India Insight

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily of Thomson Reuters)

The gang rape of a 23-year-old woman and the beating of her male friend on a moving bus in New Delhi Sunday night has produced debates about women’s rights in India and about whether the death penalty — or castration — are suitable remedies for the situation. It has not prompted, from what I can see, any speculation that the woman got what she deserved because she was dressed like a slut… until today.

For anyone who has missed the story, here’s what has happened so far, according to multiple media reports: the woman and her friend boarded the bus. They thought it was operating on a public route, but the driver and the men on board apparently were out for a joyride instead. They raped the woman, beat the pair with an iron rod, and threw them out of the bus and left them to die on the street. Police have arrested some of the men, politicians are in high dudgeon, and the woman is in the hospital. She suffered damage not only to her reproductive system, but to her intestines.

There is plenty of speculation about what it is about men’s attitude toward women in India, as well as women’s place in society there, that could produce a situation like this. One thing’s for sure, it’s not uncommon. And if you’re looking for the other view, rightly discredited in most countries, you can find it on Twitter. Many Indians reacted with horror and anger to these Tweets from @shivendraINDIA, who calls himself an assistant review officer in the Allahabad High Court (he is listed here with 342 others):

@saritatanwar why that gal was enjoying with her boyfriend? is it indian culture? girl,who was raped in delhi, shud not have followed western culture @maheepkapoor. sorry but I think that delhi gals r too modern so that delhi is becoming rape capital

In other words (and this is only my interpretation), nice girls don’t go out at night with men and get on city buses. They also should not fall pray to the West with its skimpy clothing, loose morals, premarital sex or other choices that women are allowed to decide for themselves in most countries. India, with its stated goal of equality for everyone, is supposed to be one of those places. Though it’s not a revolutionary thought, there is no excuse for raping a woman or a man, and then beating them almost to death. “She deserved it,” “she’s a whore” and “she asked for it” are not plausible explanations. I don’t mean to sound preachy, which is how I might sound to many American readers. But in India, where women on the street are routinely groped and leered at, these ideas evidently remain in circulation.

The Ramlila Maidan in old Delhi is a reasonably eventful place. That’s what made the National Book Fair stand out; it was practically abandoned. On the second day of the event, there were fewer book stalls, unoccupied slots, and few enough visitors that you could count them on your fingertips. Then there was one organiser bellowing into his mobile phone about a lack of adequate power, and bored stall owners like this man:

Stall owners I spoke to said the show disappointed them in part because there was a lack of publicity. Another said that the location in Old Delhi wasn’t a good idea. But I managed to get shots of visitors:

As I went from stall to stall, I realised the collection on display was dated. Look at the picture below of a stall offering rock-bottom prices for books that are available at the nearest hawker near my house or at the Sunday Daryaganj book market.

“My father has called me 15 times since yesterday,” a colleague told me today as New Delhi recovers from the shock of a woman being assaulted, gang-raped and thrown off a bus on Sunday night.

There were more comments from women on my Facebook feed: “It is a scary thought to go out for dinner at 9:15 pm”; “Men on Delhi streets can literally rape you with words … met one giggling a** just now. Felt like picking a stone and hitting it right where it all starts from …”

These comments made me think. Never had we discussed a rape case so vehemently in office; never before has a rape case moved me personally. Why? Perhaps, we are immune to such headlines in newspapers and used to the way things are.

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)

Yet another rape has rattled India. As I read the details, I felt familiar sensations of anger, frustration, helplessness and vulnerability. Sunday’s incident, in which a 23-year-old student in New Delhi was gang raped, assaulted and thrown out of a bus, made the front pages of India’s newspapers and was debated in parliament.

The woman is hospitalised with severe vaginal, abdominal and head injuries. One of those arrested is a 30-year-old driver who ferries school children.

As a practising Catholic, I was eagerly waiting to read Pope Benedict XVI’s first tweets. I didn’t expect to be blown away by the first few, but interest was building on the Internet, and I was part of that. Not many in India or my home state of Goa seemed to care very much. Perhaps they didn’t even know that the Pope had joined Twitter. But the small step by Pope Benedict on Wednesday, marks a dramatic change in the way the Church communicates to its faithful.

No one expected the Vatican, usually conservative by nature, or the 85-year old Pontiff, to say anything path-breaking or revolutionary. As expected, the first tweet was bland, and the event anti-climactic. Pope Benedict XVI also proved himself initially incapable of tweeting on his own.

Nonetheless, when a pope does something for the first time, it’s impressive anyway. He has more than a million followers, and his messages will be tweeted in eight languages (Hindi isn’t one of them). More impressive is the idea that you can talk to the pope. The German pontiff’s first few tweets raised various responses, ranging from child abuse cover-up accusations, people calling him a Nazi and Satan, and others offering him encouragement and prayers, and someone who asked him to pray that she gets a new iPhone 5.

There is a moment in the beginning of the Concert for Bangla Desh live album when sitar master Ravi Shankar and his fellow musicians play some notes on their Indian instruments. When they stop, the audience at Madison Square Garden applauds and cheers. “Thank you,” Shankar said. “If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.”

He and his band members then begin playing the piece called “Bangla Dhun.” At the end, the crowd cheers just as lustily as they did for the warmup.

That was 1971. Forty-one years later, and a day after Shankar’s death at the age of 92, I’m not sure that most of the western world is any more hip to the difference between tune-up and performance in Indian music than the people who filed into Madison Square Garden that August to hear the show. I wasn’t when I heard the album in the 1980s, and I am not now. (If that’s a tune-up, I’ll listen to tune-ups for hours)

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)

As the world pays tribute to sitar master Ravi Shankar, who died on Tuesday at the age of 92, it’s worth reflecting on his greatest contribution to the world: his attempt to bridge the gap between “eastern” and “western” music with the likes of the Beatles and violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

But what will Indians remember him for? Teaching George Harrison to play the sitar, perhaps. But what’s the song he wrote that no Indian can forget? What’s the Indian equivalent of the concert for Bangladesh that Harrison organized, and at which Shankar played?

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)

Just last week, the Congress-led coalition government overcame legislative deadlock in parliament by agreeing to and winning a symbolic vote on allowing foreign companies to invest millions of dollars in India’s retail businesses.

But a week is a long time in politics. Parliament reached another impasse, and the press returned to nouns that it usually associated with parliament — uproar and furore.

When it happened two months ago, it shocked the world. Masked Taliban gunmen stopped a school bus filled with children in northwestern Pakistan, boarded it and shot 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the head and neck as she sat in the bus with her friends.

Her crime? She was a campaigner for the right of girls to go to school -- an act strictly forbidden by Taliban militants who are still active in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

This was her punishment for defying their edicts, the Taliban had said.

Fortunately, Malala survived and her story -- as well as her determination to continue to fight for girls to go to school despite the threat of death -- has captivated the world and made her into an international icon for girls' education.

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)

Speculation has been rife lately within India’s centre-right nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over who will be its candidate for prime minister in the 2014 general elections.

There were four possible candidates a few months back, but the choice seems to have narrowed to Narendra Modi, the controversial chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, or Sushma Swaraj, the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament.