Delhi gang-rapes

[ArsalanKhan21]

“I am infuriated by India right now”: Delhi gang-rape documentary director lashes out against government ban on “India’s Daughter” - Salon.com

Sunday, Nov 15, 2015 05:30 PM EST
“I am infuriated by India right now”: Delhi gang-rape documentary director lashes out against government ban on “India’s Daughter”
Salon talks to Leslee Udwin about the controversy around "India's Daughter" and to Freida Pinto about her support
Sonia Saraiya Follow

• Topics: India's Daughter, PBS, TV, leslee udwin, freida pinto, Entertainment News
  
  Protesters at India Gate, Delhi in December 2012(Credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
  In 2012, when a young medical student was gang-raped and left for dead on the side of a road in Delhi, India, neither she nor her assailants could have predicted the furor that would follow. India has a problem of systemic, horrific violence against its women—perhaps not more than other nations, but certainly not any better, either. The preconceptions about rape, sexuality and gender were not challenged by any number of stories preceding this one; why should Jyoti Singh’s story be any different?
  
  For whatever reason, it was. Protests shook both the capital city of Delhi—India’s “rape capital“—and outrage spread not just to the rest of India but to the rest of the world. In this climate, Leslee Udwin, a novice filmmaker, went to India to attempt to tell the story of a woman the media was beginning to call “India’s daughter.” The resulting documentary—“India’s Daughter”—is, itself, a remarkably balanced documentary, one that distinguishes itself from other accounts of sexual assault by interviewing the rapists and their team of defense lawyers. The only convicted rapist who admits to what he did was the driver, Mukesh Singh, and interviews with him take up nearly as much screentime as the interviews with Jyoti’s bereaved parents.
  
  What immediately followed the film was controversy. As the New Yorker reports:
  
  After clips of the Mukesh Singh interview began circulating online, the Indian government stopped the scheduled Indian broadcast of “India’s Daughter,” which was set for March 8th, International Women’s Day. On March 4th, a statement from the Indian Home Minister’s office said that the government was enforcing a ban because Udwin hadn’t secured the correct permissions to interview Singh in prison, didn’t abide by agreements to show authorities unedited versions of the interview, and because Singh’s statements are “an affront to the dignity of women.” (Udwin has since published copies of the letters of permission she received.) In another statement, the government warned that clips from the film “appear to encourage and incite violence against women.” Some supporters of the ban say that airing the Singh interview is tantamount to giving a platform to the rapist’s views; others say that the documentary paints sexual violence as an Indian issue rather than a global one, and fear that it will perpetuate a “white-savior” attitude in foreign viewers. That the government finds the film nationally embarrassing is a likely reason for the ban—members of the ruling B.J.P party have stated that the film is part of “an international conspiracy to defame India” and have protested that its release will affect tourism.
  
  India is notorious for banning media that hint at the controversial; restricted topics include homosexuality, alternative histories of Hinduism, examinations of revered politicians, and of course, rape. In this case, as with most of the others, it speaks of cowardice. “India’s Daughter” has benefited from the publicity surrounding the decision, as illegal copies have proliferated online, but the ban effectively stopped the film from being seen by the people it is about — the poorest and most disconnected segments of the population, the ones struggling most to survive in the most populous country in the world.
  
  Beyond the government’s actions, Udwin’s documentary has sparked a conversation that is very familiar to media criticism in 2015—the ongoing questions of who has the right to tell which kinds of stories. Udwin is an Israeli Londoner, and “India’s Daughter” entirely concerns people and events in Northern India. The best intentions in the world cannot erase the racial implications of such a power dynamic, and as “India’s Daughter” has become such an object of discussion in the press, Udwin herself has begun to sound embattled and defensive. I would characterize my own conversation with her as a bit rancorous.
  
  Below is my conversation with Udwin; following that are a few closing thoughts from myself and Freida Pinto, who is an ambassador for “India’s Daugher.”
  
  How did you come to this topic? I know that you are not Indian yourself.
  
  Yes. Well, as a global citizen, and a woman who cares very deeply about the fact that we are still subordinated to men, that we are still lacking in proper respect and representation—true representation, in the world in terms of decision making, in terms of economies and in terms of being independent, and very much in terms of us being unsafe.
  
  We know that on a daily basis, every single second, somewhere a woman or a girl is being violently abused and violated. What brought me to the topic was not so much the rape and the case and the darkness of that. It was the light and the horizon of seeing this mass mobilization of the Indian men and women. It was awe-inspiring to me, to see such mass mobilization on India’s streets fighting for my rights.
  
  I took it personally, and I thought the least I could do—when these people were being so courageous and so committed to this issue, and facing the most ferocious government crackdown on peaceful protesters—the least I could do was make a film that would be like a megaphone for those voices and join in the protest in that way. That was my way of joining them.
  
  So I believe this is your first documentary film, right?
  
  Right, yes, and the first time I’ve directed as well.
  
  How did it even occur to you to make a film about this? Were you hoping to make a film at some point already? Was India set in your sights at that point?
  
  No, no. Not at all. I had no intentions ever of making a documentary film. But it basically took on its own volition. It became a compulsion for me. I didn’t choose to do it. And you know, I didn’t choose India. If these protests had happened in any other country, in any other part of the world, I would’ve gone there and have made that particular case of those protests.
  
  I have been up to this point a producer of feature films. I decided to direct the film because I couldn’t afford to hire a director. But I had so much fire in my belly, I was so utterly compelled to make this film, that I had to just go and do it. Obviously I researched very thoroughly before I did it, I didn’t just step on a plane, but I had to do it and therefore by ordinary means, and the means that I had were private means, whatever I had of family savings. And I’ve used them all. [Laughs.]
  
  Had you been to India before, or was it a completely new experience?
  
  Many times. I’ve had a very close, loving relationship with India, which is why it hurts my heart so much that they have banned this film, you know. And that they even think of accusing me of a conspiracy to shame India—what absolute nonsense. You know, this is a conspiracy to praise India and thank India for being the only country in the world that has come out with such force and vigor and passion and tenacity for women’s rights, to try and make the world a better place for women and girls. There’s not another country on earth that has done that. I went to praise India, not to bury it. Sadly, shame has now appeared to India. But not from the film. From the ban. From the fact that they have banned a film that simply asks for a better world for women and girls. And they have banned the film without even seeing it, which is shameful. It’s so ridiculous.
  
  A lot of the media that I read coming out of India about this film suggested a lot of wounded pride or a sense of violation about having a filmmaker who was not Indian make this story that is centered on India in this way. How did you tackle that concern, and how did you respond to that criticism?
  
  Well, here’s how I respond. I can understand that certain segments of the Indian population — and believe me, they’re in the minority — I can understand that they have a postcolonial chip on their shoulder. This is what this is emanating from. They call me a British journalist. I am neither a journalist nor British, OK. There’s a kind of exterior that has flown in the face of facts and proper research. And that’s very sad. Because it boomerangs back on the people who are bandying these terms about. They call me a “gori.” You know what that means?
  
  I do know what that means.
  
  That’s a derogatory word for a white-skinned person. [Note: The word is used for anyone fair-skinned, including Indians, and is considered mild enough that it is featured in both Bollywood lyrics and “Bend It Like Beckham.”]
  
  I’m Jewish. In my people’s history, there was a Holocaust in Germany. If I lived my life constantly keeping that paramount in my mind and letting that filter what is right and what is wrong in terms of what is happening around me, I wouldn’t move very far. I think it’s backward-looking. They have to forget about the colonial era, and whatever ax they have to grind with the Brits, let them grind it. You know, let them move on from grinding it, actually! It’s not my fight. I’m not British, OK?
  
  Here’s the thing. Any people who refuse to introspect need to really examine their conscience as to why that is. Is your image as a country really more important than saving the lives of your women and girls? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then I’m afraid I don’t have any respect or time for that attitude. You see, I watched as MPs in the Lok Sabha, the Indian Parliament, the morning after the ban were screaming like headless chickens in hysterics. “She’s decimating our tourist industry.” “She’s a conspiracy to shame India,” they were screaming that when they hadn’t even seen the film. There hadn’t even been the possibility for them to see the film because at that point it existed on one thumb drive in my purse. So you know, we shouldn’t give this any credence. We should see it as part of the change-resisting backwards-looking segments of the population. And they don’t only just exist in India. They exist all over the world. There are those people who resist change. There are those people who welcome change and look forward to it. And there are a handful of people who are actively working to change. I know which category I’d like to be in.
  
  So let’s talk a little bit about what is the linchpin of your film, which is this very disturbing set of interviews with Mukesh, one of the convicted rapists.
  
  Correct. Yes. I interviewed seven rapists over 31 hours. Four of them had nothing to do with this case. One of those four had raped a 5-year-old girl. I sat and interviewed him for three hours. And the reason why I interviewed others who were not involved in this particular case was because I felt the need to practice. Because I was raped when I was 18, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve kept silent about it for 20 years. I didn’t know to what degree the demons inside me that I had buried would rise up. Also, I’d never made a documentary before. I’d never interviewed people before. So I was relying on who I am and what I cared about, you know?
  
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  Why did Mukesh end up in the film and not the other two rapists?
  
  Of the four adults who were candidates to be interviewed — because, remember, Ram Singh either committed suicide or had been murdered in the process, and there was the juvenile, whom there was no possibility of interviewing. I did meet him for 10 minutes, and there was a point in which I had been given permission from the magistrate to simply interview him, but not record him, and have his answers transcribed. And then, the magistrate changed her mind, so I couldn’t do that any longer. Now, one of these four men refused to meet me altogether – Akshay Thakur, the one with the wife and baby in the film.
  
  And the two younger ones — whom I sat with over two sessions, for three hours each — they were still maintaining that they were not on the bus. [Here Udwin pauses, as if waiting for me to respond.] They were saying that they were at a music festival—and that music festival was proven by the court not to have existed. They were either in denial, or trying to deny, or mouthing what their lawyers were telling them to say until the appeal. So, there was absolutely no point in including them in the film. What do we gain by them saying they weren’t there? Mukesh spoke very openly and very honestly.
  
  That’s strange that he would be honest when —
  
  I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why he was being honest. For the same reason. Because he and not a single one of the other rapists I spoke to held any remorse. Really, deep down, they do not believe they did anything wrong. And that is the truth. Their attitude is indignant, in fact. Everybody is doing it, so why are they made an example of? Indeed, from Mukesh’s point of view, why is he being given the death sentence, when there are worse and equally bad crimes, et cetera. That is why he spoke so honestly.
  
  As horrible as it is, one of the things your film demonstrates well is that he has a point. There is something about this that really struck a nerve in a way that nothing else had before.
  
  Where are the protests now about the 2-and-a-half and 5-year-old girls who were gang-raped last weekend in Delhi? Where are the protests about the 4-year-girl, who in the previous weekend, lay in the same hospital that Jyoti laid in, and had been slashed from vagina to anus by three adults who had gang-raped her? Four years old, and she wound up having a three-hour operation to have a colostomy bag fitted. Where are the protests?
  
  What do you think? Where do you think they are?
  
  Well, I think that people feel so hopeless about this. We must have sunk so low in terms of our moral crisis in this world. We have woefully and irresponsibly neglected to educate our children. And of course, we have a lot of people, and that has to be said, who don’t even have access of education. But putting that aside, the people who do have access to education do not have access to the right kind of education because they are educating their heads, and not their hearts.
  
  We are responsible, as a world, to lead our children, at that crucial period between 3 and 5 years old when neuroscience tells us is the only window to cognitively modify a human being, to change attitudes, change behavior and build attitude. After that, it is all over.
  
  How irresponsible have we been not to teach our children the value of another human being? To respect moral values. No wonder we are in the state we are in. And I saw people being so cowed by all of this that they become apathetic. It’s too vast a problem to do anything about it.
  
  I, at least, have committed my life. I am not making any more films until I get as many countries in the world, who will be enlightened to do so, to co-op this global human rights initiative that I am spearheading and advising the U.N. Human Rights Office on, and have absolutely extraordinary visionaries as patrons on the committee. We are constructing a global human rights curriculum from day one of the entry of the child to school — on a compulsory basis. I got eight countries already, and I will not stop until I get the rest.
  
  What are the eight countries so far?
  
  That I will not tell you because I am saving it for the launch, when we announce it.
  
  This ban illustrates a lot things, but at least in part it illustrates India’s desire to handle this problem of rape in a different way, and in some quarters, their own way. This education initiative sounds that it would be a top-down thing. Do you think that would ruffle feathers in the same way as the film did?
  
  Why is this film preventing them from handling things their own way? Why are they choosing to be mutually exclusive? The ban does not illustrate that they want to handle things their own way. The ban illustrates that they don’t want to face it. We have to call a spade a spade. The ban illustrates that they are pretending it doesn’t exist, or at least, they don’t want the world to think it exists there.
  
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  They don’t want to decimate their tourist industry. These are very shallow considerations, when weighed up against the violation of the human rights of women and girls, and violence that is perpetrated against them on a daily basis. A lot of countries in the world are perfectly willing to introspect when they see this film. When I show this film in America, we talk about the fact that there is one in four girls in college campuses are raped. We talk about the fact that women in America get 78 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. We talk about the fact that whereas India has article 14 of its constitution, which confers equal rights on women, America still does not have that much respect for women in its constitution, in its law. That has been resisted, and the Equal Rights Amendment acts is still not ratified. And that is shameful.
  
  Now, when we talk about these things, do you think an American audience can resist that? Absolutely, not. They’re responsible about it. They say, “Yes, we will hold our hands up. This is appalling. We have to do something about it.” Why can’t India just say the same? India, alone in the whole world, is simply not owning up to it.
  
  Do you feel that your affection for India has changed?
  
  I love India. I love India. I am infuriated by India right now. It really cracked my heart in two. I don’t like it when a section of the Indian population sends me tweets like: “White bitch, you deserve to be raped!” I don’t like it when they send me tweets threatening my life. Or send me pornography on the Internet. I don’t like that. It upsets and infuriate me, but I am not idiot enough to think this is a sign of Indians. This is a minority of people; every country has pathetic people, who simply resist change. And that is what emanates from.
  
  And I am really hurt that the Indian government banned this film without seeing it, and refused to call me. I was on television in Delhi, begging them to call me and ask me any questions they’d like answered. They didn’t want to because they didn’t want to hear the truth. They made a big mistake in banning this film. They should simply put those aside. Those are pathetic considerations, when you consider the issues that are at the heart of this. And anyone who prefers to bury their sand rather than address an issue of this magnitude, I’m afraid lacks respect from me.
  
  * * *
  
  A coda, of sorts. Udwin was not very happy with me by the end of this interview. But I also spoke to one of the film’s ambassadors, the actress Freida Pinto. Meryl Streep and Dakota Fanning have also been involved with promoting the film, but I was most interested in Pinto’s inclusion. The lead actress in the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire” was herself born and raised in the environs of Mumbai. In my brief conversation with Pinto, I asked her why she stood by this documentary, when many other Indians didn’t.
  
  She explained: “I support the documentary for the truth that it comes with.” In her view, other Indians had difficulty accepting the film because of a sense of “misplaced national pride.”
  
  “That comes into the picture when there is a certain truth, as ugly as it might be, shown to us by an outsider. But sometimes, it is actually more effective, because the outsider does come with a fresher perspective… It’s so easy to get caught up in the blame game of it all, especially when something is kind of bitter.”
  
  Udwin, Pinto and even the rapists in “India’s Daughter” express surprise at why Jyoti Singh’s particular tragic story so rocked the nation in December 2012. Pinto offered me her theory as to why her story was the tipping point:
  
  She was a medical student, very aspirational, much like most of the college students who were out on the street protesting. This is a woman who basically had a chance to transform her own life and her parents’. She was very ambitious, and in many ways she was already a fighter, with what she was doing in her life. People love rooting for fighters, we all know that.
  
  This girl’s life was taken away from her, in a way that no one expected. It wasn’t a road accident, she wasn’t ill. She was doing something that was absolutely the most normal thing to do—which is watch “Life of Pi” one night. And then something as horrific as a gang rape on the bus followed that.
  
  Yes, we hear about rapes all the time, in different parts of the country, but in terms of her being an early 20s aspirational girl, that is something we probably had not heard of on this level. Also the brutality of the crime itself got everybody’s attention. Sometimes, I wish people did not focus on the brutality of the crime, because it really does not help the problem. And the brutality of the crime, in such brutal terms, has happened many times before. I think the number one aspect was that she was an aspirational girl just like you and I.
  
  “India’s Daughter” airs Monday on PBS at 10 p.m.
  
  
  
  Sonia Saraiya is Salon's television critic.
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[ArsalanKhan21]

Why Indian women want to ‘break the cage’ on campus | Toronto Star

Why Indian women want to ‘break the cage’ on campus
Female students launched campus campaign called “Pinjra Tod,” or “Break the Cage,” to show curfews to keep women safe invade their privacy, restrict freedom, mobility.

Rama Lakshmi / The Washington Post

Utsah Sarmin, a 21-year old graduate student of political science, left, lives in a college dorm in Delhi University in New Delhi, India. Female students say strict dorm rules designed to keep them safe invade their privacy and restrict their freedom and mobility.

By: Rama Lakshmi The Washington Post, Published on Thu Oct 22 2015
NEW DELHI—Nilanjana Paul is a female college freshman living in a dorm in India, which means many of the things college students routinely do in other parts of the world are off limits to her.

When she’d like to stay out late with friends or study at the campus library until midnight, she can’t because the rules in her women-only dorm at Delhi University say all students must be in their rooms by 8 p.m.

And whenever she does leave the dorm, she says, she’s peppered with intrusive questions from the dorm warden: Where is she going? What is the name and phone number of the person she’s meeting? When will she return?

University officials say it’s all in the name of safety in a city where sexual assaults against women are on the rise.

But Paul and scores of other students recently launched a campus campaign called “Pinjra Tod,” or “Break the Cage,” to point out that the curfews to keep women safe are also an invasion of privacy that restricts their freedom and mobility.

In the past month, students have conducted a late-night march, a public hearing to air complaints, and organized signature campaigns, online petitions and classroom discussions. They have chanted slogans such as “break the locks!” and spray-painted graffiti on dormitory walls and grounds saying “I am out tonight.”

The students are demanding changes to what they call unreasonable curfew times and repeating an ever-present question in the public debate about women’s safety in India: Is keeping women indoors after dark the only way to keep them safe?

“Why do I have to write the purpose on my forehead if I want to go out?” Paul asked, exasperated.

“Why can’t I just go out aimlessly and meet friends and stroll?

“Am I inside a cage?”

More than 1,800 incidents of rape were reported in New Delhi last year, and the city is being called India’s “rape capital.”

But, as women in India report increasing incidents of sexual assault, India’s politicians, community leaders and even police officers have continued to blame women’s clothing and behaviour.

Nationwide anti-rape protests in 2012, which were triggered after a young woman was fatally gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi, and other smaller, local campaigns across India have opposed such curbs on women’s mobility.

“What we are seeing is the flowering of a new generation of women’s movement in India,” said Kavita Krishnan, a leading women’s rights activist and a prominent leader in the anti-rape protests in 2012.

“It is coming out of the tension created by the new economic climate where you want to send more and more women into higher education and workplaces, but you want to control their behaviour in the name of tradition.”

In response to rising sexual assaults, a women-only culture has gained ground in India; there are more women-only buses, cabs, travel groups and women’s coaches on the Metro.

But activists are also pushing back with popular campaigns such as “Why loiter?,” which urges women to wander without any apparent purpose and reclaim public spaces that are mostly inhabited by men.

The Delhi campus campaign has echoes of the global “take-back-the-night” movement.

“The city will become safe, not by having less women in public spaces after dark, but by having more women. When will they get it?” asked Utsa Sarmin, a 21-year-old political science graduate student.

As students marched past several dorms late one night this month, they carried a placard that said “Stop Treating Us Like Infants.”

They tore up and burned a dorm rule book and gate registers that record their in time and out time.

“If we ask to go out, they say, ‘You are asking for too much freedom.’ They threaten to call our parents to tell them, ‘Your daughter is going astray; she wants to roam around at night,’ ” Paul said at one of the marches.

Most parents want the curfews, university authorities say.

“Parents see these rules as critical to keeping their daughters safe in college; they would hold us responsible if something were to go wrong,” said Pratibha Jolly, principal of a prestigious women’s college in Delhi University called Miranda House, whose dorm has about 350 students.

“If the students want more freedom, they need to negotiate it with their parents, instead of us.”

The Delhi University is a sprawling open campus and not walled or gated.

“You can’t just go about for a post-dinner stroll. There are areas which are not well-lit,” Jolly added.

“We are a women’s college that gives wings to the students; we are not a prison.”

The campaign against dorm rules began after one of the universities in the city, Jamia Millia Islamia, decided to cancel the two late nights that were allowed to the women in their dorm because of safety concerns.

Student outrage followed immediately.

What began as rants on social media quickly gathered steam.

Now student groups from other cities have also reached out to the protesters in New Delhi, sharing stories about similar restrictions.

Last week, students at an Urdu language university in the southern city of Hyderabad protested successfully and managed to extend their curfew from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Students say that, in the past few years, they have fought for more womens’ toilets, more vending machines for sanitary napkins, and better street lighting on campus.

“Do not take our freedom away in the name of safety!” said Avantika Tewari, a 21-year-old political science student.

“Our ‘Break-The-Cage’ campaign is part of the ongoing safe-campus movement.

“At least give us access to libraries after dark. Why should the boys be the only ones using libraries till late?”

Students say that college dorms must extend the return times for female students to 30 minutes after the last Metro train pulls into the university station.

“I am new to this city and want to explore it,” Paul said.

“I want the return time to be extended to at least 11 p.m.

“And I want the taunting and the questioning to stop.

“I am an adult. I am old enough to vote.”

 

[Jacob Martin]

Can you change the heading. It's not about a gang-rape. It's not even an update on a gang-rape. It's a news piece on the director who made a documentary on a gang-rape.

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

Delhi Nirbhaya Full Documentary BBC Storyville India's Daughter - vidme

 

[Sheikh Rauf]

Thats sad... world biggest democrasy cant control this sickness in its own capital...
This is sickness which is spreading in india in face of hateism against other race and religion aswell..
Imagin this kind of sick mind spread to world even if they are educated... its another kind of terrorism which we gonna face.

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

#HerVoice campaign is launched to tackle India's rape culture

#HerVoice campaign is launched to tackle India's rape culture
"We owe it to the women of India to stand in solidarity with them now"


By Harriet Thurley
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In September, two sisters from a northern state of India were sentenced to be raped and paraded naked through their village with their faces blackened.

It was punishment for their brother's actions – he'd had an affair with a married woman from an upper class; one implemented by the 'Khap Courts', a group of village elders, who hold no legal standing, but are incredibly powerful at a local level.

This is barely comprehensible, but horrendously, in India, is nothing new. Rape as punishment, marital rape and rape to exert power, even rape because the perpetrator doesn't understand it's wrong, is happening at an alarming rate. According to the statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau of India, one woman is raped every 34 minutes.

Now, a campaign to tackle this rape culture has been launched, and it's calling on the Indian government to strengthen anti-rape laws and end the atrocious violence against women and children.

#HerVoice is supported by nine non-governmental organisations (NGOs), ones that deliver preventative and protection projects to women in communities across India. They're also often the first and only emergency services for women facing violence in India.

"The politicians and institutions of society are corrupt, which leads to the emergence of criminal elements in society," says social activist Anna Hazare, in the Independent. "It is only pressure groups, like #HerVoice, that can fix this."

The campaign is asking people worldwide to sign their petition, and share the #HerVoice hashtag on social media platforms.

Jenn Selby, a #HerVoice campaigner, told Cosmopolitan,

"In India, survivors [of attacks] are often cast out by their families, shamed by their communities, disbelieved by police and blackmailed by their attackers.Without raising awareness about the sheer numbers of violent attacks [the NGOs] are dealing with on a weekly basis, and calling on the government to ensure that anti-rape laws are being absolutely upheld at local level, India is sentencing millions of women to a lifetime of fear and oppression.We owe it to the women of India, as fellow human beings, to stand in solidarity with them now."

Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, one of the Indian NGO partners behind the #HerVoice campaign, survived gang rape when she was 15.

"A world free of sexual violence cannot happen by the intervention of a selected few," she said. "It can only happen if all of us make it our personal choice to stand up and fight."

For more information about the campaign, visit Withhervoice.org.

 

[Vedicity]

Rape is linked to the vegetarian diet. If Indians start eating beef, the rape problem would be much reduced.

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

In India a Cow is more safe than a girl !

Lucknow: 16-yr-old Unnao rape victim gives birth | The Indian Express

Lucknow: 16-yr-old Unnao rape victim gives birth
Both the accused were arrested later and are in jail.

• Comments (0)

Written by Manish Sahu | Lucknow | Published:November 18, 2015 1:03 am

The girl was allegedly raped by two persons from her village several times in April. Her father initially lodged a molestation case.
A 16-year-old rape victim, who became pregnant following the assault, gave birth to a girl child at the Unnao district hospital Monday.

Doctors of the hospital said the condition of the mother and child was normal.


The girl was allegedly raped by two persons from her village several times in April. Her father initially lodged a molestation case. The accused were later charged with rape after she was found to be four months pregnant.

Both the accused were arrested later and are in jail.

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On Tuesday, Unnao district administration suspended an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife for not following due medical procedure during the victim’s pregnancy. “Auxiliary Nurse Midwife Ram Kranti was suspended because she did not give injections required to the girl during her pregnancy,” said Chief Medical Officer, Unnao, Dr Geeta Yadav. The hospital’s chief medical superintendent Dr Saroj Srivastava said the mother and child would be discharged after four days.

On May 15, the victim’s father had lodged a case against Munna Singh (42) and Mathai (20) for allegedly molesting his daughter when she went to the field.

The duo were also booked under Protection of Child from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).

Investigating Officer, sub-inspector Pramod Kumar Yadav, said the victim’s younger sister and her father had earlier said she had been raped. But, the victim herself said before a magistrate in May that she had not been raped, said Yadav.

He added that nearly one-and-a-half months later, the victim’s father told the police that she was pregnant and a medical test revealed that she was four months pregnant.

“The rape charge was included and the accused were arrested on July 10. The victim later admitted that they had raped her several times,” he said

 

[Blue Marlin]

“I am infuriated by India right now”: Delhi gang-rape documentary director lashes out against government ban on “India’s Daughter” - Salon.com

Sunday, Nov 15, 2015 05:30 PM EST
“I am infuriated by India right now”: Delhi gang-rape documentary director lashes out against government ban on “India’s Daughter”
Salon talks to Leslee Udwin about the controversy around "India's Daughter" and to Freida Pinto about her support
Sonia Saraiya Follow

• Topics: India's Daughter, PBS, TV, leslee udwin, freida pinto, Entertainment News
  
  Protesters at India Gate, Delhi in December 2012(Credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
  In 2012, when a young medical student was gang-raped and left for dead on the side of a road in Delhi, India, neither she nor her assailants could have predicted the furor that would follow. India has a problem of systemic, horrific violence against its women—perhaps not more than other nations, but certainly not any better, either. The preconceptions about rape, sexuality and gender were not challenged by any number of stories preceding this one; why should Jyoti Singh’s story be any different?
  
  For whatever reason, it was. Protests shook both the capital city of Delhi—India’s “rape capital“—and outrage spread not just to the rest of India but to the rest of the world. In this climate, Leslee Udwin, a novice filmmaker, went to India to attempt to tell the story of a woman the media was beginning to call “India’s daughter.” The resulting documentary—“India’s Daughter”—is, itself, a remarkably balanced documentary, one that distinguishes itself from other accounts of sexual assault by interviewing the rapists and their team of defense lawyers. The only convicted rapist who admits to what he did was the driver, Mukesh Singh, and interviews with him take up nearly as much screentime as the interviews with Jyoti’s bereaved parents.
  
  What immediately followed the film was controversy. As the New Yorker reports:
  
  After clips of the Mukesh Singh interview began circulating online, the Indian government stopped the scheduled Indian broadcast of “India’s Daughter,” which was set for March 8th, International Women’s Day. On March 4th, a statement from the Indian Home Minister’s office said that the government was enforcing a ban because Udwin hadn’t secured the correct permissions to interview Singh in prison, didn’t abide by agreements to show authorities unedited versions of the interview, and because Singh’s statements are “an affront to the dignity of women.” (Udwin has since published copies of the letters of permission she received.) In another statement, the government warned that clips from the film “appear to encourage and incite violence against women.” Some supporters of the ban say that airing the Singh interview is tantamount to giving a platform to the rapist’s views; others say that the documentary paints sexual violence as an Indian issue rather than a global one, and fear that it will perpetuate a “white-savior” attitude in foreign viewers. That the government finds the film nationally embarrassing is a likely reason for the ban—members of the ruling B.J.P party have stated that the film is part of “an international conspiracy to defame India” and have protested that its release will affect tourism.
  
  India is notorious for banning media that hint at the controversial; restricted topics include homosexuality, alternative histories of Hinduism, examinations of revered politicians, and of course, rape. In this case, as with most of the others, it speaks of cowardice. “India’s Daughter” has benefited from the publicity surrounding the decision, as illegal copies have proliferated online, but the ban effectively stopped the film from being seen by the people it is about — the poorest and most disconnected segments of the population, the ones struggling most to survive in the most populous country in the world.
  
  Beyond the government’s actions, Udwin’s documentary has sparked a conversation that is very familiar to media criticism in 2015—the ongoing questions of who has the right to tell which kinds of stories. Udwin is an Israeli Londoner, and “India’s Daughter” entirely concerns people and events in Northern India. The best intentions in the world cannot erase the racial implications of such a power dynamic, and as “India’s Daughter” has become such an object of discussion in the press, Udwin herself has begun to sound embattled and defensive. I would characterize my own conversation with her as a bit rancorous.
  
  Below is my conversation with Udwin; following that are a few closing thoughts from myself and Freida Pinto, who is an ambassador for “India’s Daugher.”
  
  How did you come to this topic? I know that you are not Indian yourself.
  
  Yes. Well, as a global citizen, and a woman who cares very deeply about the fact that we are still subordinated to men, that we are still lacking in proper respect and representation—true representation, in the world in terms of decision making, in terms of economies and in terms of being independent, and very much in terms of us being unsafe.
  
  We know that on a daily basis, every single second, somewhere a woman or a girl is being violently abused and violated. What brought me to the topic was not so much the rape and the case and the darkness of that. It was the light and the horizon of seeing this mass mobilization of the Indian men and women. It was awe-inspiring to me, to see such mass mobilization on India’s streets fighting for my rights.
  
  I took it personally, and I thought the least I could do—when these people were being so courageous and so committed to this issue, and facing the most ferocious government crackdown on peaceful protesters—the least I could do was make a film that would be like a megaphone for those voices and join in the protest in that way. That was my way of joining them.
  
  So I believe this is your first documentary film, right?
  
  Right, yes, and the first time I’ve directed as well.
  
  How did it even occur to you to make a film about this? Were you hoping to make a film at some point already? Was India set in your sights at that point?
  
  No, no. Not at all. I had no intentions ever of making a documentary film. But it basically took on its own volition. It became a compulsion for me. I didn’t choose to do it. And you know, I didn’t choose India. If these protests had happened in any other country, in any other part of the world, I would’ve gone there and have made that particular case of those protests.
  
  I have been up to this point a producer of feature films. I decided to direct the film because I couldn’t afford to hire a director. But I had so much fire in my belly, I was so utterly compelled to make this film, that I had to just go and do it. Obviously I researched very thoroughly before I did it, I didn’t just step on a plane, but I had to do it and therefore by ordinary means, and the means that I had were private means, whatever I had of family savings. And I’ve used them all. [Laughs.]
  
  Had you been to India before, or was it a completely new experience?
  
  Many times. I’ve had a very close, loving relationship with India, which is why it hurts my heart so much that they have banned this film, you know. And that they even think of accusing me of a conspiracy to shame India—what absolute nonsense. You know, this is a conspiracy to praise India and thank India for being the only country in the world that has come out with such force and vigor and passion and tenacity for women’s rights, to try and make the world a better place for women and girls. There’s not another country on earth that has done that. I went to praise India, not to bury it. Sadly, shame has now appeared to India. But not from the film. From the ban. From the fact that they have banned a film that simply asks for a better world for women and girls. And they have banned the film without even seeing it, which is shameful. It’s so ridiculous.
  
  A lot of the media that I read coming out of India about this film suggested a lot of wounded pride or a sense of violation about having a filmmaker who was not Indian make this story that is centered on India in this way. How did you tackle that concern, and how did you respond to that criticism?
  
  Well, here’s how I respond. I can understand that certain segments of the Indian population — and believe me, they’re in the minority — I can understand that they have a postcolonial chip on their shoulder. This is what this is emanating from. They call me a British journalist. I am neither a journalist nor British, OK. There’s a kind of exterior that has flown in the face of facts and proper research. And that’s very sad. Because it boomerangs back on the people who are bandying these terms about. They call me a “gori.” You know what that means?
  
  I do know what that means.
  
  That’s a derogatory word for a white-skinned person. [Note: The word is used for anyone fair-skinned, including Indians, and is considered mild enough that it is featured in both Bollywood lyrics and “Bend It Like Beckham.”]
  
  I’m Jewish. In my people’s history, there was a Holocaust in Germany. If I lived my life constantly keeping that paramount in my mind and letting that filter what is right and what is wrong in terms of what is happening around me, I wouldn’t move very far. I think it’s backward-looking. They have to forget about the colonial era, and whatever ax they have to grind with the Brits, let them grind it. You know, let them move on from grinding it, actually! It’s not my fight. I’m not British, OK?
  
  Here’s the thing. Any people who refuse to introspect need to really examine their conscience as to why that is. Is your image as a country really more important than saving the lives of your women and girls? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then I’m afraid I don’t have any respect or time for that attitude. You see, I watched as MPs in the Lok Sabha, the Indian Parliament, the morning after the ban were screaming like headless chickens in hysterics. “She’s decimating our tourist industry.” “She’s a conspiracy to shame India,” they were screaming that when they hadn’t even seen the film. There hadn’t even been the possibility for them to see the film because at that point it existed on one thumb drive in my purse. So you know, we shouldn’t give this any credence. We should see it as part of the change-resisting backwards-looking segments of the population. And they don’t only just exist in India. They exist all over the world. There are those people who resist change. There are those people who welcome change and look forward to it. And there are a handful of people who are actively working to change. I know which category I’d like to be in.
  
  So let’s talk a little bit about what is the linchpin of your film, which is this very disturbing set of interviews with Mukesh, one of the convicted rapists.
  
  Correct. Yes. I interviewed seven rapists over 31 hours. Four of them had nothing to do with this case. One of those four had raped a 5-year-old girl. I sat and interviewed him for three hours. And the reason why I interviewed others who were not involved in this particular case was because I felt the need to practice. Because I was raped when I was 18, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve kept silent about it for 20 years. I didn’t know to what degree the demons inside me that I had buried would rise up. Also, I’d never made a documentary before. I’d never interviewed people before. So I was relying on who I am and what I cared about, you know?
  
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  Why did Mukesh end up in the film and not the other two rapists?
  
  Of the four adults who were candidates to be interviewed — because, remember, Ram Singh either committed suicide or had been murdered in the process, and there was the juvenile, whom there was no possibility of interviewing. I did meet him for 10 minutes, and there was a point in which I had been given permission from the magistrate to simply interview him, but not record him, and have his answers transcribed. And then, the magistrate changed her mind, so I couldn’t do that any longer. Now, one of these four men refused to meet me altogether – Akshay Thakur, the one with the wife and baby in the film.
  
  And the two younger ones — whom I sat with over two sessions, for three hours each — they were still maintaining that they were not on the bus. [Here Udwin pauses, as if waiting for me to respond.] They were saying that they were at a music festival—and that music festival was proven by the court not to have existed. They were either in denial, or trying to deny, or mouthing what their lawyers were telling them to say until the appeal. So, there was absolutely no point in including them in the film. What do we gain by them saying they weren’t there? Mukesh spoke very openly and very honestly.
  
  That’s strange that he would be honest when —
  
  I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why he was being honest. For the same reason. Because he and not a single one of the other rapists I spoke to held any remorse. Really, deep down, they do not believe they did anything wrong. And that is the truth. Their attitude is indignant, in fact. Everybody is doing it, so why are they made an example of? Indeed, from Mukesh’s point of view, why is he being given the death sentence, when there are worse and equally bad crimes, et cetera. That is why he spoke so honestly.
  
  As horrible as it is, one of the things your film demonstrates well is that he has a point. There is something about this that really struck a nerve in a way that nothing else had before.
  
  Where are the protests now about the 2-and-a-half and 5-year-old girls who were gang-raped last weekend in Delhi? Where are the protests about the 4-year-girl, who in the previous weekend, lay in the same hospital that Jyoti laid in, and had been slashed from vagina to anus by three adults who had gang-raped her? Four years old, and she wound up having a three-hour operation to have a colostomy bag fitted. Where are the protests?
  
  What do you think? Where do you think they are?
  
  Well, I think that people feel so hopeless about this. We must have sunk so low in terms of our moral crisis in this world. We have woefully and irresponsibly neglected to educate our children. And of course, we have a lot of people, and that has to be said, who don’t even have access of education. But putting that aside, the people who do have access to education do not have access to the right kind of education because they are educating their heads, and not their hearts.
  
  We are responsible, as a world, to lead our children, at that crucial period between 3 and 5 years old when neuroscience tells us is the only window to cognitively modify a human being, to change attitudes, change behavior and build attitude. After that, it is all over.
  
  How irresponsible have we been not to teach our children the value of another human being? To respect moral values. No wonder we are in the state we are in. And I saw people being so cowed by all of this that they become apathetic. It’s too vast a problem to do anything about it.
  
  I, at least, have committed my life. I am not making any more films until I get as many countries in the world, who will be enlightened to do so, to co-op this global human rights initiative that I am spearheading and advising the U.N. Human Rights Office on, and have absolutely extraordinary visionaries as patrons on the committee. We are constructing a global human rights curriculum from day one of the entry of the child to school — on a compulsory basis. I got eight countries already, and I will not stop until I get the rest.
  
  What are the eight countries so far?
  
  That I will not tell you because I am saving it for the launch, when we announce it.
  
  This ban illustrates a lot things, but at least in part it illustrates India’s desire to handle this problem of rape in a different way, and in some quarters, their own way. This education initiative sounds that it would be a top-down thing. Do you think that would ruffle feathers in the same way as the film did?
  
  Why is this film preventing them from handling things their own way? Why are they choosing to be mutually exclusive? The ban does not illustrate that they want to handle things their own way. The ban illustrates that they don’t want to face it. We have to call a spade a spade. The ban illustrates that they are pretending it doesn’t exist, or at least, they don’t want the world to think it exists there.
  
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  They don’t want to decimate their tourist industry. These are very shallow considerations, when weighed up against the violation of the human rights of women and girls, and violence that is perpetrated against them on a daily basis. A lot of countries in the world are perfectly willing to introspect when they see this film. When I show this film in America, we talk about the fact that there is one in four girls in college campuses are raped. We talk about the fact that women in America get 78 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. We talk about the fact that whereas India has article 14 of its constitution, which confers equal rights on women, America still does not have that much respect for women in its constitution, in its law. That has been resisted, and the Equal Rights Amendment acts is still not ratified. And that is shameful.
  
  Now, when we talk about these things, do you think an American audience can resist that? Absolutely, not. They’re responsible about it. They say, “Yes, we will hold our hands up. This is appalling. We have to do something about it.” Why can’t India just say the same? India, alone in the whole world, is simply not owning up to it.
  
  Do you feel that your affection for India has changed?
  
  I love India. I love India. I am infuriated by India right now. It really cracked my heart in two. I don’t like it when a section of the Indian population sends me tweets like: “White bitch, you deserve to be raped!” I don’t like it when they send me tweets threatening my life. Or send me pornography on the Internet. I don’t like that. It upsets and infuriate me, but I am not idiot enough to think this is a sign of Indians. This is a minority of people; every country has pathetic people, who simply resist change. And that is what emanates from.
  
  And I am really hurt that the Indian government banned this film without seeing it, and refused to call me. I was on television in Delhi, begging them to call me and ask me any questions they’d like answered. They didn’t want to because they didn’t want to hear the truth. They made a big mistake in banning this film. They should simply put those aside. Those are pathetic considerations, when you consider the issues that are at the heart of this. And anyone who prefers to bury their sand rather than address an issue of this magnitude, I’m afraid lacks respect from me.
  
  * * *
  
  A coda, of sorts. Udwin was not very happy with me by the end of this interview. But I also spoke to one of the film’s ambassadors, the actress Freida Pinto. Meryl Streep and Dakota Fanning have also been involved with promoting the film, but I was most interested in Pinto’s inclusion. The lead actress in the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire” was herself born and raised in the environs of Mumbai. In my brief conversation with Pinto, I asked her why she stood by this documentary, when many other Indians didn’t.
  
  She explained: “I support the documentary for the truth that it comes with.” In her view, other Indians had difficulty accepting the film because of a sense of “misplaced national pride.”
  
  “That comes into the picture when there is a certain truth, as ugly as it might be, shown to us by an outsider. But sometimes, it is actually more effective, because the outsider does come with a fresher perspective… It’s so easy to get caught up in the blame game of it all, especially when something is kind of bitter.”
  
  Udwin, Pinto and even the rapists in “India’s Daughter” express surprise at why Jyoti Singh’s particular tragic story so rocked the nation in December 2012. Pinto offered me her theory as to why her story was the tipping point:
  
  She was a medical student, very aspirational, much like most of the college students who were out on the street protesting. This is a woman who basically had a chance to transform her own life and her parents’. She was very ambitious, and in many ways she was already a fighter, with what she was doing in her life. People love rooting for fighters, we all know that.
  
  This girl’s life was taken away from her, in a way that no one expected. It wasn’t a road accident, she wasn’t ill. She was doing something that was absolutely the most normal thing to do—which is watch “Life of Pi” one night. And then something as horrific as a gang rape on the bus followed that.
  
  Yes, we hear about rapes all the time, in different parts of the country, but in terms of her being an early 20s aspirational girl, that is something we probably had not heard of on this level. Also the brutality of the crime itself got everybody’s attention. Sometimes, I wish people did not focus on the brutality of the crime, because it really does not help the problem. And the brutality of the crime, in such brutal terms, has happened many times before. I think the number one aspect was that she was an aspirational girl just like you and I.
  
  “India’s Daughter” airs Monday on PBS at 10 p.m.
  
  
  
  Sonia Saraiya is Salon's television critic.
  Follow
  More Sonia Saraiya.

Well Done.... this thread will be the first dedicated troll hub.

 

[jamahir]

Rape is linked to the vegetarian diet. If Indians start eating beef, the rape problem would be much reduced.

while vegetarian diet does not contribute directly to only rape tendencies, it does seem to fill society will individuals who are cruel, callous and unjust... i find most fanatic modern urban neo-vegetarians to be cranks and psychos.

look at india... vegetarian diet of at least two millenia has not led to india being free of injustice, capitalism and oppression.

as for the article in the op, it is not just about rape... let us not make the sexual component highlighted... the female victim, jyoti singh ( or amaanat or nirbhaya ), was tortured... this comes in the same category as nato's terrorists in syria cutting off syrian people's heads or hands or electrocuting them.

another case from near delhi ( Delhi's unknown Nirbhaya: Horrifying story of teenager who was tortured and gang-raped for days and then left for dead | Daily Mail Online ).

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

The gang rapes and Hindutva violence have raised ugle head together in India. They both are related to the continuing decline in Indian civil society towards the hate and violence.

 

[cool_not]

while vegetarian diet does not contribute directly to only rape tendencies, it does seem to fill society will individuals who are cruel, callous and unjust... i find most fanatic modern urban neo-vegetarians to be cranks and psychos.

look at india... vegetarian diet of at least two millenia has not led to india being free of injustice, capitalism and oppression.

as for the article in the op, it is not just about rape... let us not make the sexual component highlighted... the female victim, jyoti singh ( or amaanat or nirbhaya ), was tortured... this comes in the same category as nato's terrorists in syria cutting off syrian people's heads or hands or electrocuting them.

another case from near delhi ( Delhi's unknown Nirbhaya: Horrifying story of teenager who was tortured and gang-raped for days and then left for dead | Daily Mail Online ).

Still vegetarian hindus are not blowing themselves up, its meat eating mullahs who are terrorists.

You shameless mullah somehow wanted to hide ISIS and call upon Nato terrorists, but you fcking traitor of this country forgets that whether mullah ISIS or NATO terrorist, all are meat eater.

The maximum rapes in history are done by meat eaters islamist invaders, product of one is you. How can we forget the rape by meat eater pakistan army in BDesh?

I am seeing your tirade against India and will make sure you are reported to agencies as a possible suspect and ISIS sympathizer. Will use all my resources to do so.

 

[jamahir]

I am seeing your tirade against India and will make sure you are reported to agencies as a possible suspect and ISIS sympathizer. Will use all my resources to do so.

can you also provide proof for my supposed sympathies for isis??

or is isis just a excuse for you because i am a progressive and just happen to be muslim??

i am talking against qaeda terrorists and you call me a isis sympathizer??

you are just a fascist sanghi... who do i complain to??

 

[faithfulguy]

Rape stories are against forum policy. But the fact that it's allowed here shows the severity of rape in India.

 

[T90TankGuy]

Seen some stupid threads on PDF in the six odd yrs i have been here , this one is up there.

The only reason to start this thread is to troll . @Oscar.