A String of Rapes Puts India's Booming Cities on Edge

Siddharth Srivastava:

A series of rapes in India's fast-moving cities, Delhi and Mumbai, have shocked the country and brought into focus the fact that, despite making progress in many fields, India still has a long way to go in building a safe environment for women.

Women may be especially vulnerable due to India's booming services-led economy. Women form a core workforce and may step out of their homes at any hour to work in call centers or other operations that keep U.S. time. The crimes have been committed in areas heretofore considered safe, within the ambit of regular passers-by, office workers and police patrols.

On May 8, a college student who was with a friend at Dhaula Kuan, a bustling New Delhi neighborhood popular for its street food, was kidnapped by four men in a car and raped for over four hours. In another recent incident, a girl was raped by her ex-boyfriend and his friends inside Jantar Mantar, a historical monument in the center of Delhi, adjoining the capital's main market. A couple in the business and outsourcing hub of Noida, next door to Delhi, faced young goons who robbed them of their money, cell phones and car and raped the young woman.

Mumbai is still reeling over the rape of a college student by a police constable in April. The girl was with her boyfriend in Marine Drive, a popular open stretch along the sea in the heart of the city. Police across India frequently abuse obscenity laws; young couples in particular are often preyed upon for money. But in this case a police constable forced the girl into a police post on the pretext of interrogation and raped her.

According to the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development, one woman is raped every hour in the country. One in every five victims has not reached adulthood. Over 90 percent of the cases take place in small towns and villages. A majority of rapes are unreported due to fears of further victimization by the accused, who fear being ostracized by society as well as the insensitive attitudes of investigative agencies. A survey done in the state of Punjab a few years ago found that for every rape reported, 68 go unreported.

There have been various explanations that have been provided for the incidents -- from expressions of male or community dominance, repressed sexuality or revenge by former lovers. These apply to rural India as well. However, a new line of thought has also begun to emerge, one that sees the rapes as a symptom of the clash between the traditional and the modern, the young and old and the rich and poor, especially in pockets of cosmopolitan growth such as Delhi and Mumbai.

Observers here see a pattern in the violence, which has manifested itself in other crimes in India. Not a single day goes by without reports of the elderly -- usually staying alone with children settled abroad or elsewhere -- being murdered in New Delhi and their houses ransacked for money and belongings. Last year, Australian citizen Dawn Griggs, 57, visited India, but never made it into Delhi. The taxi driver took to her from the airport to a desolate spot and murdered her. The motive was robbery.

As India hurtles toward the future with a powerful information technology sector and outsourcing industry, the majority of Indians continue to live in poverty. This has created a situation, especially in the major cities, of rapid and disorganized urbanization. Penury and conservative attitudes exist alongside living standards and liberal thinking that can match any in the world.

Two examples bear the distorted thinking that permeates Indian society. The Shiv Sena, a political party that acts as self-appointed cultural police, said that incidents such as the rape of the college woman by the police constable happen because modern-generation Indian girls have forgotten how to dress properly. Women wearing short skirts invite rape, was their explanation.

In the second instance, a judge summoned a nurse who was raped, her one eye gouged out, in Shanti Mukund Hospital in the heart of Delhi by a hospital employee. The judge wanted the woman to answer a strange request by the rapist: would she marry him, as now, presumably, nobody else would. The victim was outraged by the court's move.

"What is it about rape," writes Laxmi Murthy in a May 10 commentary in the Times of India, "that the judiciary cannot restrict itself to delivering verdicts about the guilt of the accused, but makes observations on the complainant's behavior, her moral character and her marriage prospects?"

There is some good news. Some rape victims, such as the nurse, have continued to fight, eventually bringing their attackers to justice. They act as role models for other victims.

A darker response happened last year in Nagpur, a city in central India. Fed up with delays in the judicial process, police inaction, and fear of being victimized again by their attackers, who procure easy bail from courts, mobs of women took the law into their own hands and killed three alleged rapists.

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