In China, Delhi gang rape spurs online debate on democracy, then censorship | Hacker News Reader

In China, Delhi gang rape spurs online debate on democracy, then censorship

thehindu.com

71 pointssandGorgon39 comments

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.

"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.

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. :)

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).

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).

> 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.

>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.

Well, given that the average Chinese person sees nothing but downsides from China sacrificing some freedom for development, it's probably not as clear-cut as you might think. Take a look at all the rural poor in China sometime.

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.

Sure, society must change, but government is a fundamental part of both the problem and the solution. The United States was a "democracy" for nearly 200 years before black people received equal treatment before the law. The change was sparked by demonstrations and civil unrest during the 1950s and 60s but attitudes didn't begin to change until the government enacted new laws, enforced existing statutes, assigned resources and accepted responsibility.

The analogy with enforced birth control is a poor one. This issue is about creating a civil society where laws are enacted and enforced for the protection and well-being of all citizens regardless of gender, caste, sexual orientation, economic status etc.

In a modern society, the state has a duty to protect innocent persons from harm. So far, India has been stunningly inept in this area.

All of that is true. But corruption (and neglecting the written law for the sake of 'traditions' like those described, on the part of government officials and law enforcement, is nothing but corruption) is also a part of the culture, not government. Nobody doubts corruption is rampant in India, but there is little government could do about it unless there is a wide understanding in the society that it and end should be put on it. Right now there doesn't seem to be much understanding, outside of the narrow educated class.

"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...

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

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.

I think you miss the point. It is us.

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.

I appreciate your point, but failures by the police are failures by the government. If the government cannot figure out how to rein in its police force, that's a very serious problem and can't be dismissed.

Your point is useful insofar as we recognize that the police are dominated from a particular subset of society--those who condone marrying rape victims to their rapists, for instance, implicitly by permitting it or explicitly by encouraging it.

Thus, it's something that needs to be dealt with, and perhaps that is an avenue to explore to find a solution.

There are some factual inaccuracies in your post Anovikov. <<<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. >>> The forced sterilization was done during the period of emergency in India, during which most of the democratic rights/civil liberties were suspended. Also the immediate cause of her death was her decision to use the armed forces against the "Khalistan" insurgents who were hiding the "Golden temple", a holy place for the followers of Sikh religion.

I was a bit confused by seeing the news about anti-rape protests in India. Who are they protesting against? This makes about as much sense as protest against, say, stupidity. Seeing calls for stricter punishment (up to death sentence) was also discouraging—it is not the strictness of the punishment it is the inevitability of it that makes the difference.

The current protest is not against anything in particular. Repetition of such incidents,to brutality of this particular case and the harassment women face on a daily basis made this the last straw that broke the camel's back. The call for death sentence and chemical castration is just a knee-jerk reaction. The politicians are supporting this demand because solving the problem much harder than stipulating harsh punishments.

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, ...).

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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