Delhi men apologize

Delhi men apologize
This article in the Wall Street Journal was sent to me. Long overdue, I'd say.

Delhi Men Say SorryBy Joanna Sugden

Joanna Sugden for The Wall Street Journal
Men held banners during the meet in New Delhi, Saturday.
Before Yohan Sudheer put up his banner apologizing to Delhi women for the behavior of Indian men, a security guard stepped in to share his opinion on the matter.
“He took me aside and said ‘You know, in that rape case that it was the woman’s fault because of the way she was behaving on the bus,’” said Mr. Sudheer, recalling the conversation at the small gathering at Jantar Mantar, a popular protest ground in New Delhi, Saturday.
Mr. Sudheer, 20, says the security guard was trying to convince him that men should not be held responsible for sexually assaulting women, including in the Delhi rape case, because they should dress more conservatively.
“This is what we’re up against,” said Mr. Sudheer.
India For Integrity, the campaign group of which he is part, met this weekend along with Delhi Bikers, local motorbike enthusiasts, to offer what they called “a public apology from Delhi men to Delhi women” and to commit to change men’s attitudes towards females.
“In the protests after the Delhi gang rape everyone was talking about punishment for the perpetrators but no one was asking ‘How can I change and make Delhi better and respect women more?’” said Jonathan Abraham, 30, one of the founders of India For Integrity.
The group was set up by friends in the wake of the anti-corruption movement in India in 2011.
“The idea of this event is to get men to think more introspectively and to take responsibility,” added Mr. Abraham who is a corporate trainer in the city.
On International Women’s Day earlier this month a significant number of men joinedmainly female protesters calling for greater safety and freedom for women in India.
But Saturday’s event was entirely male as 50 or so men gathered in New Delhi and posed with signs saying “Delhi women, I’m sorry, I’m changing” and wrote out their own pledges including “I will change my views on Delhi women.”
Among those issuing an apology was Shorya Bisla, 23, dressed in a black biker vest and red neckerchief. “I might never consciously have disrespected women, but I feel that I have been mute when the people around me have,” said Mr. Bisla who works in marketing.
Paul Narjinary, 38, said he was taking part as an example to other men. “If hard core bikers can humble themselves and respect women, other men will start realizing that their own attitudes need to change,” Mr. Narjinary said.
Sanjay Kumar, a newspaper distributor, said he saw the men’s demonstration and decided to join in. “I saw the topic and thought there had been so many protests but this one was different,” Mr. Kumar, 34, said.
“Instead of pointing the finger at each other you have to look at yourself and it’s really important for men to start by saying sorry,” he added.
Numbers at the protest were lower than hoped but the organizers said this was to be expected.
“We get messages on our Facebook FB -1.46% page asking why men needed to apologize and saying women should change what they’re wearing,” Mr. Abraham said.
“Taking responsibility and saying sorry is going head to head with a completely different mind set held by many men in the city,” he added.
Geom Abraham, 31, who works for a healthcare NGO, said he was not disheartened by the small turn out. “The ripple will not end here,” he said. “People will hear about it on the Internet and the conversation will continue.”

Joanna Sugden is freelance journalist living in Delhi. Before coming to India in 2011 she spent four-and-a-half years as a reporter at The Times of London, covering religion and education. You can follow her on Twitter @jhsugden.

I hate to say this. I really, really do. But, this article is apt for men like my Dad and women like my Mum. People who believe that a girl necessarily has to dress conservatively in order to avert attention. Why!? Seriously! You people don't deserve to live in the 21st century with mindsets like we live in the Dark Ages!! 

Post on the Delhi rape case

I came across this blog and the post while browsing:

Blog name: http://www.whiteindianhousewife.com
Post: http://www.whiteindianhousewife.com/2013/01/indias-rape-crisis-dont-simply-blame-the-men/
Author: Sharell Cook

The content of this post has opened a whole new arena of thought process in my brain now.

The recent gangrape and beating of a 23 year old Indian woman in Delhi (and her subsequent tragic death) has shaken not only India but the world. It dominated the news in Australia, where I was visiting my family last month, along with the shocking statistic that a rape happens every 22 minutes in India. It’s a grave matter because India’s international reputation is now at stake and the situation has left the world waiting for answers and action to be taken.

I didn’t want to write anything about the rape for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s left me with a lot of negative feelings and I don’t want to dwell on them as it will make living in India disturbing for me. Secondly, as I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve reached a stage where I feel less inclined to want to write about contentious issues in India. I’ve gone through a phase of “locking horns” with India and questioning how the country functions. Now, I’ve reached a stage of resignation. It is what it is, and as I’m not a citizen of India, it’s not really my place to judge and criticise.

However, I’ve been asked to write something about the rape situation here in the hopes of igniting a constructive discussion, so I’ll briefly share my views about it.

The simple thing to do is to just blame the men for raping — after all they’re committing the act. Where’s their self control? It goes deeper than that though. The core of the matter is why men think that they can keep behaving in such a way. And, the reason is because Indian society and the legal system supports such behaviour.

Take an example such as Hitler. He was the perpetrator of many horrific acts. Yet, he would never have been able to carry them out if so many people didn’t support him.

In India, the rape of women is directly or indirectly supported by a range of factors including:

• the lesser status of women in society and the manner in which they are shunned if rape does happen to them.
• an ineffective legal system where women are discouraged from reporting rapes, and the rapists can get free through such means as offering bribes. India’s legal system is also notoriously inefficient and long winded, and conviction rates for rapes low.
• politicians who have cases of rape and sexual harassment against them being commonplace. Political parties support them and allow them to enter politics.

It’s the attitude of Indian society towards women and rape victims that’s particularly disturbing. A friend of mine wrote an excellent, well researched, blog post about it.

She states:

“I was sad to discover the “11% Truth” about rape in India – or what happens to a child or woman after being a victim of a rape or incest. I surveyed and asked If a girl or woman is raped in India, will she have the same chances in life as anyone else? (for example, to find a good husband, live a normal family life, etc…). A resounding 89% of Indians believe that she never will. That means that only 11% of victims will end up leading a happy ‘normal’ life if anyone were to find out that she’d been raped. In part, that explains very vividly the low number of reports filed following a rape. Keeping it a secret seems like the only chance some girls have to find a good husband later.”

She also reveals:

“When I asked If a girl is raped, does this bring shame – or embarrassment – onto the family of the victim? 50% of respondents answered YES. A large number of respondents left follow-up comments to that question like, “my personal answer is no, but the real answer in many Indian families would be yes.” I read countless stories of village girls and women thrown out and banned from their homes after being raped. This is done to minimise damage to the family’s status within the community and reduce the level of shame brought down upon them as much as possible.”

From this, it is clear that the fundamentals of Indian society need to change. I dearly want to believe that the girl’s death will be a catalyst for this much needed change. It’s a hope that I’m clinging to because I don’t want to accept the alternative — that her death will be in vain and forgotten about in years to come, and that the attitudes that support rapes and mistreatment of women will prevail.

Effective writing, really though provoking. Like I have stated before, I wonder why we are still living in the dark ages while all that could be heard earlier was "India will emerge a super powers".

However, at what cost?

Regards

Article on Delhi gang rape in TOI on 30.12.12

This article in TOI on 30.12.12 is an editorial by Rupa Sengupta. I can tell you that I agree with every sentence, every word of it and I am sad to say that my parents, like many expected the highlighted sentences of me.

Why is freedom still denied to midnight's girl children?2012 will end at the stroke of the midnight hour. But India won't stop mourning the death of Nirbhaya, a young rape victim so named by this newspaper for her fearlessness in the face of adversity. This paramedical student's undeserved fate serves as a reminder that - after six decades of Independence - the modern Indian woman is free to do simple things like meet a friend, walk on the street, and catch a bus at night - only at her own risk. Whatever happened to her freedom, promised at the stroke of midnight back in 1947?
Nirbhaya's is the story of millions of Indian women, open to insults, subject to ambush, vulnerable to attack, destined for demonisation. Yes, women are stalked, molested and battered the world over. But, barring some barbaric places, the world over it isn't social custom for girls to be killed even before they're born. The world over, they aren't forbidden choice in work, love or marriage by politically coddled khaps. The world over, they aren't set ablaze with sickening regularity for not meeting dowry demands or failing to bear sons. Nor do most politicians, the world over, think it perfectly kosher to justify rape by blaming the victim.
The men who victimised Nirbhaya were monstrous products of this very society that would have women surrender body and mind or else metamorphose into a strumpet in male eyes. Surely freedom means nothing if, despite their shared humanity, women are thought inferior to men, and so coerced to serve them in the flesh or be stripped, whipped and worse.
It's time to ask some questions - and loudly. How many times has a girl child been told not to run wild like her brothers, because she must inculcate passivity? How many times has a girl student been told that the art of masochism prepares her for life more than the habit of scientific enquiry? How many times have teenagers, barely post-puberty, been paraded in the marriage market as sideshows to the 'dahej'*? How many times have brides been made to acquiesce to conjugal deflowering and impregnation as the sole justification for their existence?
Perhaps as many times as 'virtuous' women are told that the night is out of bounds save to tramps and trollops. All because nocturnal obscurity works in the fevered minds of predators a mysterious transformation of woman into slut cum prey. How many times must the midnight hour - the instant this country won freedom - be a witching hour, associating woman with evil so that society can deploy male lust as a weapon of punitive exorcism?
What are you doing out at night? That's what her tormentors asked Nirbhaya and her companion one December night. Shall we not, as midnight's children, demolish that abominable question by saying women need answer neither to society's moral police nor to its criminal spawn?
That Nirbhaya's heroism moved so many people in a nation where gender bias breeds rampant brutality suggests we can. As a new year approaches, let it inspire in us the resolve to reform society and politics, challenging every one of their conspiratorial assaults on one half of the Indian population. Nirbhaya's refusal of victimhood in her darkest hours teaches what we always knew: that human dignity is inalienable and the human spirit indomitable. It is this light of inner freedom that midnight's girl children must hold on to.
For, Nirbhaya's story doesn't tell women to dread the world because beasts lurk in it, behind trees, beyond each bend, in vehicles with dark windows. It enjoins us to remake the world so that every member of a long-oppressed sorority can trust it as a guarantor of equality, security and justice. Our freedom is only half-won unless Nirbhaya's sisters can walk on the road on a winter night, board the bus that comes along, and find their way home - the way Nirbhaya hoped to.

It gets me thinking. Why do we women put up with this hellhole? There must be some way out of it. Only thing, it is unknown as of now.

Regards

* Dahej is Hindi for dowry.