it’s time to add some new entries.

(Updated June 5, 2014) Babulal Gaur again: ”This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong… Until there’s a complaint, nothing can happen,” Gaur told reporters . More, from CNN-IBN : “Unless the person wants, no one can dare touch her. The item numbers in films create a bad environment,” … The minister cited the instance of a Hindi movie actress who was kissed on the cheek by a leading Hollywood actor on stage in Delhi in 2007. The actress had seen nothing wrong with it, he said. He also suggested that women learn karate and judo to defend themselves, CNN-IBN reported. (Reuters and CNN-IBN)

Samajwadi Party leader and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Ram Gopal Yadav, speaking after the recent rape and hanging of two teenaged girls in Uttar Pradesh: ”vulgarity, obscenity and violence shown on TV channels” was to blame for the multiple incidents of rape and assault in UP. He also said, “In many places, when the relationship between girls and boys come out in open, it is termed as rape.” Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, suggested that reporters look on Google to see that UP isn’t the only Indian state where rape happens. (NDTV)

Mulayam Singh Yadav, Samajwadi Party member and former chief minister, Uttar Pradesh: In April, Yadav said : ”Boys and girls ….later they had differences, and the girl went and gave a statement that I have been raped. And then the poor fellows, three of them have been sentenced to death. Should rape cases lead to hanging? Boys are boys, they make mistakes. Two or three have been given the death sentence in Mumbai. We will try and change such laws…we will also ensure punishment of those who report false cases.” (NDTV)

BJP minister from Madhya Pradesh, Babulal Gaur, commenting on a controversy regarding dresses, said “foreign culture” is not good for India. “Women in foreign countries wear jeans and T-shirts, dance with other men and even drink liquor, but that is their culture. It’s good for them, but not for India, where only our traditions and culture are OK.” In what looks like an attempt to hedge his bets, he also said, “Let women consider what is good and bad for them.” (Business Standard)

Shankaracharya of Puri Swami Nischalananda Saraswati declared western influence responsible for destroying the values and principles of the country. “There is need to change this. Before Independence we were able to maintain our culture and values but in the last 65 years we have lost a great part of it. Such horrific incidents don’t happen all of a sudden. They happen when the thin line of culture and values are crossed in the name of civilization and development.” (Times of India)

Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh: “Countries with sex education in their curriculum only have an increased number of crimes against women.” (Indian Express)

Mohan Bhagwat (chief of right-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh): “A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time, the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her.” (NDTV)
More Bhagwat : Villages that embody the spirit of “Bharat” rather than “India” don’t produce a culture of rape. That’s something that you see in areas in which western culture’s poison has seeped into Indian souls, most notably in urban areas.