Incredible India: Rape Capital of the World

India has developed rapidly during the last few years and along with that some “unwanted” developments have also taken place in the criminal world. Amongst other growing crimes, rape has become the fastest growing crime in India. Rape cases are pouring in from all over the country even against foreign tourists at an alarming rate. Based on Indian National Crime Records Bureau reports, Times of India says that there is an eight fold increase in the number of rapes committed since 1971. With this phenomenal increase, India is almost on top of the world’s list for rape cases, behind only two other countries (US and SA), and hence New Delhi has been named the “Rape Capital of the World” as it counts for nearly 30% of the total rape cases.. Incredible India may claim to be the fastest growing economy, but it is truly appalling to see that the crime against women in mega cities is growing much faster (22.9%) than its economy every year despite the rising literacy levels.

Statistics:

The NCRB data also points to the profile of the average rapist - over 75% were known to the victims. Nearly 10% were relatives. Another disturbing aspect was that about a quarter of the rape victims were minors. Sometimes, it is a brutal rape and murder by a stranger, gang-rape of a girl by her acquaintances or in many cases rape of a girl by her own father or elderly relatives, or by someone else with permission from the girl’s father or husband. In 1997, a report was released by the Sakshi Violence Intervention Centre based on a survey done with 350 school girls in New Delhi, 63% of the girls had experienced child sexual abuse at the hands of family members. Nearly one-third of the girls said the perpetrator had been a father, grandfather or male friend of the family. A society perverted to this level which seems to be applying karma sutra on close family members, needs more than just a growing economy in today’s civilised world. It doesn’t seem so strange now that India has an extremely high number of suicides too, because a girl molested by her father, grand father, or close family members who are supposed to protect her, and not treat her as if she is a walking sex object of the family will probably loses all her faith in her loved ones and her will to live on.

According to NCRB figures, there were 20737 cases of rape in India in 2007. That’s 56.8 rapes every single day on average. This is approximately 1 rape every 25 minutes. According to the Global Sisterhood Network only one out of 70 rape cases are reported. So while we read the data from NCRB about the reported cases of rape, we must also consider the reality of huge numbers that have gone unreported. According to this figure, altogether there are 4058 rapes in the Incredible India EVERY DAY. That makes it a HUGE 169 rapes EVERY HOUR, and almost 3 rape cases EVERY MINUTE. So while you are reading this, some poor sod somewhere is being molested, raped, and probably even killed by someone in the Incredible India EVERY 20 SECONDS. Lower class and lower caste women are raped by upper caste and upper class men. The good news for some Indians is that most of these women are probably Dalits or Christians, and the higher castes may not have such a huge worry on their hands (until one of their own daughters come home after being raped and sexually molested).

Among 35 cities with a population of more than a million (10 lakh), Delhi topped the list of crimes against women with 4,331 cases (nearly one-fifth of the total crimes against women). One-third of the rapes and a fifth of the molestations took place in the city. Hyderabad was second most dangerous for women with 1,931 cases.

It is very strange though, that NCRB started keeping general crime data since 1950s but only started keeping data for rapes from 1971. NCRB has been unable to provide any justification for this delay in their report, however thinking of the culture in India, they probably didn’t think that rape was a “crime” before 1971 !!

Reasons:

India today claims that literacy levels are raising within India. People are becoming prosperous, but one can not avoid thinking then why this barbaric, horrendous trend in today’s Indians? Why these and many other crimes are on the rise if people are getting education? Why this prosperity, globalisation and westernisation of the Indian youths are pushing them to carry out these inhumane crimes against their own society increasingly? It almost seems as if India is paying a very high price for its westernisation and club culture. Some of the reasons may be the degradation of family values too, especially in cases where females are assaulted by their own family members. It might also be linked to the ever increasing sexy nature of Bollywood movies that portray women as mere sex objects for men (obviously a movie generates more revenue if it has more nude scenes). Bollywood industry seems to represent an India that doesn’t actually exist, and people who follow Bollywood may try to actually follow the gangster, violent, and sexual nature of these movies, not to mention the huge increase in porn industry during the last few years. It is impossible these days to turn on an Indian satellite channel (which are almost all uncensored) and not see scenes of sexual nature within the movie / drama, or advertisements like condoms etc showing intimacy that requires use of condoms. These TV dramas and Indian media in general, present nudity as a fashion trend and symbols of higher life style. Today’s youth (including males and females, as blaming rapes on women themselves is as awful as a robbery blamed on the one robbed) falls pray to this “high life style” trap as they become more and more fond of this “fashion” and the violence that’s presented as “cool” in the Indian media.

Westernisation of the media ideally should mean teaching good values from the west such as hard work, discipline, dedication, honesty, respect, justice and equality. But these qualities of the west have been ignored by the media and the public both, and instead crime, nudity, drugs, drink culture and moral degradation are the lessons now commonly found in the media, causing the society to come to this shameful state, where a woman is raped every 20 seconds in India.

Foreigners Also Not Spared

Not only Indian women, but crime against foreigners is also on the rise in India. There have been at least a dozen cases of molestation and rape of foreign tourists so far in 2008. These rapes are suppressed by the local police and media, as probably instructed by the government to carry on earning revenue from the poor unaware tourists. These rapes have been often blamed on the foreign women themselves, for being in the wrong place (India?) and having “provoked” this horrific crime. It seems that it is too difficult for the Indian men to resist a bit of the fair skin of foreigners who come to visit India. Hence guidebooks and travellers often suggest that women wear loose, long clothes as a way of avoiding unwelcome attention. This is also evident within the western countries, where Indians shamelessly perve and stare at women, making them feel uncomfortable, be it in a club, or on the street. Indian men justify it by calling “Eve teasing”.

Here are some examples of foreign women raped in India. Please click to follow the story:

1 Indian police deliberately covered up the murder of the 15-year-old British teenager Scarlett Keeling

2. Seven foreign women and girls raped or molested within 20 days

3. British tourist in Goa raped, assaulted

4. German tourist raped in Jodhpur

5. Japanese woman raped by a hotel manger

6. German tourist raped in Chandigarh

7. Swiss girl raped by the hotel owner

8. Two Japanese women raped in Agra

9. South Korean woman raped by her tourist guide

10. Tourist pulled out of a bus and gang raped in Orissa

Tourism advice for tourist heading for India: The above list is not complete and Indian news is full of rape victims local and foreigners. So my advice to foreigners visiting India would be to please re-consider for your own safety. Be safe, not sorry. Unless you are already prepared to be raped, and killed.

The sad reality that suddenly hit me while writing this article and gathering statistics today is that (please click on the link to see the full story):

Women in India are not safe in the womb, not safe in their own homes, not safe from their own family members, not safe from in-laws, , not safe from their husbands who may want them to have sex with their brothers and friends, not safe in a police station, not safe on the streets, nor the tourist attractions.