- 16 Nov 2013 21:38
#14330684
India covers an entire subcontinent and over a billion people live there. It shouldn't be necessary to point out that within such a demographic - whole seventh of the world's population - rape is a constant occurrence. An hourly occurrence would be a more accurate description than weekly, that's how big an area we are dealing with here. It's also very important to understand that when we are dealing with this kind of scope, local variations can be massive: in language, religion and quality of life.
The recent surge in rape incidents in India being reported in the West has largely to do with the Delhi gang rape and following trials. The whole incident was simply too brutal, too fucked up to be ignored like rape often is - anywhere in the world, not just India. I'm generally opposed to death penalty but things like this make it very hard for me to regret that these men were stringed up. But yes, it deserved to be a massive story, and while it's good more rape incidents are being brought to publicity, the singling out of India here is troublesome.
But yeah, India has a massive problem with all sort of gender violence, not just rape and they definitely show up pretty.. unfavourably in comparison to a lot of rest of the world. It's all tied to an extremely patriarchal culture, it's male entitlement all the way. Rape is a symptom of a larger problem - a view of the world where women are simply inferior to men. You don't have societies where women are financially independent, have equal opportunity but risk a gang rape walking in the wrong part of the city. Indian women are less educated than men and they're still mostly forced to be financially reliant on their spouses. Infanticide of female babies occurs constantly. Marital rape is not even a crime in India, as it's not in much of Africa.
But to propose it was somehow more 'civilised' under British rule is ludicrous and shows a lack of understanding regarding the British rule. The deeply patriarchal aspects of Indian society were actually supported by colonial rule and a lot of the backwards legislation you see in India today are colonial remnants. There was rape in British India and if something, women were even in a weaker position then. The fact that rape statistics are skyrocketing in India is ultimately a good thing, because it doesn't tell us of rape skyrocketing, but that it's being reported more and more. When you see things like this, like horrible stories coming out of India and Indians speaking against it, you shouldn't think all hope is lost on India but actually think of it the other way around - these things have frankly always happened, but now people are actually rising to oppose all that. India needs feminism, and that can't be granted to them by anyone else - not by men, especially not white Western men like you seem to suggest. Men can only support Indian women in struggle thats ultimately theirs, because entitlement and privilege never moves over willingly, you have to actively fight it or better yet, destroy it. Getting women into schools, getting them integrated into society as individuals and not as wives is what is needed to not only fight rape but to promote the idea of Indian women every bit as worthy as their male counterparts. It's why feminism is still very much of a 21st century ideology, the victories of feminism we take for granted in the West have not been won in India yet, or much of the developing world, which were in many regards held back for ages by European powers.