The abuse of women and girls in India by men is outrageous

                                                                                                                                                                   I rarely publish articles in my blog word for word that have been written by others but when I find some that are so well written that a revision by me would do an injustice to the authors of the articles,  I will publish their articles in my blog.

The following article was published in the Toronto Star.

Something is terribly wrong with the way women are treated in India, the world's largest democracy. The horrific December 16 gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus has sparked massive protests and loud demands for reform. But it's far from the only example of abuse endured by women routinely denied full protection under India's defective criminal justice system.

The victim in this case died early Saturday, 13 days after six men raped her and remorselessly beat her and a male companion with iron bars while driving around the city. The pair was then dumped at the side of the road. What's unusual about this incident is its savagery and the use of a bus — not the rape itself which, sadly, is all too common.

In just the days that followed, a 10-year-old was gang-raped, killed and her body thrown in a canal in another part of India. And a 14-year-old schoolgirl was left in critical condition after being raped by four men. On Wednesday a 12-year-old was raped by three men as she walked to her grandparents' house. And on Thursday came news that a 17-year-old girl had committed suicide after police reportedly pressured her to marry one of the men who raped her last month or, at least, accept a financial settlement.

More than almost anywhere else, violence against women is a brutal fact of life in the Indian subcontinent. According to official figures cited by Agence France Presse, females were victims in almost 230,000 of the more than 256,000 violent crimes reported in India last year. Just as shocking is the willingness of police, judges and government officials to tolerate attacks on women by blaming victims and excusing offenders.

In the aftermath of the New Delhi bus attack, even as protests raged, it took days for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to go on television and promise reform. Police have been less than sympathetic. Brave demonstrators demanding better protection of women have been forcibly dispersed by officers using batons, tear gas and water cannon.

And India's Association for Democratic Reforms recently found that more than 30 men charged with rape had been allowed to stand for elected office by various political parties. The think tank relied on court documents and election declarations for that report.

Despite the deep-seated anti-female prejudice built into Indian's justice system, outrage over recent rapes has compelled authorities to take action. The government is to open a 24-hour emergency help-line for women on Monday linked to the city's police stations. Officers have increased their patrols. Arrests have been made. And one government committee is exploring ways to speed up sex assault trials while another is looking into security flaws that may have been a factor in the bus rape.

That's good. But given India's lamentable record, it's only natural to wonder how much will really change over the long run. One thing is certain, if India is to reach its full economic potential, and hold a respected place among democracies, it will need to deliver real justice to the female half of its population. end of article

Here is the second article. It was published in the Wall Street Journal  

The anger, outrage, and collective soul-searching we’ve seen in the wake of a young woman’s brutal gang rape in Delhi has only been magnified by her death in Singapore in the early hours of Saturday.

Protests in Delhi and other major cities across the country have seen men, women and children calling for justice and an end to violence against women. Many others in the social and conventional media have added their commentary to the chorus.

While there were some voices debating seriously the roots of violence against women and the deficiencies in the Indian criminal justice system, some others — at least from chants and photographs of placards held up by protesters, and commentary on blogs, TV, Twitter and Facebook — called for extreme punishment. One grisly placard captured by a journalist in Delhi called for the public dismemberment of rapists, while others repeated calls for chemical castration, public stoning, hanging, and the death penalty.

Columnist Vidya Subrahmaniam referred to an online comment by a reader suggesting that a rapist should be sodomized by a group of homosexual men as the appropriate punishment.

This isn’t necessarily the view of the majority of Indians, but certainly represents, at the very least, a vocal minority that is giving vent to deeply held frustrations.

The anger is perhaps understandable even as the proposed remedies are barbaric. But the extreme violence suggested as a response itself points to a violent and barbaric streak among some members of an apparently educated, affluent and otherwise modern middle class.

On the efficacy of using capital punishment to deter future crime, my reading of the research and experience elsewhere shows little persuasive evidence of a deterrent effect, though this does remain hotly debated among scholars and analysts.

Some of those advocating the death penalty do so on grounds of retributive justice, and presumably aren’t concerned whether one can conclusively establish a deterrent effect or not.

But in a country with an abysmally low rate of convictions for rape and other crimes against women, (26% last year, down from 46% in the 1970s) it seems to me pointless to fixate on ratcheting up the penalty further. Consider that out of 635 cases of rape reported in Delhi this past year only one has led to a conviction.

What’s more, an exclusive focus on the crime of rape also obscures the fact that India’s a violent place for men as it is for women and children. Let’s not forget that the male companion of the young woman who died was himself beaten and badly injured.

The government’s response, predictably, has been to focus on increasing the punishment for rape and on the treatment of convicted sex offenders, including one proposal for a “name and shame” directory of convicts.

Leaving aside the question of whether a registry of sex offenders actually reduces future crime — which is not clear from research in the U.S. and elsewhere — it’s again a distraction from the more important issue of fixing a dysfunctional criminal justice system.

If any reminder were needed, recall the case of Ruchika Girhotra, another one of “India’s Daughters” (as many have dubbed the young woman who just died.) Ms. Girhotra was a 14-year-old budding tennis player who was molested by S.P.S. Rathore, a senior police officer in the northern state of Haryana, who then intimidated and harassed her and her family. Ms. Girhotra committed suicide at the age of 18.

It took almost 20 years for Mr. Rathore to be convicted of molestation. He spent about six months in prison and paid a fine of 1,000 rupees, approximately $ 20. Now out on bail, Mr. Rathore, who says he is innocent, is appealing his conviction.

While fixing a broken criminal justice system, we should also look more deeply at the roots of violent crime, including violence against women.

Something as complex as crime has many different roots. But research points to one potentially important factor: India’s well-documented sex ratio that is skewed in favor of boys, a problem I’ve written on extensively before.

As of the 2011 census, there were only 914 girls for every 1,000 boys from the ages of 0-6. This is a sex ratio that cannot occur naturally, and is the result of some combination of sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and the relative neglect of young girls.

As I and my co-author explore in our recent book, it turns out that a more skewed sex ratio tends to be correlated with a greater incidence of violent crime, including violence against women. One compelling explanation is that in fact it’s the adverse sex ratio itself which contributes to an increase in crime. It’s worth pointing out that of the alleged perpetrators in the Delhi rape case, the oldest was 33, the youngest a juvenile, and all but one of them was unmarried.

Both a skewed sex ratio and the prevalence of violence against women reflect a still-patriarchal culture which, despite equality under the law, continues to devalue women in many different ways.

Take something as ubiquitous in Indian life as Bollywood cinema.

As pointed out by economist Swaminathan Aiyar, Bollywood films are replete with scenes characterized by the harassment of women and even of rape. As he writes, one particular well-known screen villain did about 100 rape scenes “with the audience almost cheering him on.”

Mr. Aiyar notes that in the film “Hum,” icon Amitabh Bachchan played a role in which he, watched by a large group of men, forces his unwanted attention on the film’s heroine, who eventually relents and gives him the kiss that he’s been looking for.

Mr. Aiyar concludes that the message of such scenes to the audience is that “if only you harass a woman enough, no matter how often she says no, she’ll ultimately say yes.”

Apart from a few notable exceptions such as the actor Farhan Akhtar who have called out the misogyny in Bollywood cinema, the silence on the role that Bollywood itself may play in perpetuating gender stereotypes is deafening.

Of course, as with the correlation between the sex ratio and violent crime, it’s difficult — if not impossible — to prove that a casual relationship exists between the depiction of misogyny in popular culture and the incidence of violence against women.

It could also be that popular culture reflects values and mores as much as it shapes them. Still, in a celebrity obsessed culture such as India’s, in which people follow every tiny move of their favorite film star, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of cinema and other forms of popular culture to be an agent of social change.

Changing centuries of patriarchy and misogyny won’t happen overnight, nor will a creaky criminal justice system magically repair itself. Let’s not forget that misogyny and sexual violence were prevalent in many western countries, too, and it took decades of work by lawmakers, feminist thinkers and social activists to change attitudes. There were no quick fixes anywhere else, and there’s no quick fix in India.

What’s needed at the moment is a rational and evidence-based discussion on the kinds of reforms that would help improve the system and reduce the incidence of all kinds of violent crime including violence against women.

A great start for such a dialogue is an eight-point plan put out on Twitter Saturday by Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy.

What we don’t need are well-meaning but misguided and potentially harmful “solutions” such as one spearheaded by another influential Bollywood celebrity, Gul Panag, which would create a database of potential “saviors” to help women in distress. As far as I can tell, these would be a random assortment of strangers not vetted for their bona fides.

How would such a database prevent would-be sexual predators from announcing themselves as potential saviors? And what would prevent even a well-intentioned group of saviors from turning into a vigilante mob?

It’s perhaps understandable that people, frustrated by a failed and unresponsive system, are looking for novel and creative solutions to tackle the problem of violence in our society. Indeed, in response to a Twitter query from me on the advisability of such a database, Ms. Panag replied in part: “We will do what we can. You do what you can.”

What’s been completely lacking so far is a sense that India’s political establishment understands the extent of the seething anger at the state’s failure to protect its own citizens, a vital public good, and their equal failure in coming up with credible plans for fixing it.

As I’ve also written, all of the major political parties field candidates accused of violent crimes including murder and rape, and several prominent politicians themselves have made crass and misogynistic remarks amid the outpouring of anger over the Delhi rape. This can hardly inspire confidence that the political establishment takes the issue seriously.

Rather, predictably and sadly, we see the usual spectacle of political symbolism, such as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party President Sonia Gandhi going to the airport at 4 a.m. Sunday to receive the body of the young woman on the flight back from Singapore.

Talk of a memorial in honor of the young woman also would be a form of political symbolism that would distract from the much more important question of how to prevent tragedies such as hers from occurring in the future.

Overturning centuries of misogyny, which cuts across class and caste divides, will have to begin by changing the mindsets of people we interact with every day and may even live with. An older male relative, educated and apparently modern in other ways, has repeatedly told me I should wear a dupatta (a long scarf) over my t-shirt to cover my chest, while of course staring directly at it.

I used to accept such unwanted advice without reaction, either out of a mistaken respect for his years or a desire simply to not rock the boat, while feeling ashamed and embarrassed at the same time. Now, after these past two weeks, I would tell him where to stuff his advice.   end of the article