[Note: I was trying to use the “embed video” feature now offered by IBN-CNN in India, but it was taking way too long to load. So here’s a link.]
“This is making the South Asian women’s circles headlines,” advises an anonymous tipster. Thanks for alerting us to the extremely ugly incident that took place during New Year’s Eve at the Gateway of India in Mumbai, where the crowd gathered in the same way it does in Times Square in New York City or similar plazas worldwide. Only here, there was an attack on a young couple in the middle of the crowd in which a mob of about 60 men molested the young woman for ten minutes with no one coming to her and her friend’s aid. A photographer for Mid-Day, Shadab Khan, witnessed it all:
On New YearÂ’s Eve, I was supposed to click pictures of revellers at the Gateway of India, but what I witnessed instead has left me shaken.
A young woman was groped by some 60 perverts in plain public view, while her male friend, who tried to protect her, was pushed aside violently.
The 10 harrowing minutes the helpless woman cried for help as the perverts abused her, shook my faith in the city I have lived in all my life. I thought such things happened only in Delhi. I was clearly wrong.
I was at the place at 11.35 pm with my camera, taking pictures that captured the mood of the New Year celebrations. I was atop the temporary watchtowers erected by the cops.
After a few minutes, as the crowd grew larger, I could vaguely make out a youth aged around 25, surrounded by a mob of around 60 to 70 people.
The perverts tore off her dress in the middle of the teeming crowd When I zoomed in, I saw the girl of about the same age being groped by the crowd.
The girl was screaming for help but her voice was drowned in the commotion. Her companion tried to shield her but found himself helpless.
The presence of 50-odd policemen at the site did not deter them. Even as she cried pitifully, I saw them pull at her dress, leaving it torn from below the waist.
In the middle of this pushing and shoving, the girl fell down. The wild men, taking advantage of her, pounced on her with even more venom. After an agonising 10 minutes, the two managed to extricate themselves from the crowd and leave the venue.
Numerous Indian outlets have now picked up the story. I’m waiting for Mumbai’s strong female bloggers like Uma and Sonia to contribute their thoughts; it seems they are still on vacation. Amit Varma has an item on the incident, and picks up on some idiotic interpretations being distilled by so-called experts:
The Times of India brings us some bizarre reactions on the incident. First, Dr Mahinder Watsa, “an expert in sexual medicine,” says:
This is a rage attitude of devil-may-care.And then, Dr Harish Shetty brings capitalism into it:
[T]here is this global selling of ecstasy pushed forward by a market-driven economy, and so, the line of demarcation between fun and ecstasy is getting blurred. Hence, we find some youngsters indulging in such behaviour.
As disgusting as incidents like this one are, it’s just as repulsive when the (men in the) so-called “responsible media” deploy horseshit such as this from (male) so-called experts to explain away actions that are just plain violent, ignorant, criminal and wrong. How is there ever going to be any progress?
Shodan, thank you for the link. It’s amazing. The play “Mulgi zali ho” is brilliant and necessary. I would certainly donate to this organization.
Which is not to say that non-Muslims don’t do these sorts of things. But in the Mumbai sociologic scene, does it have any particular significance?
Has anyone noticed that the 5 men being detained for this so far (from the article that JOAT linked to in #76) are all Muslim?
I had but kept quiet.
It might have to do with socio-economics. Lower the economic strata, the less you have @ stake, so ……….Just a guess.
There is another dynamics, people are forgetting India is very crowded country. Crowded places are perfect for mob/ anonymous acting out.
Kurma, there seems to be some confusion here. “No point in dignifying their remarks by repeating them.” sounds like attributing those trollish comments to her?
So its not just the fault of the government/police etc, its the citizens themselves who tolerate such uncivilized behaviour. I guess its true that you get the leaders you deserve.
It starts with the brazen ogling that desi men are notorious for, leads to “eve teasing” and culminates in groping or worse. The culture itself will have start with making such behaviour uncool and unacceptable.
Has anyone noticed that the 5 men being detained for this so far (from the article that JOAT linked to in #76) are all Muslim?
What! Dhimmitude, Bin Laden, Islamofascist, War of Civilizations.
It IS different in India
Not to undermine, the problem at hand, and trivialize it.
South Africa is the rape and murder capital of the world. I am not kidding, look at any numbers you can find on internet and academic studies. In 2004, I only spent a week, and could sense it.
The difference in India is prevalent public harassment, and it goes unchecked.
It is all coming down Shodan has been saying, “What can you get away with?‘
“This happens everywhere” is not the answer that we’re looking for. If this were true, then we wouldn’t have been discussing stories like Sania Mirza’s rise in ranking or Indian village getting wi-fi etc (which are commonplace in most of the countries). This deplorable incident has made headlines in India because it was captured on a camera and not for its heinous nature. Had this been in a small town, then it wouldn’t have made big news…and the culprits would not have been apprehended.
Generalizing this behavior to all “Indian men” is not only un-PC, but also offensive. Having lived in India for well over 20 years, I’m convinced that “eve-teasing” (harassment) is quite rampant…and it needs to be tackled quickly and effectively. I guess what some commenters are concerned about is the fact that this kind of behavior is not limited to just one community or one country. Since this is a “South-Asian” blog, it makes perfect sense to discuss such issues…keeping in mind that this is not something unique to the “South-Asian” men psyche.
you forgot to add:
.. Return of the Caliphate !
Sorry brown, I certainly did not mean it to be that way. I was honestly trying to point out that there is another angle to tackling the problem other through organizations which directly deal the victims. We forget that in bash-the-indian-man fest that this has become.
i hate to say this, but i have to think the guy could have done more. it may not have prevented the outcome, but pushing and shoving was not a sufficient response. the perverts were cowards and would have been scared off by any escalated response. (monday morning QB)
Karma,
It is all good; I guess the intention gets lost in translation on internet communication. I wish there was an easier solution but there isnÂ’t. We have to keep chipping away one brick at a time.
Take a look at this, makes your blood boil. Also here are some pictures of the arrest of the protestors against the same incident. More about the protest here.
Has it been said yet that this same kind of foul behavior happened not so long ago in Central Park? If you read the article you notice that many of the victims talk about police/bystander apathy
You are right, about the short term. The thing for us to be cautious about is to not let this also be the long-term approach (which should focus on eliminating the problem of course).
I have not been expressing myself well here, so I will give it a last try.
1) This incident is obviously horrendous. 2) It involves a mob, thus observations about mob behavior and the universality of such incidents are quite valid. 3) There is another problem, which is the day-to-day experience women have, specifically in India, of eve-teasing. Other female commenters have contended, as I do, that it is quite different to be a female in public in India than in at least several other countries. In other words, this day-to-day prevalence of eve-teasing is specific to Indian society. 4) So, when we focus on this very dramatic and horrendous incident, and we quite validly observe that mob dynamics are at work, and thus comparable incidents have happened worldwide, many of us are conflating this type of incident with “regular” eve-teasing, and we then feel comfortable saying “it happens everywhere.” But see #3. 5) This isn’t to bash Indian men but to say that Indian society at large has this problem. (Because “it happens everywhere” just adds to the sense that there’s not much to do about it)
I very much like how JOAT put it in comment 56:
Our attention gets captured by this kind of large-scale incident and our discussion gets diverted into its causes, which are not necessarily the same as the causes of the everyday incidents which are actually more prevalent and the serious thing to address.
The “Genovese syndrome”
Deepa wrote:
I guess that you’re correct in saying that “day-to-day eve-teasing” is quite common in India.
As Kush pointed our earlier, this might be due to the fact that all public places in Indian cities are crowded..be it trains/buses etc. These perverts think that they can indulge in such activities and then mingle in the crowd..without any fear of being apprehended.
Another thing is that a lot of incidents that are branded as ‘eve-teasing’ in India are not branded in that manner in the west. I’ve witnessed a few incidents in India where people (with no intention of harming anyone) were slapped in public because they brushed past a girl’s breasts ..the reason being that they were pushed by hordes of passengers in a crowded bus. A simple sorry would have sufficed in the US..but that didn’t work in India. No sooner had the girl complained, than the so called good samaritans took the matter in their own hands and began slapping this poor guy. At times, a simple “dekhiye yeh banda mujhe ched raha hai” (This guy is trying to harass me) statement by the girl is more than enough for the mob (and even police) to beat the hell out of some innocent guy.
I’m not trying to trivialize this important issue…just presenting the other side of the story (which is more of an exception than a rule).
You may think it is a diversion to discuss the causes, but there are some here including myself who think it is the intention of the discussion. This discussion can best make a difference by increasing awareness.
There is one more angle to dealing with the problem, increase awareness among women so that they would cast their vote based on issues important to them. Try to be inclusive and you could probably make a difference.
You make a good point, brown.
KarmaByte, I think you may have not read the full paragraph properly. What I am saying is that our attention is caught by this kind of big, dramatic (horrendous) mob incident and we focus on it and get into why it happened and what can be done about it. I would contend that it is important to appreciate that day-to-day eve teasing is a different issue with different factors and solutions. And that I personally would prioritize focusing on the causes/solutions for everyday eve-teasing.
Shodan, #104. No confusion. I wasn’t referring to your comment. Incidentally, how is your “name” pronounced? Sho-dan like in the martial arts?
Deepa –
Don’t you think that bollywood (+ tolly, molly etc) movies also play a role in “legitimizing” the day-to-day eve-teasing incidents. All through the 80s and 90s, the hero used to be a guy who would chase a girl..pass comments, sing songs and pull pranks. The heroine was never shown taking any extreme steps to wade away this roadside romeo. In the end, the hero used to win her heart ! In real life, most of these gestures would easily qualify under harassment and eve-teasing.
I understand what you are saying Deepa, but “this kind of big, dramatic (horrendous) mob incident” is also a danger and I am guessing this thread is about that danger! Discussing this doesn’t make the everyday harassment faced by women (in India) is less important. You seem to be saying that the subject of this thread is less important than the one you want to discuss!
brown_fob,
what you see in the video disscussed by siddhartha has nothing to do with bollywood.
a pinch in a crowded DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) or BEST bus has nothing to do with bollywood.
it is like hollywood, what people do in real life is seldom driven by cinema.
To answer # 102 , Amitabh may I refer you to a great movie: ” Salim Langde pe Math ro”. Most of the actors were part of Nukkad. You will get a feel for the other side of the story. Take a look at the movie and it’ll probably explain A LOT about Mumbai.
Kush wrote:
You may want to read my post again. Here is whar I said
I hope that you get the point now.
I do not understand why people are saying that indianness does not cause men to behave in this manner.
I am not saying that the genes cause Indian men to behave in this fashion, and neither do I think that all indian men are like this – most of the men I love and care for are Indian.
However, I do believe that Indian culture (the culture of present day India) is one of the reasons for this. It is not shameful to do this to women in India – you will not be ostracized by even the women in your family, I know that this is a fact in middle to lower classes. In fact, if you are too respectful to women, you are somehow not enough of a man. Looking at this from a more abstract perspective, there is no sense of strict right and wrong in the modern day Indian culture. I think this is a fundamental reason for why groping is not considered a horrendous act in India – there is a culture of the rule by the physically strong.
Sorry, but Indian culture definitely deserves to be blamed for this, along with other things.
KarmaByte, I guess I am saying that, if the subject of this thread is in fact to discuss this one incident. But I am not sure that it is, given that so many people are mixing in discussions of eve-teasing which occurs on a daily basis.
I do agree this is a horrendous incident, but I think it is a big, showy, lose-the-lottery, extremely rare type of incident, the sort of incident which it is rightly said occurs everywhere in the world. It is of course worth trying to keep such things from happening.
Cool, cause I know a righteous Marathi woman when I see one.
Yes. One of my many delusional middle-aged fantasies.
That brought chills Vikram. I have the sickest connection to Kitty Genovese. I lived in her apartment in the early 2000s. I knew of the case well because I learnt it in school but had absolutely no idea that was where it was or even the exact location. It wasn’t about a week after I moved out that one of the old neighbors I ran into told me and then I dug around to find out.
brown_fob, maybe, but hollywood movies have a similar tradition of “romantic” harassment in order to win the heroine, so I honestly don’t know.
Yikes!
.
EXTREMELY true statement…anything goes. Sab chalta hai…everyone looks out for #1, regardless of good/bad, right/wrong.
More generalized statements. Please speak for yourself.
True, this might not hold in your case and you might have a clear sense of right and wrong. But, surely, it is possible to make statistical statements that hold in general but not in your case.
For instance, someone might say “Indian women usually wear saaris” – could I say to them “Please speak for yourself”? The fact that I and some others do not wear saaris does not mean that the statement is not true on an average.
General statements are not false by the very fact that they are general – some of them are false and some of them are true.
Whoa ! As usual, real life has the most bizarre coincidences that would never be believed in fiction! Hopefully the neighbors were better than the ones she had in the 60s !
That whole neighborhood has changed since the 1960s. Essentially the people that heard her die during that hour and did nothing were residents of the famous Mowbray building built around the same time as the Waldorf that is right across the street where she died. Incidentally I lived in it too after that apartment. It used to be a very snobby neighborhood once upon a time from what I was told and there are some old timers in the neighborhood who can tell a lot of tall stories. It was just a very eerie thing to realize after I moved out that the doorway I walked in and out of everyday was where she finally was left to die.
LaughingBuddhini, I understand the point you are trying to make. But I have to object to your language. There definitely is a difference between blanket generalizations like
and carefully stated generalizations like
Generalizations like that might help understand the society without having to go into too many exceptions and details, but if carelessly stated and repeated endlessly become the root of a new problem.
So what statistical data did you base your general statement on?
Karmabyte, it was not LaughingBuddhini who said “everyone looks out for #1”
Yeah, that was me, and I still stand by it as a general statement.
The average arranged marriage age for guys has been progressing upward in urban India. Sex before marriage is frowned upon. Horniness has some part to play here, I would say. India is in desperate need of an anything goes/ free love movement. In fact, these so-called upper castes should tribalize. Several Indian tribal communities are much more relaxed about sex than the neo-puritan city dwellers.
pishposh little frosh. been in india lately? change is happening at a pace that is churning up this venom. those doing well want it all and the conspicuous consumption is grinding in the face of those who dont have it. i think it was gore vidal who said, “everytime my friend succeeds, a little piece of me dies”. so there are people who see the world around them changing with those who were peers in misery leave them behind. just being in the right place in the right time is a way to create unimaginable wealth for many. forget bangalore and mumbai. the wealth is permeating the second tier cities like coimbatore and indore. this is all being driven by the private sector. unfortunately, the government provided services are not able to keep pace – though changes are happening faster than ever before. the wireline telephonic system is miles better than before. there is immense focus on building roads and instituting greenspace. things are changing for sure – but the law and order situation – to the best of my knowledge – is still woefully lagging the times. therein lies the nub. things will get better because i believe that complex social organizms evolve towards the most agreeable solution for all – and gaps in societal operation will be addressed through private initiative. the gaps in the law and order situation will lead to self-policing through more effective reportage. the act that would have gone underreported has been made public through the information channel afforded by the internet and a videophone – made accessible to a layperson. i foresee that this individual effort will be organized at a community level into slicker regional newspapers and community radio stations – there will be enough money going around that youth will no longer need to worry about wages and will seek the glow that comes through public recognition and the perception that they’re the instigators of massive societal change. the public outrage this will foment will make ‘chalta hai’ obsolete. the police will have no way to cover up. in this instance the observation of a phenomenon isnt notable for the phenomenon, but may just possibly be so for the act of the observation. i did some investigation – even that manu sharma guy seems to have gotten his comeuppance and there’s a politician called shibu soren whose being hauled over the coals right now for murders that would have been swept away a decade back. times are good. for the creative kind, you should go to india and join the wave – and leave the rest of us lotus eaters to wank off in peace.
(This one’s for you kush) jinhe naaz hai hind par voh kahan hain … yahan hain! yahan hain! yahan hain!
I wonder if the increasing imbalance of the male to female gender ratios in India caused by decades of female infanticide are related to the phenomenon of roving predatorial male mobs in urban India.
I know Kurma, but it was in comments leading up to mine and it was an example of bad generalization.
Good for you Amitabh, and I think people who make general statements are no different from those in that mob they both rely on delusions to justify their words/actions.
“However, I do believe that Indian culture (the culture of present day India) is one of the reasons for this. It is not shameful to do this to women in India – you will not be ostracized by even the women in your family, I know that this is a fact in middle to lower classes. In fact, if you are too respectful to women, you are somehow not enough of a man. ” @LaughingBuddhini – Your statement (while sounding generalisic) may have some truth in it – your inference is what kills it. It is NOT Indian culture (note that there is no such thing as Indian culture – it changes every 60 miles or so) which may help in building the kind of mindset those perverts had – nor is it the culture of lower or middle classes (I should know – I come from a one). It is the lack of education – not your average academic degree or two, but basic education which your parents instill in you. Unfortunately, that, coupled with an abysmal law enforcement system, conjures up a pretty bad mix.
I second that. The thing is if it happens in NY or Mardi Gras they label people with terms like perverts, creeps, rednecks, ignorants, uncivilised, illiterate. But when it happens in India, it becomes Indians do that. Not Indian perverts or Indian creeps or Indian ignorants or illiterate Indians. Just Indians.
I wonder if the increasing imbalance of the male to female gender ratios in India caused by decades of female infanticide are related to the phenomenon of roving predatorial male mobs in urban India.
That too, in places like Harayana and Punjab, mitigated somewhat by cheaply available prostitutes.
Yeah, this is true. But don’t you think that the same generalization is used when something of this nature happens in the US. If two kids take a up gun and go on a rampage in a high school, the entire media portrays it as a “cultural” phenomenon in “our kids”. Questions like “why are American kids taking up guns”, “the effect of violence in video games and movies” become hot topics of discussion.
People are quick to generalize things..more so on this board and then use the “in my experience” excuse to justify their blanket generalizations.
Doubtful. Such occurences have always happened – except that we’ve started noticing it more now because of the increased publicity. I’ve seen the same behaviour in my college (think about what happens in most graduate colleges on an average fest). That was certainly not driven by the fact that there weren’t any girls around – more likely, it was a mixture of booze, peer pressure and cowardice, suitably fuelled by spending their formative years in hopeless company.
fob_come_lately, I can’t speak for LB (“little frosh”, eh, hairy_d :D), but isn’t this from you
exactly the same thing as “Indian culture”?
But there is. Languages may be different, food may differ but there are some things in common. I don’t see what’s wrong with calling it “Indian culture”. *$%#& “eve teasing”, which is referred to here, is an example of Indian culture. Caste system, arranged marriage, taking good care of your parents (at least until this point) are other examples. These phenomena apply at least to some extent, to every part of the country. It is precisely because this applies to all of India (and extends to South Asia, and does not extend beyond that) that these topics are discussed so much on SM.
Anyway, what is your definition of X culture? I’ll offer up mine – The way of life in X land at this moment. By mine, I don’t see why subcultures changing every 60 miles should prevent the use of the term “Indian culture” when it applies.
Kurma (#148) I agree with you about the utility and applicability (and relevance) of the term ‘Indian culture’.
Hairy-d (#140): How did Manu Sharma get his comeuppance? By the way, he is an excellent (if extreme) symbol of what’s wrong with large numbers of young, urban, northern Indian men these days (yes, another generalisation). How does he even live with himself? How does he sleep at night?
Amitabh, Hairy_d is referring to 180 degree turn on December, 20th. Some excerpts: