Why did it have to come to this?
Quite frankly, I wasn’t too keen to base this editorial on the recent Delhi bus gang-rape which has caused outrage in India itself and much of the world.
Considering that two of my colleagues (both from India) had written much (in this publication) about the much publicised case of Jyoti Singh Pandey, who was brutally raped and tortured by mindless thugs on a moving bus in Delhi last month, I thought that it would be out of place to comment on a psyche I was not familiar with.
As a child, born and bred in Fiji, I used to wonder and dread the violence and rape scenes by Bollywood “stars” like Prem Chopra, Ranjeet, Ajit and others in the many movies that seemed so “out of this world”.
Much later in life I realised that what was depicted in the numerous Bollywood movies was true, real, and that thousands of poor, down-trodden and women were living through the quagmire of shame and filth every day.
What happened to Jyoti, and mostly because it has been reported (thanks to a stronger Indian media) in such shocking detail, puts all the Bollywood villains to shame.
Here was an ordinary, middle-class girl trying to get a rickshaw home after a Sunday movie with her fiancé when they were picked up by an unlicensed bus inhabited by six animals.
They took turns to rape her as the bus cruised the streets, the atrocities shielded by curtains and tinted glass. An iron rod was forced inside her, mutilating her genitals and destroying her intestines – 95 per cent of it was removed in three separate operations. She died later.
While one of my colleague’s articles has focused on a generalised psyche of the Indian man towards women, the other tells of the occurrence of such rapes on a regular basis, and questions why there is such a hue and cry about this case.
Is it because the publicity has brought shame to a nation? Otherwise, it may never have been acted upon.
Let’s look at the statistics: 2487 rapes were reported in India in 1971; 24,206 rapes reported in 2011; 754 arrests made for rape in New Delhi in 2011. Convictions so far, according to the Home Ministry: One.
This begs the question: were all the other 99 per cent of the “victims” who reported the crime lying? Really? What about the scores of unreported cases?
Why did it have to take such a brutal incident to happen to get the top echelons of the Indian Government to sit up and take notice?
When my daughter last year informed me that she was planning to visit India on her own, I firmly said “No”. I’m glad I did and I’m sure she realises too why I said so.
The sentiments of these Bollywood icons sum it up well:
Mahesh Bhatt: Shut all temples where you pretend to worship the female form. Cry India. Your hands are drenched with the blood of your own daughters.
Shabana Azmi: And she passes away in Singapore. RIP. Our impotence stares us in the face. May she become the wake-up call our country needs. We must soul search. Female foeticide; unequal access to nutrition, education, health; no decision making powers; dowry demands; rapes rampant. India wake up.
Karan Johar: RIP to a brave girl who fought in a weak and paralysed country. Shame on all of us.
Abhishek Bachchan: I have always been a very proud Indian. Today, we should ALL be ashamed. Will it always take an innocent’s death for a nation to awake? This is not the country I grew up in as a child, this is not the country I want my daughter to know whilst she grows up.
Quite frankly, I wasn’t too keen to base this editorial on the recent Delhi bus gang-rape which has caused outrage in India itself and much of the world.
Considering that two of my colleagues (both from India) had written much (in this publication) about the much publicised case of Jyoti Singh...
Quite frankly, I wasn’t too keen to base this editorial on the recent Delhi bus gang-rape which has caused outrage in India itself and much of the world.
Considering that two of my colleagues (both from India) had written much (in this publication) about the much publicised case of Jyoti Singh Pandey, who was brutally raped and tortured by mindless thugs on a moving bus in Delhi last month, I thought that it would be out of place to comment on a psyche I was not familiar with.
As a child, born and bred in Fiji, I used to wonder and dread the violence and rape scenes by Bollywood “stars” like Prem Chopra, Ranjeet, Ajit and others in the many movies that seemed so “out of this world”.
Much later in life I realised that what was depicted in the numerous Bollywood movies was true, real, and that thousands of poor, down-trodden and women were living through the quagmire of shame and filth every day.
What happened to Jyoti, and mostly because it has been reported (thanks to a stronger Indian media) in such shocking detail, puts all the Bollywood villains to shame.
Here was an ordinary, middle-class girl trying to get a rickshaw home after a Sunday movie with her fiancé when they were picked up by an unlicensed bus inhabited by six animals.
They took turns to rape her as the bus cruised the streets, the atrocities shielded by curtains and tinted glass. An iron rod was forced inside her, mutilating her genitals and destroying her intestines – 95 per cent of it was removed in three separate operations. She died later.
While one of my colleague’s articles has focused on a generalised psyche of the Indian man towards women, the other tells of the occurrence of such rapes on a regular basis, and questions why there is such a hue and cry about this case.
Is it because the publicity has brought shame to a nation? Otherwise, it may never have been acted upon.
Let’s look at the statistics: 2487 rapes were reported in India in 1971; 24,206 rapes reported in 2011; 754 arrests made for rape in New Delhi in 2011. Convictions so far, according to the Home Ministry: One.
This begs the question: were all the other 99 per cent of the “victims” who reported the crime lying? Really? What about the scores of unreported cases?
Why did it have to take such a brutal incident to happen to get the top echelons of the Indian Government to sit up and take notice?
When my daughter last year informed me that she was planning to visit India on her own, I firmly said “No”. I’m glad I did and I’m sure she realises too why I said so.
The sentiments of these Bollywood icons sum it up well:
Mahesh Bhatt: Shut all temples where you pretend to worship the female form. Cry India. Your hands are drenched with the blood of your own daughters.
Shabana Azmi: And she passes away in Singapore. RIP. Our impotence stares us in the face. May she become the wake-up call our country needs. We must soul search. Female foeticide; unequal access to nutrition, education, health; no decision making powers; dowry demands; rapes rampant. India wake up.
Karan Johar: RIP to a brave girl who fought in a weak and paralysed country. Shame on all of us.
Abhishek Bachchan: I have always been a very proud Indian. Today, we should ALL be ashamed. Will it always take an innocent’s death for a nation to awake? This is not the country I grew up in as a child, this is not the country I want my daughter to know whilst she grows up.
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