Indo-UK News and Discussion - April 2013

[IndraD]

Brits use the same old tactic of divide and rule, by playing Brit Indians against India. I remember having seen a similar documentary on op Blue star filmed (, edited by BBC) by Brit Sikh, showing Hindus in poor light

[eklavya]

Neela, this documentary is very disturbing. I found it quite shocking. Not sure if those outside the UK can view it. If you can, do so.

Sire already tried - no can do. But then do not want to get depressed right now. Tomorrow is time enough. Water under the bridge.

Interview with the presenter and video in link below:

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/ ... e-be-woma/

[svenkat]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-107356-Our-friends-enemies-are-common-say-Britain-Pakistan-PMs

[brihaspati]

It seems we have a natural tendency to defend the BBC in putting up a documentary that samples a sequence of negative experiences from Indian women and shows equally selective sample of "prompt" GOI action. The right of BBC to show "facts" is no doubt to be defended, but is that all there is to it?

No one seems to be aware of the obvious problems in what is typically dubbed purposive or agenda-driven media campaigns. What the BBC selects to show, and what it chooses not to show - should be taken together into account. All of the incidents listed above, happen in UK too - but BBC does not do a documentary that does such a comparative or even Brit-specific such study. With the exception of cases about selective foeticide - all of those other listed events happen in UK with non-subcontinental Brit victims and non-subcontinental Brit abusers/attackers, although lawyers would be less likely [there are many lawyers now there from subcontinental origin who are doing a brisk business too] to blame the rape victim for her rape.

BBC rarely shows up its own homebase's seamy underbelly to the extent or level it goes for cherrypicking about other societies - especially India.

To be truthful and representative, the documentary had to really really "sample" randomly from the population, over a cross-section of regions, cities and countryside, regional and cultural spectra of India.

What seems to be the impression here is that - oh India is so exceptionally bad towards women, and see the "Govt" is now sitting up and taking action [implication - after such linen-washing by us the moral and ethical standards watch company of the world - we the BCC are having influence even over GOI to react]. This - at the overt cynical level - is a score card for domestic audiences and audit and marketing - that BBC also has corporate "social" impact in affecting policy, and therefore it should be "funded" well. It then becomes a sales pitch for the "activist" lobby as well as for industry and Brit gov.

At a deeper and more insidious level, it is a methodologically dishonest and purposively agenda-driven continuation of the sexually-obsessed British elite culture that needs to feel good over its own abuses and S&M tendencies.

Apart from those who feel a compulsion to defend extensions of British imperialist institutions like the BBC, Indians should try to think whether such selected and cherry-picked incidents are representative of India as a whole - considering the entire population, and its various social and material experiences all over the country, at all levels of society, in all subcultures.

If such a study comes up, and a documentary really shows proper methods of sampling - no problem with it. "Women are not safe in India" - is a vague statement, and partially true depending on criteria chosen. But not saying at the same time "women are also not safe in UK" based on the same criteria, is agenda-driven and sneaky, even cowardly. For Indians, it should only confirm the sliminess of the British character, and by association - all those who have chosen to identify with the British culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-Brit-white origins.

[chetak]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-107356-Our-friends-enemies-are-common-say-Britain-Pakistan-PMs

Obviously, India is on the top of that list onlee, considering the last hundred odd years.

[brihaspati]

Lets look at what non-Indians say about the BBC - if there is a persistent pattern of agenda/ideology/prejudgment on non-Indian issues, is it reasonable to claim that onlee for India BBC is "factual" and agenda less or methodologically unbiased.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1 ... _east_bias

In 2004, the BBC conducted a thorough internal review of its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The contents of the Balen Report, authored by Malcolm Balen were never released to the public. That the BBC spent some £250,000 successfully fending off legal attempts to get the report published led many to conclude that the report’s findings probably confirmed the view that the BBC’s coverage was at best, seriously flawed and more likely, biased against Israel.

While the Balen Report has been locked in a dark vault in BBC HQ, this last week saw the very public release of an internal BBC review into its coverage of the so-called “Arab Spring”, commissioned by the BBC Trust.

This report’s author, Edward Mortimer, a former United Nations communications director, was broadly positive about the BBC’s reporting. He did, however, identify a number of serious failings. If Mortimer’s findings are a good indication of how the BBC reports on the Middle East in general, what would happen if we were to speculatively try to place these findings into the context of BBC reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Might we come up with a version of “Balen-lite”? Allow me to try.

“Over-excitement”

There was acknowledgment from BBC Head of News Helen Boaden that some of the coverage, particularly from Libya where BBC journalists were “embedded” with rebel forces, was sometimes infected with excitement leading to a failure to explore both sides of the story. This was particularly evident with the delay in reporting human rights abuses by the Libyan rebels.

The BBC seemingly divided Arab rebels versus dictatorial regimes into a simple fight against good and evil. This would leave little room for acknowledging, for example, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the presence of Global Jihad extremists amongst the Libyan rebels.

To most observers, the demise of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime was not something to be mourned. But does this mean that BBC journalists found themselves eliciting sympathy for one side over the other, possibly in breach of BBC impartiality guidelines? Perhaps Malcolm Balen concluded something similar. BBC journalists appear to have a similar sympathy towards the Palestinians over Israel portraying them as the victims of Israeli brutality and occupation. In the same way that Libyan rebels were the “good guys” so Palestinian misdemeanors are either ignored or excused away.

So Palestinian rockets from Gaza on Israeli civilians are either part of a “cycle of violence” that accords equal moral value to that of Israeli defensive measures or are simply buried in the headlines referring to Israeli air strikes. Palestinian incitement in the media or school textbooks is not a story for the BBC, while lack of freedoms and habitual human rights abuses within Palestinian territories are underreported.

Perhaps Malcolm Balen may also have concluded that the BBC fails to acknowledge the inherent extremism of Hamas that may spoil the romanticized and false image of Palestinians as freedom fighters.

While Hamas may be referred to as “militants” in BBC reporting, all this does is bestow a status of moderation upon the Palestinian Authority which has also made demands of a zero-sum nature such as the so-called “right of return” for Palestinian refugees that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Why is the PA, which also carries out serious human rights abuses and promotes incitement and anti-Semitism in its media, regarded as moderate?

“User-Generated Content”

Edward Mortimer raised concerns about the risks of “user-generated content,” (UCG) referring to the often dramatic but grainy amateur footage taken by mobile phones and uploaded to YouTube, purporting to show events on the ground.

Academic analysis carried out for the BBC Trust review found that 74 percent of BBC broadcast news items examined over 44 days between December 2010 and January 2012, which featured UGC, contained no caveats about whether it was genuine or representative. The BBC admitted that there were not enough formal warnings and there were no guarantees that all of the activist footage broadcast without caveats had been judged to be authentic.

Perhaps the Balen Report also found that the BBC has an unhealthy reliance on Palestinian “eyewitnesses” whose versions of events cannot be guaranteed as reliable. And what about the lack of caveats? Does the BBC announce the reporting restrictions from Gaza where there is risk of intimidation and threats from Hamas, both towards foreign media and against Palestinians who deviate from the party line?

Just recently a BBC reporter tweeted on the tragic death of a two-year old Palestinian girl in Gaza as a result of an Israeli air strike. Yet it was only after differing versions came out from Hamas officials, Palestinian medical personnel and Palestinian eyewitnesses that the same BBC reporter managed to get a confession from Hamas that it was their own misfiring rocket that was responsible for the girl’s death.

“Sporadic Coverage”

The Mortimer Report concluded that BBC coverage of the Arab Spring was not as broad as it could have been. With reporters concentrated in single places such as Tahrir Square in Cairo, reporting from other Arab countries such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordan was sporadic. In a pre-Arab Spring Balen Report, it might have been concluded that the concentration of BBC resources in Israel also led to sporadic coverage of other Middle East countries (apart from Iraq), leading to a skewed image of the region.

In this Israel-centric BBC universe, the average BBC consumer is falsely led to believe that Israel is the cause of all instability in the Middle East and the only conflict occurring in the region. While Arab populations suffer behind the cloak of brutal regimes, all incidents in Israel become international news broadcast by the BBC.

We may never know what conclusions Malcolm Balen reached back in 2004. But if the BBC was prepared to publicly release the Mortimer Report, and if that report has found fault with BBC Middle East coverage, then you can bet that Balen found something far worse and more insidious going on.

[eklavya]

If such a study comes up, and a documentary really shows proper methods of sampling - no problem with it. "Women are not safe in India" - is a vague statement, and partially true depending on criteria chosen. But not saying at the same time "women are also not safe in UK" based on the same criteria, is agenda-driven and sneaky, even cowardly. For Indians, it should only confirm the sliminess of the British character, and by association - all those who have chosen to identify with the British culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-Brit-white origins.

So, according to you, this New York Times report must also be agenda driven, sneaky and cowardly because it writes about women safety issues in India without mentioning the US, and confirm to you the sliminess of the US character and those who have chosen to identify with the US culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-US-white origins:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/world ... .html?_r=0

Visits to India by female tourists dropped 35 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. That three-month period came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December, which brought protesters to the streets and shined a spotlight on the harassment and intimidation women face every day in India.

“With the most recent gang rape in Delhi on the forefront of my mind, I travel to India with more anxiety than I’m used to when traveling to a foreign country,” said Corinne Aparis, 24, of San Francisco, who is currently in the western Indian city of Udaipur as an international program coordinator with the Foundation for Sustainable Development. “It scares me to think that there’s that type of deep hatred toward women — that just being a woman is enough of a target and reason for some men to inflict such violence on me.”

And, according to you, this article in the Northeastern University Political Review most also be agenda driven, sneaky and cowardly, because it asks "Is India a safe place for women?", but does not ask the same question about the US, and must confirm to you the sliminess of the US character and those who have chosen to identify with the US culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-US-white origins:

http://www.nupoliticalreview.com/?p=2113

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, TrustLaw, India stands as the fourth most dangerous country for women, trailing only behind Pakistan, the Congo, and Afghanistan. Over 100 million women and girls are estimated to be involved in human trafficking, and 50 million girls are said to have gone “missing” throughout the past century due to female infanticide and feticide.[1] The numbers are staggering, and unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to those familiar with the history of women in India.

And, according to you, how dare the agenda-driven, sneaky and cowardly Canadians write about "Ending India's rape culture" without writing the same about Canada, and must confirm to you the sliminess of the Canadian character and those who have chosen to identify with Canadian culture (its easy: just drink a Molson) in a desperate bid to shed their non-Canadian-white origins:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commenta ... le6814566/

In a passionate speech, Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, spoke to the deeper issue behind the protests: the “blame the victim” culture in India around sex crimes. She notes that government and police officials recently insisted that most rapists can’t be prosecuted in India because, as one official put it, they are known to the women attacked. Other officials have publicly suggested that victims themselves are “asking for it” by their use of freedom of movement.

The real agenda-driven sneaky cowards and slimy characters are those masquerading as nationalists (in truth suffering from a deep seated inferiority complex for reasons unknown) while attempting to turn an issue of women's safety into one of media bias.

[Prem]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-107356-Our-friends-enemies-are-common-say-Britain-Pakistan-PMs

Obviously, India is on the top of that list onlee, considering the last hundred odd years.

Sippi Ki Shole Dekh Kya?

[brihaspati]

So, according to you, this New York Times report must also be agenda driven, sneaky and cowardly because it writes about women safety issues in India without mentioning the US, and confirm to you the sliminess of the US character and those who have chosen to identify with the US culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-US-white origins:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/world ... .html?_r=0
[...]
And, according to you, this article in the Northeastern University Political Review most also be agenda driven, sneaky and cowardly, because it asks "Is India a safe place for women?", but does not ask the same question about the US, and must confirm to you the sliminess of the US character and those who have chosen to identify with the US culture in a desperate bid to shed their non-US-white origins:

http://www.nupoliticalreview.com/?p=2113
[...]
And, according to you, how dare the agenda-driven, sneaky and cowardly Canadians write about "Ending India's rape culture" without writing the same about Canada, and must confirm to you the sliminess of the Canadian character and those who have chosen to identify with Canadian culture (its easy: just drink a Molson) in a desperate bid to shed their non-Canadian-white origins:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commenta ... le6814566/
[...]

Well, yes we all know by this time that if any shot is directed towards anything connected to the British establishment and its image - you get badly badly hurt, and immediately jump up and down in abuse. Nothing new: but yes, if you think that on UK thread we need to defend British image by pointing out similar bias or agenda in similar other Anglo-Saxon ethos dominant country - you can do so. So yes - bias is not unique to the Brits. And have you carefully forgotten the relationship of Canada - state and establishment wise to the "crown"?

The real agenda-driven sneaky cowards and slimy characters are those masquerading as nationalists (in truth suffering from a deep seated inferiority complex for reasons unknown) while attempting to turn an issue of women's safety into one of media bias.

Sure. The Brit character insinuated at elicits immediate abusive response from eklavya - who claims Indian connection or origins [apology if you never originated from India or any roots derived from India]. Thank you for nicely illustrating my point.

Could you or could you not deny the core of the argument of such "negative" documentaries as being methodologically inaccurate or not?

[brihaspati]

If we make a documentary focusing explicitly onlee on a string of horrific sexual abuse - public as well as private - in UK, as well as show how such things could go on under various excuses for admin inaction, and finally that some of them were being promptly reacted upon by the admin after being highlighted by independent channels or researchers - would that prove that UK is unsafe for women and children?

[Shanmukh]

If we make a documentary focusing explicitly onlee on a string of horrific sexual abuse - public as well as private - in UK, as well as show how such things could go on under various excuses for admin inaction, and finally that some of them were being promptly reacted upon by the admin after being highlighted by independent channels or researchers - would that prove that UK is unsafe for women and children?

B-ji,
What has prevented our tV channels (and there are umpteen number of them) from doing just this? When Indians students were being attacked in Australia, our media mobilised fast against the Aussies. Why are the Indian media silent, or even approving Britain's actions against India. Yesterday, there was an article in economic times about how Indians are abusing the British social welfare system,and why they deserve to be treated as criminals who have to submit a bond while entering UK (never mind that poverty in the Indian community is lower than any other group, except white British, and Indian households have a median income very much higher than most other communities, including most whites). Why is our media so supine against Britain?

[brihaspati]

If we make a documentary focusing explicitly onlee on a string of horrific sexual abuse - public as well as private - in UK, as well as show how such things could go on under various excuses for admin inaction, and finally that some of them were being promptly reacted upon by the admin after being highlighted by independent channels or researchers - would that prove that UK is unsafe for women and children?

B-ji,
What has prevented our tV channels (and there are umpteen number of them) from doing just this? When Indians students were being attacked in Australia, our media mobilised fast against the Aussies. Why are the Indian media silent, or even approving Britain's actions against India. Yesterday, there was an article in economic times about how Indians are abusing the British social welfare system,and why they deserve to be treated as criminals who have to submit a bond while entering UK (never mind that poverty in the Indian community is lower than any other group, except white British, and Indian households have a median income very much higher than most other communities, including most whites). Why is our media so supine against Britain?

That is the karor-rupaiah question! It is a persistent theme - no doubt. Perhaps a very long relationship between significant political movements : in both countries and the Indian section that feels its ideological centre of gravity and identity lying closer to the British than what they construct India as, in their world-view . Some of our illustrious leaders feel proud to have graduated from the same British institutions that produced men who went out to "rule" India.

[brihaspati]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... in-society
Scotland's an enlightened country – unless you're female
Scotland beats England in its compassionate ways. Just a shame about the misogyny

It is sometimes too easy to mock the quest of successive Holyrood administrations to make Scotland one of the most socially enlightened countries in the world. Surely, though, there can't be much wrong with a culture whose pronouncements and legislation are all underpinned by an innate belief that we are all created equal.

Thus, despite some profound differences between conservative and liberal, spiritual and secular, by and large we get it right and our politicians do try to balance as best they can the special interests of opposing groups. Thus Holyrood has consistently supported the desire of Catholics to have their children educated, at the state's expense, in schools that bear the imprint of their faith. In so doing, they have taken the view that faith schools make an important contribution to our socially diverse nation.

At the same time, the government has also resisted fierce opposition by Christian groups, led by the Catholic church, to same-sex marriage. No matter how sincere is the Christian position on this, it is surely right that the church cannot be seen to influence unduly the state legislature. The wandering and displaced peoples of the world know that Scotland will give them solace, protection and renewal to the best of our ability while we also strive to provide free or affordable care to those who are elderly, sick, poor and infirm.

The means to pay for high-quality care must never be a significant factor in our compassionate society and nor ought it to be in our provision of a first-class education. To my mind, these are the non-negotiable tenets of life in modern Scotland and the real pillars on which our society is built. In these areas also, it seems, the gap between what Scotland believes is important in life and what England believes to be so is becoming wider each day.

Yet while my country continues to view women as second-class citizens and as the object merely of men's sexual gratification we can never properly describe ourselves as enlightened at all.

In this area, civic Scotland talks a very good game but, in reality, we still have a medieval approach to how we view women. And on those occasions when another shocking set of statistics is released that proves the point the response by local and national government is predictable and complacent.

Last week, it was revealed that 1,372 rapes were committed in Scotland in the last 12 months, a figure that equates to almost four each day. Overall, there were almost 8,000 sex offences in the same period, a rise of 5% on the previous year. Yet the reaction of our Justice Department was lamentable.

The Scottish government report in which the numbers were revealed also insisted on claiming that overall crime was at its lowest level for 39 years. Astonishingly, the justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, said that the figures demonstrated Scotland was becoming a safer place to live.

The reduction in crime rates, though, was largely due to the fact that there had been a drastic fall in minor crime, while Mr MacAskill must be the only person in Scotland who takes the police's own figures regarding crime reduction at face value.

An indication of how sick Scottish society remains in the way women are viewed came in a recent horror story from a Glasgow nightclub run by Stefan King, one of Scotland's biggest operators in this sector. The club, the Shimmy, is in the middle of Glasgow's clubbing district and thought it was a good idea to charge high-end customers £800 for a special location on the premises that afforded its patrons the use of a specially constructed two-way mirror that looked directly into the wash-basin area of the women's bathrooms. The initial response of this establishment was to suggest that it was merely a "bit of fun".

Furthermore, it claimed that the vast majority of its customers were relaxed about this before making a delinquent joke about vibrators under the dancefloor. Effectively, any woman using this club was being denied even the merest expectation of privacy.

A friend of mine who is close to Glasgow's licensing board said that its members were visibly shocked at this revelation, but more so by the attitude of the owner's representatives, which he described as "contemptuous". One year before the Commonwealth Games begin in Glasgow, this tale was reported with incredulity around the world.

The harshest sanction the licensing board could impose on this club was a suspension of its licence for one week. Yet there were no demonstrations by women's groups outside this club and, inexplicably, no criminal prosecutions.

That any group of adult men think that this is a normal way to spend a night in Glasgow is very disturbing. That it is also now an accepted form of weekday and weekend gentlemen's entertainment in each of Scotland's major cities to pay for women to take their clothes off in lap-dancing clubs is simply sick.

Meanwhile, though, the considered response by the clowns on Holyrood's health and sport committee to Scotland's alarming teenage pregnancy rate is to provide contraception to 13-year-olds and sex education to infants.

Guess what happens when you encourage children to have sex on demand without educating girls about the option of saying "no" or telling boys that delay and anticipation are much more rewarding than instant gratification? We have created a culture in which boys view instant sex as a must-have accoutrement of modern life. A few years later, it's women who suffer the consequences.

Rape Crisis Scotland's description of what women experience following any type of sexual attack is stark and unequivocal: "The most common after-effects of sexual attacks were anxiety, flashbacks and panic attacks, with many survivors suffering insomnia in the months that followed." It hardly needs to be said that these women are our partners, daughters, sisters and mothers.

It's the rest of us who ought to be encountering sleepless nights while this poison – and our complacency – persists.

[brihaspati]

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/01/media_bias_cour
Media bias, courtroom misogyny and police incompetence: how rapists get away with it
by Grace Fletcher-Hackwood // 20 January 2010, 23:24

Trigger warning

We Mixed Our Drinks blogged yesterday on the tabloids' fondness for reporting 'cry rape' stories, and observed:

"when the media continues to publicise such cases yet ignore the majority of shocking and disgusting attacks against women...we end up with the situation we have at present, where a woman who has been raped is automatically assumed by many to be a liar simply out to ruin an innocent man's life."

I wonder to what extent this media bias affected, for instance, the respondents to Amnesty's 2005 survey on attitudes towards rape. The headline finding was that a third of people believed women are partly responsible for rape if they flirt; but it also revealed depressing levels of ignorance about rape statistics. Only 4% of respondents thought the annual incidence of rape was over 10000 - Amnesty quoted the British Crime Survey to put the correct figure at more like 80000. 11% thought it was under 1000 cases a year. When asked about the conviction rate, the average estimate was 26%, whereas the true figure tends to hover around the 6% mark.

Why - as we should never stop asking - is that real figure so low? Could it be related to the fact that a tenth of British people think less than a thousand rapes occur each year? Does the 'flirts are asking for it' mentality find its way into the courtroom?

We know it does. And we got a timely reminder last week, when - as Holly Combe reported here - a rape trial collapsed after it emerged that the complainant had discussed group sex with strangers on MSN. As Peter Tatchell points out,

'The judge and prosecutor appear to have come close to suggesting that the alleged victim had, by sharing her group sex fantasies, invited the rape; that given her racy sexual mores she had only herself to blame.'

Our justice system assumes women who report rape are lying if they have - or have discussed having - an adventurous sex life. The media assumes women who report rape are lying unless - as Hannah at We Mixed Our Drinks puts it - 'the rape victim happens to be beautiful, white, virginal and wealthy'. But surely those charged with protecting us and pursuing the guilty must take each reported rape seriously, and do their best to collect relevant evidence...?

...We should be so lucky. The Guardian reported today on the IPCC's findings in the case of John Worboys, a cab driver whom the police first questioned about sexual assault in 2003, then allowed to rape at least 85 more women over five years.

One of the women, 'Anna', describes how she was treated - by Worboys and by the police (again, severe trigger warning) - on this video.

'Anna' did everything you're supposed to do. She got a licensed black cab home (because as everyone knows, thanks to Transport For London's victim-blaming campaign of recent months, getting an unbooked minicab is asking to be raped too). She reported her assault. She did everything she could to try to bring her attacker to justice.

And what did the police do? Read the IPCC findings. They laughed. They assumed from the start that she was lying. They failed to collect evidence; they failed to search Worboys' home; they failed to question him properly; they failed to give Anna any accurate information about the case. It's damning.

Then read what the IPCC recommend. Making information available for victims online; regular case updates with victims, sharing of information and intelligence with local agencies where there is a risk to the community; formalising structures to encourage women to report to third parties. Regarding the complaints against individual Met officers, the commission upheld complaints against five out of eight, recommending two should be given written warnings and three should receive words of advice. That's it.

These recommendations bring the responsibilities right back to the victim. Never mind that Anna, and many other women, did report being raped, and were met with nothing but humiliation. Never mind that more than 80 women went through an ordeal that would not have happened if the police had done their jobs. Forget the idea that they should lose their jobs. Nope - it's all about encouraging women to report, in the face of a system that could not be more discouraging.

Meanwhile, the media gets away with making rape invisible; the courts get away with deciding which women have the right to complain when they are raped; the police get away with mocking rape victims; and rapists get away with rape. The justice system is rotten with misogyny from beginning to end.

[brihaspati]

http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2009/no4_flowe
As the Government seeks to discover why prosecutions for rape are so low, four academics argue that much of the blame is the media's

One of the interesting things to note in the few posts I have quoted from non-Indian sources about sexual-abuse/rape in UK : it becomes very clear that the points raised about India :
(1) stereotypes (2) blame-the-victim (3) admin apathy (4) rape-accusation-is-about-lying (5) provocative-dress-behaviour-she-was-asking-for-it (6) public groping/touching (7) judicial skepticism - are all very much part of the British woman or child's experience. Only exception, which I already mentioned - would perhaps be "selective foeticide". But selective foeticide seems to be almost always more coincidental to societies with historical and continuing up to recent history - practice of predatory sex-slavery - than those which didn't.

For every "atrocity" we are supposed to explore the "socio-economic" and historical aspects of "deprivation" and "lack-of-development" that leads to atrocities. Just as BBC does for "excesses" in Libya or Syria by "rebels" - so why is not there a similar exploration of what started the practice of female foeticide in India, to get at the psycho-historical roots of the problem? Apparently in J&K - increasing "wealth" - education and economic "development" has produced more and not less - foeticide. What happened to the theory of "development and prosperity" being the cureall?

The BBC itself reported this in 2011:
http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2011/0 ... n-kashmir/

Summary of a story from BBC News, May 20, 2011

The BBC has reported that in the Kashmir Valley, female foeticide has reached epidemic proportions.
A preliminary report issued last month showed that Kashmir had the worst skewing in the sex ratio of males to females being born of any Indian state.

The ratio of boys to girls in 2001 was already uneven, at 941 girls for every 1000 boys born, but now the number of girls born to every thousand boys is down to 859, and foeticide is to blame. The ready availability of technology which allows pregnant women to find out what gender of child they are carrying means that women are dispensing with female foetuses in favour of male ones.

Gul Afroz Jan, a lecturer in law at Kashmir University, was shocked to discover that 10 per cent of the women she interviewed in the course of her research had terminated baby girls because of their gender. “In a patriarchal male-dominated society like ours, preference for a male child is in our psyche,” she said.

“A son perpetuates our family name and line, while a girl is thought to be a burden, to be married with a huge dowry.” And as the growing middle classes adopts a western style two-child norm for families, they are limiting their family size by terminating female babies. Alfroz Jan alerted the authorities to her findings four years ago, but they attempted to downplay her research, saying the sample size was small and that they were doing good work on decreasing sex-selection in the region.

The recent figures, however, show that she was correct to be alarmed, and rather than decreasing, foeticide in the Kashmir Valley is rampaging out of control. With the publication of the most recent report, the authorities have now finally responded, sealing 100 ultrasound clinics in the valley and taking action on others who carry out sex determination tests. Illegal ultrasounds continue however, and activists say that until the root cause of the problem has been addressed - the overwhelming desire for sons, not daughters - then the practice will continue, legal or not.

A teacher of Islamic studies from the oriental college of Srinagar, Shaukat Hussein Keng, says that the practice of female foeticide means Muslims are “are moving away from humanity”. “In the Arab world, people used to bury alive their daughters but when the Prophet Mohammed came, he put an end to this barbaric practice,” he points out. He blames the ‘moral degradation of the society’ and the practice of dowry, saying that they “have come together to turn man into a murderer of his own daughter”, he says, adding: “It’s a grave sin.”

- See more at: http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2011/0 ... OTQhs.dpuf

[eklavya]

Well, yes we all know by this time that if any shot is directed towards anything connected to the British establishment and its image - you get badly badly hurt, and immediately jump up and down in abuse.

When your own words are repeated back to you they become abuse. How rich.

I couldn't care less about the image of the British establishment. But if anyone disagrees with your views about any aspect of Britain, you are ready to abuse them as "slimy", "coward", "boot licker" etc. Don't forget, you started it.

Nothing new: but yes, if you think that on UK thread we need to defend British image by pointing out similar bias or agenda in similar other Anglo-Saxon ethos dominant country - you can do so. So yes - bias is not unique to the Brits. And have you carefully forgotten the relationship of Canada - state and establishment wise to the "crown"?

So you think Naomi Wolf is a loyal servant of the British Crown. My my ... you are in terrible form today. She is actually an American (like you?)

Sure. The Brit character insinuated at elicits immediate abusive response from eklavya - who claims Indian connection or origins [apology if you never originated from India or any roots derived from India]. Thank you for nicely illustrating my point.

When you visit the UK in a professional or personal capacity (which I understand that you do), are you honest enough to tell your British hosts that you consider their character "cowardly, agenda-driven and slimy" or are you too "cowardly, agenda driven, and slimy" yourself to honestly express your feelings?

Could you or could you not deny the core of the argument of such "negative" documentaries as being methodologically inaccurate or not?

I found this documentary disturbing, but also informative, and I do not criticise the BBC or Radha Bedi for making this documentary.

[Shanmukh]

I found this documentary disturbing, but also informative, and I do not criticise the BBC or Radha Bedi for making this documentary.

Eklavya-ji,
I just want to make one point. Britain has always been hyper aggressive against independent India. Right from the days of the Kashmir issue in the late 1940s until today, when the British media is fulminating against Indian Space Research and missiles, and how India is using British money to fund its space/nuclear/missile research, the British media has always taken a stand consistently against Indian interests. It never loses an opportunity to humiliate and belittle India. I don't know the reason, but their actions speak for themselves.

In contrast, Indian media seems cowardly when it comes to attacking Britain. This has been true right from the 80s, when I started following the news. Our media is brave enough to take on the US (remember the coverage Ram Manohar Lohia got for protesting against mis-treatment of the blacksi in the 1950s and 60s? Or recently, the American attempts to harass Indian call centre workers?), Australia (the recent attacks on the students), and Canada (remember the issue over the visas for armed forces members?). However, they are overly reticent when it comes to Britain. During the Commonwealth Games, the British media was excoriating the Indians over the arrangments, completely forgetting the fact that the Commonwealth committee head, stationed in UK, had at least a share in the responsibility for the events. Our media just joined the British in cheerleading the attacks on the Indian authorities. Even in the virginity tests, it fell to Guardian to expose and stop the abuse. The Indian press was completely supine. Can you explain why the Indians are so subservient to the British, even after sixty years?

[brihaspati]

Well, yes we all know by this time that if any shot is directed towards anything connected to the British establishment and its image - you get badly badly hurt, and immediately jump up and down in abuse.

When your own words are repeated back to you they become abuse. How rich.

So you really meant me when you were abusing "nationalists"? Why so cowardly - given your penchant for street level garbage of a language? You could have abused me as a person as is natural character for you!

I couldn't care less about the image of the British establishment. But if anyone disagrees with your views about any aspect of Britain, you are ready to abuse them as "slimy", "coward", "boot licker" etc. Don't forget, you started it.

No - you don't simply disagree about anything British and negative towards India : you jump up in abusive and "righteous" indignation in blanket defence of the Brits in that respect. You have proved a good servant.

Nothing new: but yes, if you think that on UK thread we need to defend British image by pointing out similar bias or agenda in similar other Anglo-Saxon ethos dominant country - you can do so. So yes - bias is not unique to the Brits. And have you carefully forgotten the relationship of Canada - state and establishment wise to the "crown"?

So you think Naomi Wolf is a loyal servant of the British Crown. My my ... you are in terrible form today. She is actually an American (like you?)

Maybe you are really under "influence" today? Nothing in my passage refers to Naomi. It refers to "Canada" you mentioned in your post - as per your demand who must be included in the slime list to dilute the share of BBC in the slime. Surely you are not unaware of the status of Canada vis-a-vis UK?

Sure. The Brit character insinuated at elicits immediate abusive response from eklavya - who claims Indian connection or origins [apology if you never originated from India or any roots derived from India]. Thank you for nicely illustrating my point.

When you visit the UK in a professional or personal capacity (which I understand that you do), are you honest enough to tell your British hosts that you consider their character "cowardly, agenda-driven and slimy" or are you too "cowardly, agenda driven, and slimy" yourself to honestly express your feelings?

Yes, it is well known in the circles I move. Irrelevant though. Whether I am cowardly or not - does have no bearing on the content of what say. This might be a technique of deflection by personal abuse learned from classic British ruling elite techniques? I understand your compulsions - you have supposedly indicated you have indeed taken British monetary compensation for your labours in a professional capacity, so you are maintaining the loyalty of "namak". So you overdo in your defence [and as when you kept silent about contrary reports leaked into the public domain about what the British did counter to your claims of "always constrained to act within the law" - proving thereby your policy of not owning up to being aware of anything that supports a negative view of the Brit role] - of the iconic British institutions. I have already quoted several sources - none Indian - or "nationalist Indian", that accuse the BBC of bias in various directions.

Could you or could you not deny the core of the argument of such "negative" documentaries as being methodologically inaccurate or not?

I found this documentary disturbing, but also informative, and I do not criticise the BBC or Radha Bedi for making this documentary.

Naturally. It does not suit your agenda to acknowledge that a string of incidents - cherry-picked, do not necessarily represent an entire large nation's social reality. In fact by the same argument, a string of similar incidents in UK showing - (1) public groping and touching (2) public and private sexual abuse (3) stereotypes about victims (4) judicial and police skepticism (5) social attitudes towards disbelief of rape accusations - should be generalized to the conclusion that "UK is not safe for women and children."

Have you ever been disturbed by any documentary on sexual abuse in UK? Or you have never seen one? Did you find them informative and not worth criticizing? Since you find others cowardly so quickly - surely you think of yourself as a brave one, and therefore must be able to put down in writing - whether you have seen one or not, and what your feelings were.

The fact that you do not "criticize" the method - which does not randomize, does not take representative samples of regions/subregions/social segments/subcultures for a large nation like India, shows how poorly informed you are of the methods of sociological studies that are acceptable as supporting claims to the level of generalizations made by the BBC. And if you belong to such "disciplines" then you are simply reinforcing your previous role as a deliberate liar and propagandist to bolster Brit image.

[Arjun]

I found this documentary disturbing, but also informative, and I do not criticise the BBC or Radha Bedi for making this documentary.

Eklavya, you must be quite naive if you aren't aware of the massive leftist bias at the BBC and discount this leftist agenda-driven bias in the portrayal of Indian culture in its programs. What is your own estimation of the number of BBC programs that portray Indian culture positively versus negatively ? And if you believe this imbalance is on account of the objective, research-based orientation of its program-makers - I seriously have this wonderful bridge I must sell to you...

In any case - can the Admins have this irrelevent and OT discussion moved away from this thread ?

[brihaspati]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03 ... 60898.html
Rebecca Meredith, Cambridge Student Heckled By Sexist Glasgow Debaters, Received Rape Threats

"The men analysed our sexual attractiveness throughout the debate," Rebecca says. "We were booed, heckled with 'shame woman' and exposed to sexual comments and queries of 'what qualifications does a woman possibly have to be here'. The difference between us? We were female.

"After the debate, a member of this group shouted "get that woman out of my chamber" as my partner Marlena passed." In her most recent blog for HuffPost UK, Meredith says claims women don't need International Women's Day "infuriates" her.

"The perception that sexism has been solved - that modern Britain banished the historical evil of misogyny through equality legislation and the removal of formal barriers to employment - is pervasive. The rationale is: 'if I don't see it, it can't be that bad.'

"Others emphasised that I studied at Cambridge, with several commentators from the public noting that this probably meant I was sheltered and couldn't deal with heckles," Meredith continues. "I attend Cambridge on a bursary and I grew up in the West of Scotland, 30 minutes from Glasgow. The idea that I was an English rose wrapped in cotton wool, who just couldn't handle the big bad world, encouraged blatant apologism for the sexism I had encountered."

The Spectator published a piece by Gerald Warner, which specifically targeted Meredith, titled: "If Cambridge's debating girls can't stand the heat, they should stay out of Glasgow kitchens."

The columnist wrote: "Criticising the dresses usurped the prerogative of the women members of the audience who could have been relied upon to execute a far more informed and incisive hatchet job...

"A GUU debater is judged above all on his capacity to riposte instantly and wittily against a heckler. Clearly that skill eluded the two women who have complained about being heckled."

Meredith adds: "The idea that a woman should accept being sexualised and abused for her gender is inexcusable, regardless of her background. But more importantly, it attempts to victim-blame; to paint the picture that women who speak up against sexism do so because they aren't able to handle the heat, rather than because they have genuine grievances.

"In the past week, female students from Glasgow reported that some male GUU members in the past have allegedly played a game where they grab a female student, tell her they were going to rape her, and then time themselves to see how long they could hold on as the woman struggled. This game was played on campus, by university members, and always against women."
[oh no, can't be - groping in public onlee happens in India]
The GUU, which was founded in 1885 and describes itself as "the finest training grounds for young politicians", only voted to allow women to become members in 1980. In November 2012, the GUU hosted its controversial "Last All Male Board" (LAMB) dinner. The dinner, a long-running tradition, was set up to "commemorate" the last all-male board of management, after females were admitted. The president of the GUU, Lockhart, attends the LAMB events.

In a previous blog for HuffPost UK, Meredith described the incident as "one of the most unpleasant incidents of my life".

"I have argued with enough male professors at my university to know when to stand up for myself," she last week. "What I refuse to accept is that being by virtue of being a woman, I should be abused and targeted in a way men are not. I refuse to believe that women should accept being overtly sexualised or targeted as "par for the course" in a university which is supposed to represent learning and equality."

[brihaspati]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03 ... 66128.html

Women's groups have heavily criticised a BBC article which described a new report into false rape allegations as "showing how common the problem is" when, in fact, the report showed only two false rape claims are prosecuted every month. End Violence Against Women, and many other rape victim support groups, have urged people to complain to the BBC, and the piece caused a storm of controversy on Twitter.

The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, emphasised in the wake of the Crown Prosecution report, that media and public perceptions of fake rape reports propagate "dangerous myths" and said the problem was far less common than thought. The BBC defended the reporting of the story, and a spokeswoman told HuffPost UK the BBC "are confident that our article accurately reflects the findings of today’s CPS report."

But the BBC Newsbeat report said: "It's the first time details for England and Wales have been compiled, showing how common the problem is. "The CPS looked at a period of 17 months. In that time 35 people were charged." The BBC Radio 1 report went on to detail the "devastating" affects of false rape allegations have on people's lives. Starmer was also quizzed on how difficult it was to prosecute false rape accusers on BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, and on anonymity for those accused of rape.

Sarah Green of End Violence Against Women told HuffPost UK: "'It is not acceptable for BBC news beat reporters to look at the content of the CPS report on false allegations and then totally disregard its findings and context in the way they have.

"The report says clearly that false allegations of rape and domestic violence are rare - and that perhaps an over estimation of false allegations had lead to over caution around investigations. Not that they are "common" as Newsbeat reports.

"There are an estimated 85,000 rapes in Britain every year. The CPS is working hard to look at how to improve detections and prosecutions. "Basic journalism standards have failed here. We are complaining. BBC should amend immediately."

A BBC spokeswoman told HuffPost UK: "We have represented a balanced range of views and the article makes it clear to readers that cases of false rape allegations are rare and that the number of men wrongly accused is small compared to the number of women being raped. Other aspects of the report have also been explored across our outlets.”

Many on Twitter said they had submitted formal complaints, although the BBC told HuffPost UK they had not yet recorded any complaints.
Karen Ingala Smith, of domestic violence and rape victim support charity Nia, told HuffPost UK it was particularly "appalling" in the wake of the Jimmy Saville revelations.

She said: "If 35 out of 16,041 reported rapes result in a conviction for a false allegation, that’s less that 0.2 per cent of reported rapes.

"For the BBC peddle the myth of false allegations is appalling. It suggests to me that they have learned nothing from what we have come to know about the widespread abuse of Jimmy Savile.
"They seem to me that they are using the myth of false reporting to justify their own failings.
"The BBC would do well to ask themselves what helps women and children to come forward. Their reporting of rape could be doing the opposite, making it easier for rapists to carry on abusing."

Starmer said that, in fact, the CPS had "worked hard to dispel the damaging myths and stereotypes that are associated with these cases. "One such misplaced belief is that false allegations of rape and domestic violence are rife. This [CPS] report presents a more accurate picture."

The CPS said they would not comment on the BBC's reporting of the story.

The BBC's "method" : to be noted.

[brihaspati]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02 ... 38103.html

Around one in 12 people believe sexual assault and rape victims are to blame if they are either drunk, under the influence of drugs or flirtatious with the offender.

Some 8% of people think victims are responsible when they are under the influence of drugs, while around 6% believe victims are to blame when they are drunk.

And 7% think victims are responsible when they are attacked by someone they have been flirting heavily with beforehand, the Office for National Statistics said.

Cautionary note :
(1) such surveys may have an undereporting bias - because people may report what they think is formally/outwardly "acceptable" expected response, even if they believe otherwise pesonally.

(2) note that even if reported numbers might have "halved" from 1995 - no statistically significant change from 2008-9.

(3) to be considered in the backdrop of reported other instances where cases have not been taken/or forced to be "retracted" [yes at least one metro].

[brihaspati]

It doesn't happen in UK - but onlee in India.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/laura-b ... 18428.html

A man appeared in court last week charged with the rape of an 11-year-old girl on her way home from school. The news has caused widespread shock and consternation, but stories submitted to the Everyday Sexism Project website this year suggest that the sexual harassment of young girls in school uniform is far less rare a phenomenon than we might like to think.

The huge number of entries we have received detailing the sexual objectification and harassment of schoolgirls comes from parents, from bystanders and from victims themselves. One girl told us:

"I was 13 when I experienced sexual harassment for the first time... I was stopped by a group of men (at least 17 or more years old) in a black pick-up truck. They were telling me that they liked school girls and that I probably "have a tight pussy." I didn't understand what they were talking about. I was 13... I barely had started growing pubic hair when this happened."

When the girl objected, she says one of the men shouted "you're feisty, I like that" before speeding off. She continues:

"For years I have been keeping the secret of all the attacks fellow school mates an [sic] strange young men have shown towards me. I very much considered myself a child at the time of these events."

Too often the reports we receive suggest that girls are too scared to speak up or shamed into feeling that what has happened was their own fault. Because this frequently silences victims, many people are unaware of how severe the problem is. A man wrote to us, shocked, after witnessing a similar event:

"The other day when I was sitting outside of my work two middle school girls walked out after getting ice cream on their way home from school... a jeep drove by and a man yelled "sluts" at them. It was a very upsetting thing to witness. I dont [sic] want to live in a world where men think its okay to treat any women, much less two girls who couldn't have been more than 14, like that. Something is very wrong."

Many of the stories we have received also suggest a worrying normalisation of sexual harassment within schools by students themselves, with one woman telling us:

"At my child's primary school is a playground corner difficult to see by supervisors - kids call it The Rape Corner".

Another woman described her own experiences of sexual assault in a school setting, and explained the normalisation that left her feeling unable to report them:

"Between the ages of about 12 and 14 I and many other girls were regularly pestered and groped by boys in the halls. I remember one boy in particular would run after a friend of mine and kind of tackle her grabbing her boobs. Thinking back it's really odd none of us felt we should/could tell teachers about this... It happened a lot... It felt like it was just something that happened when you got older. But it shouldn't be."

Another told us:

"In the first year of high school I was walking home with a friend and a group of boys (three or four I think) from my year pushed me against a wall trying and managing to put their hands up my skirt. My friend just watched and laughed".

One student even said:

"When I was 15 I was reading aloud in English. I asked what page to start from and was told Page 3, and the male laddish teacher added 'you should be on Page 3'. I was a geeky kid and already ashamed of my body. All the class laughed I never forgot it."

A theatre in education facilitator working on projects with young girls in schools told us about 13-year-old girls "telling me they get beeped at and catcalled on [the] way home from school" and a girl of the same age who was sent a text message from a boy at school "threatening to rape her".

It is deeply saddening that young girls are receiving the message, both as they walk to and from school and from within their own peer groups, that their bodies are fair game for catcalls and groping, and that sexual assault is something to be laughed at, played down and made into a joke. At the same time their male peers are also affected, as they form their ideas about what constitutes 'normal' treatment of the opposite sex. Of course these reports vary in their severity, but it is important to sit up and take notice of what is happening all the time, not just when a serious crime has been committed.

To give some idea of the frequency with which events like this are reported, every one of the accounts mentioned in this article was received in the past week alone, without any special request for particular submissions on this theme.

[Vayutuvan]

It is not even arguable that BBC is not a Goebbelian propaganda machine. All one has to do is to look at the ululations by the upper crust when the budget for BBC foreign language service (IIRC BBC Hindi service) was cut. It was a good decision which probably had the support of the silent majority (I forget who originated that term ) in UK but the powers that be ("pAnDu rOga" afflicted pale lords of the upper house) were up in arms. Now a days it is impossible to buy a commission in the armed forces as was prevalent in the late 1700s and early 1800s. That might be rankling some lords who want to be jarnails and karnails but meritocracy comes in the way, eh? (no not in Canada lest some "Doon wAllay" would jump on me and start accusing me of treason). Tough chappies, "deal with it" as my main man Tom Hanks would say. Well, I readily agree that I am "Americanized" (whut-ever that means) but just in case here is some Alka Seltzer for "Doon wAllay" - "hum gande nALi kE kIDE hain" - Amitabh Bacchan, alum of the most revered Indian "Tom Brown" school, but still an Indian at heart to the consternation of some).

[brihaspati]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 33445.html

Rape and sexual violence against women are endemic everywhere. Shocked by what happened in India? Take a look at France, that prosperous bastion of European civilisation. In 1999, two then-teenagers – named only as Nina and Stephanie – were raped almost every day for six months. Young men would queue up to rape them, patiently waiting for their friends to finish in secluded basements. After a three-week trial this year, 10 of the 14 accused left the courtroom as free men; the other four were granted lenient sentences of one year at most.

Shocked? Again, let us Brits not get all high and mighty, either. Amnesty International conducted a poll in the United Kingdom a few years ago. Only four per cent of respondents thought that the number of women raped each year exceeded 10,000. But according to the Government’s Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls, 80,000 women are raped a year, and 400,000 women are sexually assaulted. It is a pandemic of violence against women that – given its scale – is not discussed nearly enough.

All rape is violence by definition, but particularly horrifying incidents take place here, too. Exactly a year ago, one woman was raped by 21-year-old Mustafa Yussuf in central Manchester; shortly afterwards a passer-by – who the rape survivor thought was coming to help – raped her again as she lay on the floor. Or take 63-year-old Marie Reid, raped and savagely murdered earlier this year by an 18-year-old boy she had treated like a “grandson”.

It’s important to clarify that most rapes – in India or elsewhere – are not carried out by strangers waiting in alleys to pounce on women. It is mostly by people known to the rape survivor or victim; often someone they trust. It is a concept that the law itself took a long time to recognise, which is why – until 1991 – it was legal to rape your wife.

Other myths are even more disturbing. The Amnesty poll found that a third of Britons believed a woman acting flirtatiously was partly or completely to blame for being raped, while over a quarter found women who were wearing revealing clothes or were drunk shared responsibility. This victim-blaming was echoed by a judge at Caernarfon Crown Court a few weeks ago, who told the rapist: “She let herself down badly. She consumed far too much alcohol and took drugs, but she also had the misfortune of meeting you.” A Thames Valley Police poster combating underage drinking featured a young woman being attacked underneath the headline “Her mum bought her the cider”.

If we are to defeat rape, we have to understand where it comes from – and that means linking it to a broader continuum of violence against women. According to the Government’s own estimates, one million women in England and Wales are victims of domestic violence every year.

Those punches, slaps, kicks and bile-filled screams are happening all around us – yes, undoubtedly on our own streets. A quarter of women will face this abuse at some point in their life and – horrifyingly – two women will be murdered by their current or former male partner each week.

It’s not just the overt aggression. It’s the sexual harassment and objectification of women by men that provide fertile ground for this violence. In a poll by End Violence Against Women this year, 41 per cent of women aged between 18 and 34 had experienced unwanted sexual attention in London. Some men may regard a few “jokes” about rape as a bit of harmless banter, but it all helps normalise violence against women.

As a country, we still don’t take rape survivors seriously. A 2009 study revealed that Britain has the lowest conviction rate of 33 European countries: it’s a shockingly pathetic 6.5 per cent. Survivors often struggle with a misplaced sense of shame, of somehow bringing it on themselves, of fear; an all-too pervasive sense of victim-blaming discourages them from coming forward and having to facing down their attacker. If any good is to come from the horrors of the Jimmy Savile scandal, it must be that these voices are taken far more seriously.

[brihaspati]

Rai doesn't share the same compulsion as eklavya (and there is a problem in ref perhaps to Kashmir and assorted "atrocities")

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jasdev- ... 20062.html

It seems acceptable to blame Indian culture for most of India's social ills, including rape including the recent tragic rape and death of a young medical student. No less than the eminent lawyer Indira Jaising, now Additional Solicitor General of India ended her BBC Today interview by saying that self correcting mechanisms were missing in Indian Society! She was subtly repeating one of the Indian State's most used excuse when defending its own mindboggling failures to enforce laws against rape (1 in 600 convictions), gender violence, child labour, corruption etc. 'Not us Gov', it's them, the people, they are backwards'.

Why Indians permit their State to get away with portraying 'them' just short of barbarians is a surprise. Why Indians, led by their women, have expressed their anger at the State and its institutions in this case is no surprise. They haven't been protesting in front of cultural icons such as Mandirs or Mosques. Indians are not fooled by cliché theories, 'rape is the result of sons favoured by culture'.

They know that the rot is in the very nature of the Indian State irrespective of which political party rules. Culture did not stop the police prancing around for hours before finally covering and taking the raped woman to hospital nor influence the indignity she experienced at the hospital.

Culture does not prevent the 'enlightened' Police Chiefs from demanding better rates of prosecutions from their juniors. Nor does it stop the world savvy Indian judiciary using a lower threshold of evidence in rape cases or the activist Indian Supreme Court from ordering an enquiry on low conviction rates.

Demonstrating women say they are afraid of reporting cases because of the attitude of the police, degrading medical examination techniques and the near zero conviction rate which leaves them with stigmas. They are cynical about another commission, another 'independent' body, another series of laws and of course now fast track courts.

The Indian State, notwithstanding what political party governs, can boast of bodies and progressive laws that make the UN appear illiberal. There are laws against dowry, against extravagant marriages, child labour, corruption, caste discrimination, gender foeticide, rape and even rape in marriage. Yet India excels in almost all these social evils.

Rapes, violence and other crimes occur around the world where there is breakdown of order, lack of proper governance or accountability. Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Egypt, USA (Katrina) and even Afghanistan. Every rapist knows that he is doing wrong. No culture sanctions rape however misogynist it maybe. Rape occurs in high numbers even in 'enlightened western' countries, including UK.

The issue in India is bad bad governance. In fact it is the very nature of the Indian State and its governing document, the Constitution. It is framed as 'ammendment' of the Government of India Act 1935 which was the 'last hurrah' of British colonialism to rule 'over' Indians, not 'for' Indians. Indians were asking for greater participation. Participation without real oversight was all Indians got.

The Constitution gives almost unmitigated power to the executive and its branches without appropriate checks and balances or accountability as the Act did for the British. What good are laws if the bodies meant to ensure compliance have no effective accountability.

Democracy itself does not transform a colonial system to one of the people, by the people, for the people if the governing document and the institutions retain all the trappings of a colonial power. The British did not expect Indians to carry on with the 1935 Act. Neither did ordinary Indians.

Unbridled power corrupts. It encourages brutality and indifference.
[...]

One in three of Indian Parliamentarians face criminal charges, including murder and rape! Several police officers around the country face criminal charges but continue in their posts. The Director General of Police of Punjab was appointed while facing charges of abduction and intended murder!

This has nothing to do with culture of the people. It has everything to do with culture of the State. People's attitudes are influenced by what their leaders get away with. What good is an even stricter law if an alleged rapist in India can become a legislator. It is the ultimate insult.

Others with access to money and power can buy justice by bribing police, judges and politicians. If the Indian STATE is serious about rule of law and protecting the women of India, perhaps it can start with the Lok Sabha (Parliament).

The Indian President inherited extraordinary powers from colonialism to enact law for six months without legislative approval. So why not use article 123 powers once for the 'benefit' of the people rather than 'against' people with more 'detention laws'. Introduce an Ordinance immediately suspending all MPs facing criminal charges, set up fast track courts and decide whether they are fit to govern, uphold the constitution and respect the dignity of people of India!

Two years ago veteran Gandhian, Anna Hazare started a movement against State corruption with poignant words 'second war for independence'. It has been drowned in misrepresentations. The 'them' (Indian society) need to bring the State under their control to reclaim dignity. What India and its women need is a corrective against a narcissist State obsessed with power than its 'citizens'.

[brihaspati]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 61636.html

The devastating scale of sexual violence against women in Britain is exposed today by new research which indicates that the vast majority of victims do not report perpetrators to the police.

One in 10 women has been raped, and more than a third subjected to sexual assault, according to a major survey, which also highlights just how frightened women are of not being believed. More than 80 per cent of the 1,600 respondents said they did not report their assault to the police, while 29 per cent said they told nobody – not even a friend or family member – of their ordeal.

Negative social attitudes to rape and sexual assault victims play a big part in the reluctance of women to come forward, the survey by Mumsnet suggests. Nearly three-quarters (70 per cent) of respondents feel the media is unsympathetic to women who report rape, while more than half say the same is true of the legal system and society in general.

The findings come as the social networking site launches a campaign to dispel the myths surrounding sexual violence, which it says stop victims from accessing support and justice. The week-long "We Believe You" campaign is backed by Rape Crisis, Barnardo's and the End Violence Against Women coalition.

Fear of being blamed, because of their clothes or alcohol intake or for staying with an abusive partner, means more than half of the women surveyed in February and March 2012 said they would be too embarrassed or ashamed to report the crime. The stubbornly low conviction rates still put off 68 per cent of victims from going to the police, but perhaps even more surprising is the fact 29 per cent said they did not tell anyone, not even friends or family, about the rape, while 53 per cent said they would be reluctant to do so because of shame or embarrassment. Mumsnet wants to convey that every rape is as serious as the next, despite the contrary and controversial assertion by Justice Minister Ken Clarke last year.

[eklavya]

The fact that you do not "criticize" the method - which does not randomize, does not take representative samples of regions/subregions/social segments/subcultures for a large nation like India, shows how poorly informed you are of the methods of sociological studies that are acceptable as supporting claims to the level of generalizations made by the BBC. And if you belong to such "disciplines" then you are simply reinforcing your previous role as a deliberate liar and propagandist to bolster Brit image.

The New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Northeastern University article, and the BBC used the same method. Another 2 dozen examples could be quoted easily. But clearly it will not get through to you. This just reinforces your role as someone who cannot add

[eklavya]

I found this documentary disturbing, but also informative, and I do not criticise the BBC or Radha Bedi for making this documentary.

Eklavya, you must be quite naive if you aren't aware of the massive leftist bias at the BBC and discount this leftist agenda-driven bias in the portrayal of Indian culture in its programs. What is your own estimation of the number of BBC programs that portray Indian culture positively versus negatively ? And if you believe this imbalance is on account of the objective, research-based orientation of its program-makers - I seriously have this wonderful bridge I must sell to you...

In any case - can the Admins have this irrelevent and OT discussion moved away from this thread ?

Go ahead and discount what you saw and heard in Radha Bedi's BBC documentary. Also in Naomi Wolf's article, etc. I won't be with you. You know what you can do with that bridge of yours ...

[Arjun]

Go ahead and discount what you saw and heard in Radha Bedi's BBC documentary. Also in Naomi Wolf's article, etc. I won't be with you. You know what you can do with that bridge of yours ...

I am NOT the one discounting the facts that are evident from ALL relevant statistics available. The point is very simple-

1) While low-level cases of harrassment (termed rather deceptively as 'eve-teasing' in India) is anyday higher in India than in the West - the statistics point to a more than 10X differential between cases of rape in India and in the West. Even if one normalizes for situations where incidents are underreported in India (which also happens to be a big problem in the West) - the undeniable conclusion is that the West is much worse than India on the parameter of rape.

2) Why is there no discussion on the specific Christian and British values that foster and promote higher incidence of rape in the UK or US ?? Shouldn't that be a more appropriate topic of discussion for this thread ?

[Neela]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commenta ... le6814566/

In a passionate speech, Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, spoke to the deeper issue behind the protests: the “blame the victim” culture in India around sex crimes. She notes that government and police officials recently insisted that most rapists can’t be prosecuted in India because, as one official put it, they are known to the women attacked. Other officials have publicly suggested that victims themselves are “asking for it” by their use of freedom of movement.

.

Really? Kavita Krishnan ?
This is a classic of people in BBC, Canada, America not understanding Indian politics and personalities and using them to further their pre-determined conclusions.
If you have followed Twitter ( and I bet you have not ) you will know what kind of person Kavita Krishnan is. For her, words like genocide are very very cheap.
Take her stance on Kashmir here: http://opinionanalysis.wordpress.com/20 ... communist/ .

You have not tried to research the background of the people quoted and you have not seen the rash conclusions made in the articles. All you seem to be doing is choosing parts of those articles and furthering your POV.

[Neela]

The fact that you do not "criticize" the method - which does not randomize, does not take representative samples of regions/subregions/social segments/subcultures for a large nation like India, shows how poorly informed you are of the methods of sociological studies that are acceptable as supporting claims to the level of generalizations made by the BBC. And if you belong to such "disciplines" then you are simply reinforcing your previous role as a deliberate liar and propagandist to bolster Brit image.

The New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Northeastern University article, and the BBC used the same method. Another 2 dozen examples could be quoted easily. But clearly it will not get through to you. This just reinforces your role as someone who cannot add

The joke is on you actually. You have resorted to personal slander and it shows desperation has set it in. Really how old do you think people are here to get flustered by these cheap shots? Stop waving and pointing to articles from Amurika, Kanada and start engaging an alternate POV , an INdian POV.
Why have you refused to analyze Brihapati"s quoted articles? Such volume of information - especially from Indira Jaisingh. Needless to say , she is far more qualified than you and one sits up and listens to her analysis of the problem. Compare that to what you do.
Indira says that this is not representative of the culture of the people. Yet the BBC propagates a contrasting picture.

[Manish_Sharma]

What is amazing about UK rakshak is that any criticism of brits makes him so angry that he comes down to abusing any poster posting fact after fact about brit hatred of Bharatvarsh.

What amazes me is some Bhartiyas point out this brit hatred against us with proofs links and this another Bharatiya gets so angry that post after post all one can see is his anger at having finger pointed out on brits.

Hari om , hari om itna gussa?

[Hari Seldon]

The ekla chap's spat with B_ji is quite old and well known. No reason why posters here need to get agitated at eklavya's posts. Disagree, say so and move on. Zimble only.

[Manish_Sharma]

^^No, in a way good comes out of it, we get so many posts exposing briturd behaviours from Brihaspati ji which otherwise won't be there. In fact on my facebook accounts these get instant shares and likes in dozens within minutes. So I like it, I hope it continues.

[brihaspati]

The fact that you do not "criticize" the method - which does not randomize, does not take representative samples of regions/subregions/social segments/subcultures for a large nation like India, shows how poorly informed you are of the methods of sociological studies that are acceptable as supporting claims to the level of generalizations made by the BBC. And if you belong to such "disciplines" then you are simply reinforcing your previous role as a deliberate liar and propagandist to bolster Brit image.

The New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Northeastern University article, and the BBC used the same method. Another 2 dozen examples could be quoted easily. But clearly it will not get through to you. This just reinforces your role as someone who cannot add

There is a reason that the articles/research output that also tars and feathers the UK with regards to not being safe for women on exactly the same terms as your hagiographed admiration of the BBC documentary on Indian context - is not quoted from your favourite India bashing sources. These are coming from "alternatives" - who obviously have their own target audience having their own grouses against the British system. But those grouses allow us a glimpse of the side that your favourite sources never report on - never highlight - never focus, where it concerns images closer home.

You have not answered, with your exceptional courageous and honest approach - as to whether you have seen any documentary on sexual abuse in UK. Did you see one such or not? If seen, from which source? Did you find it informative and disturbing? Do you have any idea on whether such documentaries exist or not? Can you compare the content and conclusions of such documentaries with the one that disturbed and informed you - by the BBC - and on India? Is it a case of avoiding answers that you know exist, but which will show the culture and system you identify with for blind defence - in a bad light - as was the case of remaining silent even on repeated pointers to the reports on how "constrained" the British gov and police and secret services really "were"?

[Yogi_G]

I remember many years ago, seeing on either CNN or BBC, a report on residents in protestant areas shouting at passers by who they knew were catholic or something else to this effect.

[Vayutuvan]

Just shouting now but they have been blowing each other up in N. Ireland for time immemorial.

[anupmisra]

Repeat after me: England is a class-less, caste-less society with equal opportunities for all. Poverty and illiteracy are a thing of the Dickensonian past. Personal privacy is guaranteed in all walks of life, especially on the roads. In case you forget, Britannia rules the waves! Third world is still an Englishman's burden.

[eklavya]

You have not answered, with your exceptional courageous and honest approach - as to whether you have seen any documentary on sexual abuse in UK. Did you see one such or not? If seen, from which source? Did you find it informative and disturbing? Do you have any idea on whether such documentaries exist or not? Can you compare the content and conclusions of such documentaries with the one that disturbed and informed you - by the BBC - and on India? Is it a case of avoiding answers that you know exist, but which will show the culture and system you identify with for blind defence - in a bad light - as was the case of remaining silent even on repeated pointers to the reports on how "constrained" the British gov and police and secret services really "were"?

I said right at the beginning

Britain has every imaginable social ill, but that does not curtail the BBC's freedom to report on those same issues worldwide. If their facts or language are wrong, biased and/or unbalanced, that should be criticised.

The BBC covers the social pathologies in the UK very extensively:

http://www.safenetwork.org.uk/news_and_ ... ntary.aspx
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01swd7g
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036bnyj
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02zg3h2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rxfjt

And there are another 100 documentaries like these on the BBC documenting in detail every possible social ill in the UK.

Slimy dishonest cowards who suffer from a deep-rooted inferiority complex will find it difficult to understand why a national broadcaster makes documentaries that are so critical of its own society.