New Delhi police fire water cannon at India rape protest

[Enemy]

Delhi gang-rape: CM to hold peace march today

New Delhi: Amidst huge uproar over the shocking gang-rape of a 23-year-old girl, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit will be organising a peace rally in the national capital on Wednesday.

The state’s Chief Minister, who has faced intense criticism for failing to improve the security situation across Delhi, will lead the march with some other women organisations.

The march will commence from Pragati Maidan and conclude at Rajghat.

 

[Enemy]

The Hindu : News / National : Naming anti-rape law after girl will be an honour: Family

A day after Union Minister Shashi Tharoor favoured naming the revised anti-rape law after Delhi gang-rape victim, her family members on Wednesday said they have no objection to it and the move would be an honour to the girl.

The family members of the 23-year-old girl said that “if her name is made public for this purpose, we have no objection to it”.

Talking to PTI, the father and brother of the girl said that “if the government names the revised anti-rape law after her, we have no objection and it would be an honour to her”.

Mr. Tharoor had on Tuesday favoured making public the identity of the gang-rape victim wondering what interest was served by keeping her name under wraps.

Mr. Tharoor, the Minister of State for Human Resources Development, had also said the revised anti-rape legislation should be named after the victim if her parents agree.

“Wondering what interest is served by continuing anonymity of #DelhGangRape victim. Why not name&honour her as a real person w/own identity?” he asked on micro-blogging site Twitter.

“Unless her parents object, she should be honoured & the revised anti-rape law named after her. She was a human being w/a name, not just a symbol,” Mr. Tharoor, who is known for speaking his mind, said.

On reports of Telugu filmmaker Ramana Gaddam planning to make changes in his upcoming film to highlight the brutal gang-rape, the girl’s brother said before doing so he should meet them and give information about the storyline.

He said the director would have to clarify what he wants to portray in the movie.

Asked about the financial assistance of Rs. 20 lakh announced by the Uttar Pradesh government and assistance of Rs. 15 lakh and job announced by Delhi government, the brother said though announcements have been made, they are yet to receive the assistance.

However, the girl’s father said he was satisfied with the announcements made by the government.

The family members termed as misleading reports in the media that the girl was about to get married.

On a question regarding police charge sheet in the case, the brother said they do not want to comment on the issue and only want justice.

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

India’s Fatal Rape Was Typical in a Country That Degrades Women


Jan 2, 2013 4:45 AM EST


The six men who raped and killed a woman in India probably thought they could get away with it, and why not, writes Anuradha Roy, who explains that crimes against women are routinely ignored if not encouraged by the ruling class.


Ravi Das Camp is about seven miles from the president’s palace in New Delhi. En route are the mansions where members of parliament live, guarded by armed soldiers in bunkers. The men who in December allegedly raped a young paramedic brutally enough to kill her lived in Ravi Das Camp, a slum reported to be as fetid and dehumanizing as the many others close to the homes and offices of Delhi’s political elite.

In a sense it is fitting that the alleged rapists and murderers lived within touching distance of our politicians. In the 2009 parliamentary elections, India’s political parties fielded 6 candidates charged with rape while 34 candidates were awaiting trial for crimes against women. In the state assemblies, 42 members had rape or associated charges against them at the time of their election. In all, according to a recent report published by the Association for Democratic Reforms, India has over 300 such politicians in power.



Is it any surprise that the men brutalizing a woman with a rusted rod thought they could get away with it? They may not have known there were 300 potential or actual rapists making the laws, nor the precise numbers that show the conviction rate for rape dropping from 46 percent to 26 percent over the last 40 years. But they would have known that it’s a pretty safe bet to rape a woman, scoot, and start the cycle afresh. Fifty percent of India’s population lives with this knowledge: its women.


In such a world, what woman can survive harm? There is not a single female friend of mine who hasn’t been molested. It’s called “eve-teasing” here, conjuring up images of dalliance under apple trees. Even 20 years ago, our journeys to and from college were daily nausea. We were used to having men brush against our breasts, grope, catcall, leer, and press their erections against us when there was no escape in the crush of a crowded bus. Sharp hairpins and elbows came in handy, but otherwise there wasn’t much help. We couldn’t have gone to the police, we’d have been laughed right out of the station. Yet we considered ourselves lucky. There were other women, those that were allowed to be born at all—India comes out tops in the female foeticide ratings—who were being beaten or burned or sold or raped.


Sections of India have transformed since, and the dead paramedic was an example of this change. She was the oldest of three children in a poor family with its origins in rural north India. The girl’s father has a low-income job at Delhi’s airport. Her mother was described by the newspapers as “rustic,” a “woman in denial” who kept asking when she could take her dying, virtually disemboweled child back home from hospital. They took out loans to pay for the education of their daughter, who begged to study further. Prioritizing a girl’s education would have been unimaginable in rural India even a decade ago. It is a new phenomenon for girls from the hinterland to leave home to work or study, to have male friends. Marriage is no longer their only possible future.


This kind of modernity provokes punishment. Flailing against the independence of young women are authority figures ranging from college heads who ban girls from wearing jeans to ministers who lecture working women not to be too “adventurous.” Often these strictures come from women. It is also routine for village councils in north India to ban women from using mobile phones because personal phones might encourage love affairs. These councils have been seeking amendments in the Hindu Marriage Act to support their atavistic views. Until the marriage laws are changed, honor killings are the councils’ favored standby.


India is as it has always been, a jungle made up of rulers and the ruled in which there are, in effect, no rules.


Among the champions of these village councils is Naveen Jindal, a member of Parilament educated at Delhi’s best institutions and then in Texas. The son of a prominent industrialist and one of the poster boys of the ruling Congress Party, Jindal has assured village councils they have his support because they have been enforcing the law “since the time of great rulers like Ashoka and … always giv[ing] a ‘new direction’ to society.”


India is a “democracy.” It holds elections, it isn’t headed by a Saddam. Buddhism began in it and, although it’s next-door to Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has no Taliban. These cliches fog out a fact starkly apparent to all who live here, one that Jindal has understood: that India is as it has always been, a jungle made up of rulers and the ruled in which there are, in effect, no rules. A criminal ruling elite has engineered a system of undemocratic governance and judicial delays so ingeniously self-serving that it has been sustained for decades.


There was a nationwide howl of anguish last month from men, women, and even children who came out to mourn the paramedic’s rape. But the politicians stayed in their barricaded mansions. Protesters were battered with icy jets of water. The city’s center was cordoned off, its metro shut down. The gleam of hope in this darkness is the number of men who came out to protest and who shielded women from baton blows.


India’s thugs know they’re still safe. There have been 20 rapes in Delhi since Dec. 16, when the paramedic climbed into her last ever bus. One of the latest victims of rape is a 3-year-old infant in a playschool. We are waiting to see whether those in charge of this country will now stop telling us we had it coming because we wore skirts or stayed out too late or used make-up or had a boyfriend or didn’t marry at 16—and change themselves instead.



Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.


Anuradha Roy is a journalist, editor, and award-winning novelist (An Atlas of Impossible Longing and The Folded Earth. She is also an editor and co-founder of Permanent Black, a publishing house started in 2000.


India

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

What drives the Indian men to rape?

The Indian man needs to learn that he isn't in control, that he is no one to control and that it is not he who is more than a woman. There isn't a competition between the sexes, says Chirag Shah.


Sadly, it's for the same reasons that India [ Images ] bribes, honks unnecessarily, drives drunk and over-speeds, why it pushes and pulls and can't form a line, also why it spits and urinates where it wants and why it refuses to clean its hands before dishing out food with the same hands...

India rapes because it lets its kids throw tantrums in public while turning a blind eye, why it looks at foreigners as dollars and Indians as trouble. It also rapes because it makes fun of the handicapped, weakness and intelligence. It rapes for the same reason it cheats people of their money, treats animals without respect and lives for society.

The same society that would be the first to run you out of existence, to ensure that your life is not worth living and that rape means your life is over. The same society in whose fear we dare not fail our exams or grow our hair too long or sing a song or wear revealing clothes or come home too late. It's the same society that can't protect and is the first to blame the system.

The impotent system made of impotent self-serving politicians and the impotent police and the impotent water and electrical supplier and so on. If there was no crime, the police wouldn't be able to put their kids in school, the underpaid and under-equipped constable is not going to risk his or her life for you. That is the reality. To blame comes easy, but who are you blaming?

The police that can't fire a bullet without written consent, the one that can't use handcuffs, the one that in most cases carries a lathi? I don't blame the police and I don't hail it. It's an impotent symbol just like our ruling party and the non-ruling ones. I don't expect better from either and I won't cry hoarse about it either.

I will, however, preach respect and practice respect. I will also learn to live for myself, with respect to society. I will also teach myself to be equal. The Indian woman herself needs to wake up to a new India as well. She needs to stop cowering to society, to her own family and to herself. The truth is that man and woman can't function without each other. A woman can do anything a man can, it's the man who can't give birth.

From childhood we are told that our sisters' only purpose is to get married and then manage the household while the man works. The Indian woman covers her head and her face, she eats after her husband, she is weaker because she feels that she is. She needs to be shown that its not. She needs to be felt empowered and she needs to stop feeling like she's lesser.

The Indian man needs to learn that he isn't in control, that he is no one to control and that it is not he who is more than a woman. There isn't a competition between the sexes. When the Indian man lacks personally, he takes out on the woman physically. He takes it out on her for a sense of betterment and ego. For the lack of respect and self-respect. The Indian man rapes for the same reason he has no respect for himself, in the same way he has no respect for his job or work. If he can't respect his livelihood, how can you expect him to respect anything let alone a woman.

Preach respect, teach respect, respect your self and the other, man woman or child. Rape is not sex, sex is pleasure and for both, rape is brutality, there is no pleasure in brutalising someone, anyone. Any man who has ever looked at a woman and said "cover up" is as pathetic as the man who molests her.

What sort of impotent men are we that we can't protect our women. How unaware do we pretend to be that we can't stand up for her dignity and fight for her. Are we only looking to have sex with her? Are we only looking at demoralising her and showing her that we men can do what we want but she cannot? Instead stand up and fight for her. Raise her and protect her.

Travel a bus and be aware for her. Walk the road at night and keep an eye out. Open your ears and eyes to trouble for her. Not because she can't do it for herself but because us men have crushed her faith. Our sex has let hers down. We have historically raped her mind in to fearing. It's time now to change. To create change. To be the change.



What drives the Indian male to rape? - Rediff.com India News

 

[ajtr]

@nuclearpak this cartoon perfectly suits your type

Taking the aggression out of masculinity

CELEBRATING MANHOOD: Religious customs, such as Karva Chauth openly propagate male-worship. Photo: Rohit Jain Paras

CELEBRATING MANHOOD: Swami Vivekananda’s masculine photographic-pose is revealing of how Indian nationalism encouraged a deeply masculine notion of modernity. Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing and perpetuating male privilege and entitlement

Sexual crimes derive from social attitudes and no serious effort at lessening their occurrence can ever depend upon cosmetic measures such as greater policing and calls for the death penalty. This is not to deny either the legitimacy of the anger over the terrible event that led to the recent rape and death of a young woman, or that the Indian justice system frequently subjects rape victims to as much trauma as the original act itself. Rather, that there is more urgent need than ever to think about the cultures of masculinity in India. While there have been good reasons why women’s studies departments and many non-governmental organisations have been resistant to including a focus on masculinity as a way of understanding gender, the time is ripe for a change in this attitude. Now, more than ever, we require an understanding of masculine cultures that is informed by feminist methods and perspectives. Gender is always a relationship between women, men (and other genders) and unless we have a sense of how boys are socialised as men, our understanding of the ways in which gender oppression unfolds will always be incomplete.

Socially produced

Masculine cultures infuse all significant aspects of modern life and masculinity refers to the socially produced ways of being male. That is to say, men learn to be men and this “learning” is expressed both in terms of social structures as well as in the ways in which men present themselves in everyday life. So, for example, the idea of “men’s work” and “women’s work” relates to social structure whereas the ways in which men speak, behave, gesture, and interact with other men (as well as women) reflect the behavioural aspects of masculinity. Linked to this is the idea that some ways of being a man are better than others. These ideas about gender are produced at specific sites, and these might include educational systems, customary laws and regulations, the state and its mechanisms, the family, religious norms and sanctions, popular culture, and, the media.

Finally, in this context, it is important to remember that in all societies there exist multiple ways of being a man, but that certain aggressive models of masculinity become dominant. That is to say, masculinity is not just a relationship between men and women, but also between men. Some ways of being a man are considered more manly than others.

The notions of “making” and “producing” are crucial to the study of masculine identities, for they point to their historical and social nature. The various discourses of “proper” masculine behaviour — in novels, films, advertisements, for example — would be unnecessary if it was a naturally endowed characteristic. The very fact that masculinity must consistently be reinforced — “if you buy this motorcycle you’ll be a real man” — says something about the tenuous and fragile nature of gender identities. It also suggests the possibility of foregrounding alternative models of masculinity.

Colonialism

A great deal of neglect of masculinity as an object of study lies in the celebratory ways in which we have tended to understand Indian nationalism which — in its reactions to colonial rule — produced a deeply masculine culture of modernity. So, if colonists sought to justify colonial rule by suggesting that Indians were not “manly enough” for either self-rule or rational thinking, nationalists simply inverted argument through providing “evidence” of Indian masculinity as well as “reforming” a number of social institutions to more closely reflect European ideas about “proper” families, intimacies, etc. Colonialism did not, of course, invent Indian masculinities, but it did help to cement and highlight certain regressive tendencies within it. Swami Vivekananda’s masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism.

Beyond the historical context, masculine bias proliferates itself in a number of areas that have immediate bearing on everyday life. The masculinity of spaces and institutions is one of these. It has become commonplace to understand certain spaces and institutions (say, the street and Parliament) as public, and others (say, the home) as private. The terms “public” and “private” have, in turn, become linked to ideas about the “proper” realms for men and women. Women are tolerated in public spaces and within public institutions but are expected to behave “properly.” Otherwise they suffer ridicule and violence. The media quite often provides accounts of public women (say parliamentarians) through describing what they wear, or, how many children they have; women’s primary identity continues to be defined through an implicit understanding that public institutions possess (and should possess) a masculine identity. Our legal institutions just as frequently bring to bear masculine bias when dealing with gender-sensitive issues. It is not unusual, therefore, that while judges may express revulsion towards rape crimes, they may also say something like “what was this young woman doing at an ice-cream parlour at that time of the night?” The idea that women frequently contribute to their own ill-treatment through behaving in an “inappropriate” manner is part of the set of masculine attitudes that characterise a great deal of thinking on gender.

In schools

Schools are another site where masculine cultures are both produced and refined. Many of us too frequently make the simplistic assumption that there is a direct connection between girls’ education and women’s empowerment. The truth of the matter is that girls’ education continues to seen through a masculinity lens: that educated girls will make better mothers, rather than that they might be able to exercise individual autonomy. If on the one hand, schooling can reinforce dominant notions regarding “appropriate” male and female behaviour, we need also to realise that formal education is an inadequate measure of women’s autonomy. We need to move away from masculine notions of the significance of educated women as good wives and mothers.

The family and religious customs are two other extremely significant contexts for the making of masculine cultures. The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing the most pernicious aspects of masculinity. Our family lives contain elaborate formal and informal means of reinforcing and celebrating male privilege. Sons are brought up to both perpetuate and condone gender hierarchies and are nurtured with a sense of entitlement.

It is this that lies at the heart of male violence towards women. Indian “family values” are contexts of a great deal of jingoistic celebrations about what is special about Indian society. Such jingoism keeps us from turning a critical eye towards what is genuinely rotten within one of the most basic units of social life. It keeps us from critically examining the masculine cultures that impact upon the relationship between genders. It is important for women and men to protest against the crime of rape. But, it is just as important to ask why such a large number of women have taken to celebrating the Karva-Chauth festival, and, why there has been no significant public examination of such rituals of male-worship.

(Sanjay Srivastava is professor of Sociology and co-editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.)


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I'm glad of all news papers that The Hindu posted this article. calling out misoynistic hindu culture inherent and ingrained in india

 

[KRAIT]

NVM................

 

[Icewolf]

I heard about this on the news.

Its really sickening on how Indians can brutally rape a girl like this.

 

[idune]

There is news saying most vicious rapist on the gang, who is 17 years old, will get just 3 years prison in juvenile correction center, is that true? Is this real?

 

[Icewolf]

There is news saying most vicious rapist on the gang, who is 17 years old, will get just 3 years prison in juvenile correction center, is that true? Is this real?

i wouldnt be suprised.

nothing has changed in india... india is the same thing as it was in 1947..

 

[IndoUS]

There is news saying most vicious rapist on the gang, who is 17 years old, will get just 3 years prison in juvenile correction center, is that true? Is this real?

Don't know underage people can't be given the same sentence, but I still think that they should make a exception and give him life in prison and hang the rest.

i wouldnt be suprised.

nothing has changed in india... india is the same thing as it was in 1947..

Please keep the low mindedness out of this, by your reasoning then all Muslims can be tagged as terrorist.

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A ‘Rape Map’ of India
By Aditi Malhotra and Saptarishi Dutta

Delhi has long been considered one of the most unsafe big cities for women in India. And north India is often referred to as more violent, more patriarchal, and more crime-ridden than the south.

To add some perspective to this debate, here is a look at statistics on reported rapes around the country.

These data carry the caveat that there may be higher reporting rates in different areas and reporting is not necessarily indicative of the prevalence of the crime. Victims may be reluctant to report rape because of fears their case will not be taken seriously and police may be reluctant to register complaints.

In 2011, a total of 24,206 rape cases were registered in India, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau.

Of those, 6,227 were reported in northern India, which we defined as nine northern states: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttarakhand, as well as the regions of Delhi and Chandigarh.

The reported number in the south – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry – was 3,894 cases.


Raveendran/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Demonstrators held placards in a silent protest expressing solidarity with the gangrape victim in New Delhi, Jan. 1.There were 1.02 rapes reported per 100,000 in 2011 in Uttar Pradesh, which has a population of 199.6 million. In Andhra Pradesh, the equivalent figure was 1.70 per 100,000; its population is 84.7 million.

The north and south together account for 10,121 cases, approximately 40% of the 2011 reported rapes.

The eastern, north-eastern, western and central states account for the remainder.

In the northeast – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura – 2,246 cases were reported in 2011.

In eastern India — Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal – there were 4,409 rapes reported, more than in all of southern India.

The central and western states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Goa (as well as the regions of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu) accounted for 7,417 cases.

According to the NCRB, in 2011, Murshidabad, a district in West Bengal, recorded the highest number of reported rapes for a single district (433 cases) and of molestation cases (621.)

Chhattisgarh’s Durg Bhilainagar reported the highest rate of reported rape per 100,000 residents, at 5.7, more than double Delhi’s ratio of 2.8 per 100,000.

Some experts say northern India is perhaps worse than elsewhere in that women may have a harder time in registering complaints effectively.

Vrinda Grover, a lawyer in the Supreme Court, says that in northern India “women are not comfortable going up to the police and filing a complaint or, in a similar situation, the police don’t lodge a complaint.”

That has been borne out by the recent news of an 18-year-old girl in the northern state of Punjab, who complained to police in November that she was gang raped by three men but committed suicide last week because of alleged police inaction.

According to a report in Outlook Magazine, the police registered her complaint 14 days after the incident took place and asked uncomfortable questions every time she went to follow-up on her complaint.

One police official in the woman’s village of Badshahpur has been disciplined, said Patiala’s Superintendent of Crime Jaipal Singh on Wednesday without divulging further details.

Since the gang-rape and death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi last month, further incidents of rape have been reported prominently in India’s newspapers.

The Times of India reported two in Wednesday’s edition, both in Uttar Pradesh. The Asian Age reported an attempt by five men in Delhi to kidnap and rape a 24-year-old woman.

However, activists play down the notion that one area of the country is inherently safer for women than others.

“I’m afraid we do not have enlightened zones anywhere in the country,” said Ms. Grover.

Ruth Manorama, president of the National Alliance for Women, added: “It is not a north India phenomena, it is an all India phenomena.”

– Preetika Rana contributed to this post.


A ‘Rape Map’ of India - India Real Time - WSJ

 

[Icewolf]

^^ Wow thats disturbing

Hope Indian Women are safe

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

type in india anywhere in a search engine and the first thing to show up is rape. if indians have earlier decided to acknowledge this rape epidemic that is going on in their country this would have been not so much of an issue now. but since indians tried to sweep this under the carpet and falsely proclaim that india is shining, looks what happens.

india is now known worldwide as the haven for rapists--the most hideious, abhorred crime worldwide. Rape is considered worser than murder. And india is the now the face of it.

 

[idune]

Don't know underage people can't be given the same sentence, but I still think that they should make a exception and give him life in prison and hang the rest.

Report said he is 17 but he committed gravest crime - raped and then killed. That is no underage thought or act.

 

[IndoUS]

Report said he is 17 but he committed gravest crime - raped and then killed. That is no underage thought or act.

Yes, that's why the the special court will decide his sentence. I doubt they would give him death penalty but a life in prison should be must.