http://www.b
India’s Narendra Modi and the Tale of Two Rapes
By Shikha Dalmia Jan 17, 2013 9:12 PM GMT+0530
One of the most obscene moments after the death of the gang-rape victim in New
Delhi <http://topic
Modi<http://topic
the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, offering regret and
condolences to the dead woman’s family.
Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject
women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his
prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he was elected to a third term last
month and is the presumptive front-runner of the Bharatiya
Janata<http://topic
the main Hindu opposition party, for prime minister in next year’s national
elections.
So long as Indians keep rewarding politicos such as Modi, the country’s
collective outrage after the New Delhi case won’t change the
culture<http://www.b
that
makes such atrocities common in India <http://topic
The attack on the 23-year-old physiotherapy student was
depraved<http://www.b
Five men and a teenager in a private bus are accused of kidnapping,
beating, raping and violating her with an iron rod -- and then dumping her
and her semi-conscious boyfriend on a highway, where they also allegedly
tried to run her over. But as monstrous as this crime was, consider what
happened in Gujarat in February 2002, a few months after Modi assumed
office.
Organized bands of well-armed Hindus -- some from groups tied to Modi’s
party -- fanned across the state seeking revenge against Muslims for
allegedly burning a train full of Hindu pilgrims a few weeks earlier. The
Hindu rioters systematically sought
out<http://www.o
destroyed Muslim homes and businesses, killing more than 1,000 people.
Extreme Violence
Muslim women were singled out. According to many Indian and foreign
sources, including a Human Rights Watch account and a
report<http://www.o
an international research team called “Threatened Existence: A Feminist
Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat,” women were stripped, gang-raped,
often publicly, and in almost all cases then burned or hacked to death.
The reason the violence reached such extremes was that the state police
stood back and didn’t intervene to stop the Hindu attacks and even told
victims that it couldn’t protect them. As if the bloodletting wasn’t
horrific enough, Modi subsequently
dismantled<http://sikhs
the
shelters constructed by private organizations for dispossessed Muslims,
calling them “child-breeding centers.”
Compared with the New Delhi rape, which has triggered a protest movement in
India calling for the castration and execution of the suspects, the Gujarat
rapes and pogrom elicited barely a whimper. Many Hindus either deny that
the horror even occurred or, if they accept it, claim it wasn’t as grisly
as news accounts suggest. And if they believe the accounts, they say
Muslims had it coming. Fewer than 100 out of the thousands accused -- among
them only one state minister and one Bharatiya Janata
Party<http://topic
-- were convicted, and that was a decade later. Modi himself was
exonerated<http://www.b
.
Whatever public disgust there was against him has dissipated, given the
stellar economic growth that Gujarat has seen on his watch. Business
leaders and corporations, from India and overseas, turn a blind eye to
Modi’s role in allowing the bloodshed, and praise his economic stewardship.
His business backers have already
managed<http://www.b
get the U.K. government to reverse its long-standing ban on him and to give
him a visa. Now they are trying to persuade the U.S. government to follow
suit.
What accounts for the wide gulf in the Indian public response to the single
crime in New Delhi and the mass crimes in Gujarat?
On a positive side, attitudes toward women have
evolved<http://www.b
considerably
since the Gujarat atrocity 11 years ago. Indian women’s aspirations and
opportunities have increased, especially in big cities, and they are
demanding that the governing classes keep pace and create an environment in
which they are free to move around safely.
Changed Attitudes
After the New Delhi attack, any politician or even religious guru -- no
matter how revered -- who suggested that women need to circumscribe their
lives and choices for their own protection was condemned and lampooned,
something scarcely imaginable when I was growing up in New Delhi (in a
Hindu household) in the 1970s.
But the darker reality is that the young woman’s rape and murder outraged
the country’s Hindu urban middle class because it was a random and
senseless act that could have just as easily victimized their daughters.
Not so with attacks on the Muslim women in Gujarat. The premeditated and
programmatic violence against them meant that the broader Hindu majority
was insulated from it. If the New Delhi woman’s fate made every Indian
feel more
vulnerable<http://www.b
the attack on the Muslim women made Hindus feel more secure.
There are other reasons for India’s apathy toward Modi’s misdeeds. India is
a democracy and has its share of human-rights activists and watchdog groups
keeping an eye on government brutality. Yet the public at large has little
appreciation of the dangers associated with overly muscular government.
Indians complain constantly about government dysfunction and corruption.
Yet they have little compunction about giving draconian powers to their
rulers in the name of security. The upshot, tragically, is that Indians
care less about state-fueled rape than when perpetrated by individuals.
The scale of the sexual violence in Gujarat was unprecedented in India. But
smaller episodes are a matter of routine. The Indian army has been
accused<http://www.o
using rape<http://ibnli
as
a weapon to crush secessionist movements in Kashmir and Manipur. After one
particularly heinous case eight years ago, Manipuri women stripped naked
and stormed the army headquarters with placards plaintively protesting:
“Indian Army Rapes Us.”
Tolerating sexual violence for any purpose erodes the overall stigma
against it, opening a moral space where hoodlums can run amok. The lack of
national outrage against the mass rapes perpetrated under Modi reduces
their true cruelty, breaking down the psychological walls that would at
least prevent nonsociopaths from going on a rampage. Hindus who turn a
blind eye to the rape of Muslim women can’t ultimately protect their own.
How India can restore moral boundaries is a difficult issue, but it
certainly won’t be solved by electing Modi to higher office -- even if he
were Adam Smith <http://topic
Protesters shouldn’t just seek justice against the six accused in New
Delhi. Modi, too, has much to atone.
(Shikha Dalmia is a contributor to Bloomberg View and a Detroit-based
senior analyst at Reason Foundation. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this article: Shikha Dalmia in Detroit at
shikhadalmia
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Katy Roberts at
kroberts29@b
--
India’s Narendra Modi and the Tale of Two Rapes
By Shikha Dalmia Jan 17, 2013 9:12 PM GMT+0530
One of the most obscene moments after the death of the gang-rape victim in New
Delhi <http://topic
Modi<http://topic
the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, offering regret and
condolences to the dead woman’s family.
Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject
women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his
prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he was elected to a third term last
month and is the presumptive front-runner of the Bharatiya
Janata<http://topic
the main Hindu opposition party, for prime minister in next year’s national
elections.
So long as Indians keep rewarding politicos such as Modi, the country’s
collective outrage after the New Delhi case won’t change the
culture<http://www.b
that
makes such atrocities common in India <http://topic
The attack on the 23-year-old physiotherapy student was
depraved<http://www.b
Five men and a teenager in a private bus are accused of kidnapping,
beating, raping and violating her with an iron rod -- and then dumping her
and her semi-conscious boyfriend on a highway, where they also allegedly
tried to run her over. But as monstrous as this crime was, consider what
happened in Gujarat in February 2002, a few months after Modi assumed
office.
Organized bands of well-armed Hindus -- some from groups tied to Modi’s
party -- fanned across the state seeking revenge against Muslims for
allegedly burning a train full of Hindu pilgrims a few weeks earlier. The
Hindu rioters systematically sought
out<http://www.o
destroyed Muslim homes and businesses, killing more than 1,000 people.
Extreme Violence
Muslim women were singled out. According to many Indian and foreign
sources, including a Human Rights Watch account and a
report<http://www.o
an international research team called “Threatened Existence: A Feminist
Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat,” women were stripped, gang-raped,
often publicly, and in almost all cases then burned or hacked to death.
The reason the violence reached such extremes was that the state police
stood back and didn’t intervene to stop the Hindu attacks and even told
victims that it couldn’t protect them. As if the bloodletting wasn’t
horrific enough, Modi subsequently
dismantled<http://sikhs
the
shelters constructed by private organizations for dispossessed Muslims,
calling them “child-breeding centers.”
Compared with the New Delhi rape, which has triggered a protest movement in
India calling for the castration and execution of the suspects, the Gujarat
rapes and pogrom elicited barely a whimper. Many Hindus either deny that
the horror even occurred or, if they accept it, claim it wasn’t as grisly
as news accounts suggest. And if they believe the accounts, they say
Muslims had it coming. Fewer than 100 out of the thousands accused -- among
them only one state minister and one Bharatiya Janata
Party<http://topic
-- were convicted, and that was a decade later. Modi himself was
exonerated<http://www.b
.
Whatever public disgust there was against him has dissipated, given the
stellar economic growth that Gujarat has seen on his watch. Business
leaders and corporations, from India and overseas, turn a blind eye to
Modi’s role in allowing the bloodshed, and praise his economic stewardship.
His business backers have already
managed<http://www.b
get the U.K. government to reverse its long-standing ban on him and to give
him a visa. Now they are trying to persuade the U.S. government to follow
suit.
What accounts for the wide gulf in the Indian public response to the single
crime in New Delhi and the mass crimes in Gujarat?
On a positive side, attitudes toward women have
evolved<http://www.b
considerably
since the Gujarat atrocity 11 years ago. Indian women’s aspirations and
opportunities have increased, especially in big cities, and they are
demanding that the governing classes keep pace and create an environment in
which they are free to move around safely.
Changed Attitudes
After the New Delhi attack, any politician or even religious guru -- no
matter how revered -- who suggested that women need to circumscribe their
lives and choices for their own protection was condemned and lampooned,
something scarcely imaginable when I was growing up in New Delhi (in a
Hindu household) in the 1970s.
But the darker reality is that the young woman’s rape and murder outraged
the country’s Hindu urban middle class because it was a random and
senseless act that could have just as easily victimized their daughters.
Not so with attacks on the Muslim women in Gujarat. The premeditated and
programmatic violence against them meant that the broader Hindu majority
was insulated from it. If the New Delhi woman’s fate made every Indian
feel more
vulnerable<http://www.b
the attack on the Muslim women made Hindus feel more secure.
There are other reasons for India’s apathy toward Modi’s misdeeds. India is
a democracy and has its share of human-rights activists and watchdog groups
keeping an eye on government brutality. Yet the public at large has little
appreciation of the dangers associated with overly muscular government.
Indians complain constantly about government dysfunction and corruption.
Yet they have little compunction about giving draconian powers to their
rulers in the name of security. The upshot, tragically, is that Indians
care less about state-fueled rape than when perpetrated by individuals.
The scale of the sexual violence in Gujarat was unprecedented in India. But
smaller episodes are a matter of routine. The Indian army has been
accused<http://www.o
using rape<http://ibnli
as
a weapon to crush secessionist movements in Kashmir and Manipur. After one
particularly heinous case eight years ago, Manipuri women stripped naked
and stormed the army headquarters with placards plaintively protesting:
“Indian Army Rapes Us.”
Tolerating sexual violence for any purpose erodes the overall stigma
against it, opening a moral space where hoodlums can run amok. The lack of
national outrage against the mass rapes perpetrated under Modi reduces
their true cruelty, breaking down the psychological walls that would at
least prevent nonsociopaths from going on a rampage. Hindus who turn a
blind eye to the rape of Muslim women can’t ultimately protect their own.
How India can restore moral boundaries is a difficult issue, but it
certainly won’t be solved by electing Modi to higher office -- even if he
were Adam Smith <http://topic
Protesters shouldn’t just seek justice against the six accused in New
Delhi. Modi, too, has much to atone.
(Shikha Dalmia is a contributor to Bloomberg View and a Detroit-based
senior analyst at Reason Foundation. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this article: Shikha Dalmia in Detroit at
shikhadalmia
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Katy Roberts at
kroberts29@b
--
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