Women and India

The current American shame is our idolatry toward guns, our Moloch, as aptly Garry Wills describes it. We sacrifice innocents to it: women and children as well as men. I feel a sense of shame and despair when I consider this subject. But I suppose that every country has a shame that it must own and deal with, and in India, that shame is rape and the treatment of women. India is not alone in mistreating women, of course. Rape and other forms of degradation happen in all societies, but perhaps because of its high ideals and aspirations, the shame is more pronounced here. 

When I first came to India, I thought that India stood fairly well in the treatment of women. Women had served as leaders in the pre-Independence Congress Party, India had a female prime minister (Indira Gandhi), female politicians, famous Bollywood actresses, and young professionals. The de facto leader of the country is Sonia Gandhi, the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and widow of Rajiv Gandhi (both of whom were assassinated, but that is a separate issue and one that in its macabre way is gender-neutral). I have commented earlier on some issues related to women, but the event in December and the subsequent national outcry have raised the issue in a new and poignant way. 

I understand that news reports worldwide carried the report of the Delhi gang rape and murder of a young woman traveling home from a movie one night with a boyfriend. The event was—is—shockingly horrible. I have since learned that this brutal act is not an aberration, but only the most visible manifestation of an ongoing problem. Women in Delhi, especially, are subject to sexual harassment and groping on a regular basis. (Interestingly, some report that Mumbai does not suffer the same level of sexual harassment.) I’ve learned that reactionary politicians claim that the these acts are because of city life and an attendant liberalization of mores, such as allowing women out of the house or out at night. But in fact, things are much worse at the village level. One politician claimed that such events don’t occur in Bharat, another name for India, but Bharat seems to serve as code for a very traditional (i.e., patriarchal and hierarchical) way of life. In fact, the treatment of women is worse in the villages and areas of "tradition".
 

My thesis (hypothesis, really) is that "Bharat" —the village mentality—is the culprit here, not the cities as such. Delhi, at population of around 14 million, has seen a huge influx of migrants from the villages hoping for work and success, but work and material success are very hard to find. Because of a gender imbalance (mistreatment, even murder, of females at young ages have treated a population imbalance in genders), we have groups of young men without guidance or real hope for a better life. These are yougn males without family, mentors, spouses, or anything other than similarly situated young males--a sure recipe for crime. The mores of the village, where women are “kept in their place” by force and violence, including rape, are now transferred to the city, where keeping violence under any limitations becomes an even greater challenge. 

What is the answer? Politicians and the public are howling for a quick execution by hanging the culprits. If the heinousness of the crime justifies capital punishment, then surely this case qualifies. However, politicians who posture for the death penalty in all rape cases ignore the fact that this would make convictions more difficult. However, the practical intention of such statements is to mollify popular feeling and allow the politicians and the public to ignore the wider issues about the treatment of women. The Indian middle class, men and women, seemed to have mobilized around this issue, but it will remain a long struggle. A shocking number of Indians still live in rural settings, impoverished and undereducated. These stubborn facts will continue to place a huge drag on social progress in India. 

One note about this: I don’t know anything about the perpetrators. However, I don’t’ think that this is a religious issue. I assume that the perpetrators, to the extent they claim any religious background, were Hindu. But the problem is not one of Hinduism, or Islam, or any other religion. Rather, it’s a reaction to modernity and the pressures that modernity places on traditional societies, like rural India,  and including the rural Indians now living in cities. They perceive that they can’t keep up. Much of this part of the world is losing as it watches some among them prosper. Remember, for every fact or situation in India, a counter-example likely exists just a stone’s throw away. 

What is to be done? Education, education, education. Not just in the sense of school rooms and mastering the 3 R’s, but a true drawing out. Economic development must provide a foundation, but that will provide only a foundation. A society as large and diverse as this one will need all of help it can get from sources great and small. Let’s all contribute what we can to this task. 

Addendum: Here are some articles I recommend pertinent to this topic:

https://www.readability.com/articles/vwqkn68m (NYT article by Manu Joseph that criticizes the village mentality and cities should be havens of liberalism in the traditional sense. A very good article.)

https://www.readability.com/articles/f7st8o9n (NYT article by Sonia Faleiro, who grew up in Delhi & later moved to Mumbai. She details the problems from a woman’s perspective)

http://www.readability.com/articles/qjbf1mrk (The Hindu article by Ramachandra Guha about empowering women, especially politically)

Commentary by Amartya Sen: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Amartya-Sen-shocked-over-politicians-comments-on-Delhi-gang-rape/articleshow/17906800.cms (Bangladesh now exceeds India in indicators of development because of its better treatment of women) and more of the same in The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bangladesh-ahead-of-india-in-gender-equality-amartya-sen/article4277151.ece  (note the comparison to China). 

Here he speaks about "missing women" & related develop  issues in The Hindu: http://www.readability.com/articles/yntutxxf