

In China, Delhi gang rape spurs online debate on democracy, then censorship - sandGorgon
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-china-delhi-gang-rape-spurs-online-debate-then-censorship/article4259878.ece

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kashif
A comparison to the Chinese, without stressing that an Indian is a free
citizen and the Chinese give a lot of freedom up in-order to be governed the
way that they are, is perhaps unfair. And who is to say how many rapes and
other crimes are not reported in China.

I have also noticed that many Indians are, as always, blaming their
government. The Indian populace cannot distance itself from these acts by
blaming it on the government. The people in governance are elected from the
same society as the girl and the rapists.

I am an Indian from Delhi and events such as these happen because we teach our
sons not to respect women equally. Parents whose daughters are getting raped
are also fueling this inequality by paying dowry, or worse, by killing girls
at birth.

As a society we have brought ourselves to this and the only way out is slow,
demanding and requires us to change our society so its based less in tradition
and more on reason.

~~~
lake99
"an Indian is a free citizen"

Surely, you're joking! India has some degree of free speech, but if you
criticize Bal Thackeray, worry for your life. Not just because of Shiv Sena
goons, but because of the police. How many rave parties have the police
busted? Yes, that's part of being free. Heck! I was taken to the police
station for questioning because I was out late at night. (I was coming back
from a movie.) How many hoops should one jump through to start a business in
India? Compare that to China.

But I agree with your conclusion.

~~~
kashif
The thing about freedom is that you aren't the only person who is free. Sane
or rational behavior is not a necessary outcome of being free. Its not freedom
from stupidity or narrow mindedness. :)

~~~
lake99
It surely is freedom from stupidity and narrow-mindedness of government
officials. I don't hold the government accountable for the values of rapists.
But I do hold it accountable for its own actions (and inaction).

------
abraham_s
I agree that China has made faster progress than India. But attributing this
difference to "democracy" vs "one party rule" is too simplistic. 1) India is
much more diverse than China. With each state having its own language,it is a
wonder that India ended up as a single nation. 2) India has a number of
problems which is weighing down its progress. Corruption, inefficiency of the
government, coalition governments in recent years leading to political
paralysis, caste system and high rate of poverty and illiteracy. It is not
clear that "one party rule" would have been better in solving these issues.
3)Due to the censorship in China, it would be reasonable to say that what the
world know about China is what they want us to know.

Being a Indian I would gladly sacrifice some development for the freedom I
enjoy in India. But what worries me is the cost of this freedom is getting
higher by the day and the freedom is slowly taken away
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Act_2000>).

~~~
w1ntermute
> Being a Indian I would gladly sacrifice some development for the freedom I
> enjoy in India.

The fact that you are fluent in English and have internet access suggests that
you much more educated and wealthy than the average Indian. Ask the average
Indian how they feel about sacrificing some freedom for development, and the
answer will be very different from yours.

You get to have your cake and eat it as well. The poor in India do not. And
they would rather eat the cake (have development, rather than freedom).
Because they are not even really free.

~~~
abraham_s
>The fact that you are fluent in English and have internet access suggests
that you much more educated and wealthy than the average Indian.

I agree I cannot speak for the poor in India. Both my parents were employed
and my annual income was 5 times the per-capita income in India.

>You get to have your cake and eat it as well. The poor in India do not. And
they would rather eat the cake (have development, rather than freedom).
Because they are not even really free.

I agree they are not free. But I do not see how you can speak for them.

------
anovikov
I am sure this story has nothing to do with the democracy. India isn't a
repressive country by any measure, and far and away the most democratic one of
all countries with the similar per capita GDP. It's not the government that
rapes women, or shelters the rapists. It's about public opinion and gender
relationships - when women are considered 2nd grade people raping them is
well, nothing to be worried much about. Government can't change that. If it
tries, it will result in the same thing as when it tried to limit birth rate
in Indira Gandhi times - which eventually cost her life. Selective abortions
and fighting them is another case of government's helplessness when the
people's minds are broken. Government can't change (at least in a positive way
- in a negative it can, see Hitler) public morale, even in such doubtless
situations as this one. It is up to the people to change.

~~~
nekojima
"It's not the government that rapes women, or shelters the rapists."

Police regularly try to pressure rape victims into marrying their rapists, or
accepting a cash settlement. See below link to another case a few days ago.
The problem in India is society's treatment of women and India is among the
very worst places in the world for a girl or woman to live. Somalia and
Afghanistan are often considered safer places for females to live than India.
The level of unreported violence is staggering and shameful. Until this is
widely accepted and acknowledged, by more than a small minority cross-section
of Indian society, little will change in India.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9768614...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9768614/Indian-
teenager-commits-suicide-after-gang-rape.html)

~~~
kashif
The police is not the government. The police is composed of people from
society - much like the government.

~~~
nekojima
Police are civil servants under the direction and policies of ministries
within the framework of government. The government is not just the political
elite, rather its the civil service as well and that is who the majority of
people deal with on a daily basis. If there isn't sufficient ministerial
direction or aren't adequate agency policies in place and very importantly
those policies are enforced, then the lower ranks of police (and other civil
servants) will largely do as they please. This is why corruption, collusion
and incompetence are so very tough to remove from much of India's civil
service and society.

~~~
kashif
I think you miss the point. It is us.

~~~
nekojima
I understand your point. Change can come from the top down (government) or
from bottom up (citizens). But if the middle ground (often the
government/civil service in India) is stopping change or reform, pressure must
be put on it. Usually this is from the top, as from the bottom, its usually
only possible via a revolution, and that may not bring the changes the people
who lead the revolution want (see Egypt as an example). To change mass opinion
in India, not those demonstrating already, but billion plus unable or
unwilling to, will be very tough. Many of them do not want or are unwilling to
accept change of any kind.

------
factorialboy
At least in India crimes against women makes its way to the media and the
civil society tries its best to reform.

In countries where the state censors all media, the news would have been
buried and rape? what rape? Don't mention rape, are you a CIA agent?

------
diego_moita
India does look like a chaos that rarely resolves into a solution and keeps
hurting low and slow (Muslims vs. Hindus, hunger and poverty, Naxalites,
etc.).

But China looks like a pressure cooker without a release valve that once in a
while explodes into gigantic tragedies (Taiping rebellions, Civil War &
Communist Revolution, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, ...).

------
abraham_s
The problem is not democracy but "an inefficient and unequal democracy".
Rampant corruption exacerbates the problem. The problem with India is a failed
law enforcement system and overwhelmed judicial system. It is very easy to
bribe your way out of any crime, unless the crime has received media coverage
or if the victim is someone influential(One recent example
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jessica_Lal>). Court cases drag on
forever and seeking justice turns out to be punishment for the victim(it might
take years to get a verdict for criminal charges and it might be decades for
civil suits). For example 640 rape cases were reported in Delhi this year and
assuredly none of the other 639 cases would have had of progress of this one
case which received media attention.

------
suhastech
My hypothesis on why the way it is in India. This should not be viewed
critically. This probably applies to less literate part of the population.

Before british influence, looking at the history, indians seem to have been
very open about sex. Historically, the family trees worked in a way, male is
dominant and the bread earner. Family ties are very much respected. So, male
child is kind of like a retirement plan for parents.

During the british influence (probably, due to the christian missions?) a
taboo on sex talk was instated. With increasing poverty, poor ones started
loading off their "girl child burden" by child marriages. Here's where
disrespect for women increase and probably seen as more of a "problem" than a
cherished companion. It can be noted that dowry might be interpreted as a
payment received to take care of the "problem". There seems to be a few
revolts to ban child marriages by social reformers but that didn't completely
solve the problem.

Fast forward few years, this created a void in companionship from his puberty
to mid twenties until his marriageable age.

I think the society must evolve to completely solve the problem. I'm afraid
that, due to this, youngsters are losing faith in traditional monogamy. At
extremes, taking such bad measures due to the sorry state of respect for the
opposite sex.

~~~
potatolicious
I'm generally skeptical of theories such as this - mostly because it attempts
to externalize an issue.

When the crux of an argument involves pinning the blame on external factors,
the onus for substantiation rises.

I would be interested in seeing _actual_ gender roles in pre-colonial India
vs. today (as opposed to a more idealistic and less accurate view of it we may
have today).

FWIW, I'm Chinese and these hypotheses aren't new to us either. There are all
kinds of theories that attempt to blame social ills on the period of Western
dominance in China, but inevitably they are unsubstantiable and more driven by
the need to blame someone for something.

~~~
suhastech
This is definitely not a blame game. Do note that I've specified a few
contributing factors in pre colonial times major one being the male dominance.
The taboo is just stopping us to open up the issue.

I believe we can solve problem by finding the cause or in other words going to
the first principles. That's how most things work. Discarding a theory just on
the basis of trying to list factors is probably not the best way to go about.

FWIW, I'm Indian and I'm not even a nationalist TBH.

------
jonathanyc
ITT: Good Indians patriotically defend their fatherland against hordes of
invisible Chinese rivals.

