CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA;:ANGER ON THE STREETS

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books India is fast becoming a country where women are no longer safe. As the father of a young teenager I am concerned about the sort of society in which young girls will enter. In the work place sexual harassment of women has become almost routine and women mostly either quit their jobs or deal with it using administrative procedure which are usually ineffective. In the domestic sphere violence against women has acquired social sanction in that even the police are reluctant to register cases against the guilty party and even the rare case that come up for trial usually ends in an acquittal as the legal process is so cumbersome and weighed against the victim that the woman just gives up. As India is becoming more open to a neo liberal economy, women have started entering the job market and they face exploitation and worse. In Banglore women soft ware professionals returning home in the Company car have been raped and murdered and the sentence given is so negligible that the message goes out loud and clear that violence against women is not a priority. The statistics for what in India is called "dowry deaths" is just appalling. Every minute a woman is being burnt alive for dowry and the conviction rate for such murders is extremely low and the law is not being enforced. The surprising sociological fact is that groups which did not have "dowry" as part of their social customs have now started demanding dowry and this new development is leading to a lot of social problems. In New Delhi, a Congress politician killed herself and her 2 year old daughter due to harassment by the in-laws for dowry. It took a full week for the police to even register the case. Such is the apathy even in the capital. There have been a series of extremely horrific attacks on women over the past few months and each is worse than the previous. Women and girls from schools, colleges and universities are out protesting, demanding security. Given the fact that a corrupt, criminal dynastic fascist regime is clinging to power in New Delhi we do not expect any change. The fact is that the political climate is so uncertain that criminals feel emboldened to commit crimes as they know that the Congress Party is there to protect them. All the serious cases hace happened only in Congress ruled states: New Delhi, Haryana and Rajastan. However isolated cases have been reported from West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Munbai, another Congress ruled state. The governance is so bad that people have lost faith in the ability and the competence of the governments to enforce the law. There have been more than 600 cases of rape reported so far this year and this figure is nowhere close to the actual figure because rape is usually not reported due to the stigma associated with it. The worst and the most barbaric attack happened in New Delhi when a young woman and her fried were attacked and the girl raped onm a moving bus on the Outer Ring Road, New Delhi. The girl was gang raped and stabbed with beer bottles and iron rods and thrown out of the bus. The barbarity of this attack finally shocked the nation and the 6 residents of a slum in Delhi were arrested. The false veneer of political correctness has led the print and the electronic media to cover the crimes committed by the slum dwellers of New Delhi with a politically correct gloss. The barbarity of the most recent attack finally led to the exposure of the fact that most of the violent crimes were the handiwork of men living in the slums which surround the city. The requirement of registering these migrants and finger printing them is resisted by the fashionable liberal left whose daughters go the work and schools in cars and do not use public transport. The liberal left is high on rhetoric and low in actual concern for the underprivileged. Finally the message has sunk home. The politicians are not interested in undertaking any steps to bring about even a modicum of security. The MPs used the protests against rape aa an opportunity to be photographed and appear as if they are concerned. The fact is that the vast majority of Indian's MPs are actually criminals awaiting trail for violent crimes like murder, rape, rioting ect. I hope that the Indian people decide not to vote for criminals and f they send criminals to Parliament then their daughters are not safe. I hope the thick skulled Indians learn this lesson before it is too late. For the past 8 years we have seen unending corruption, mismanagement of Indian resources, unending acts of terrorism and now appalling acts of violence against women. The demand is now being made for the introduction of death sentence for rapists. The scandal is that the former President, a lawyer by profession and a woman one Prathiba Patil commuted the death sentence on 20 rapists who killed their victims. Such is the sad reality of the enforcement of law. It is difficult enough to secure conviction in Indian courts and this woman caomes along and commutes the sentence. What justice can one expect if a woman like Prathiba Patil is made President by a crimainal organization like the Congress.