I hope that as a Hindu, male of Indian descent I am not viewed as persona non-grata on this particular thread.
Like any right-thinking person, I am as disgusted and sickened by this crime as I am of any rape.
It was a particularly horrendous event and I pray that somewhere her soul will find peace and that her family will eventually find solace.
However, I am heartened that Indian civil society is angered across the spectrum. Do not underestimate the power of such anger - it cut across party lines, across caste and socio-economic backgrounds.
Now to some statistical perspective on Rape in India.
In India, it is suggested that only 10% of rapes are reported.
See:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/The+iceberg+of+rape/1/46911.html
Note something interesting from the article:
"People from the upper class and the middle class do not report rape cases. It is mostly the people from the lower class that come out to seek police intervention."
Horrible statistics to be sure but consider even in the United States the following:
"It's widely recognized that rape is one of the most underreported offenses in the United States with empirical studies estimating that merely 15-20 percent of cases are reported to the police,"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gE1QS2fCilbjwmlhX-gawdmUgk_g
If we are to compare 2009 statistics for the US and 2011 statistics for India we see that the in the US there were 88,907 rapes reported and in India there were 24,206.
I will leave the mathematical scaling due to under-reporting to you.
Even in as safe a place as the United Kingdom we have this stunning analysis:
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2009/16532_between_7090_rapes_thought_to_go_unreported_and_94_of_reported_cases_dont_end_in_a_conviction.htm
"Fear of not being believed, not wanting to get their attacker - who is often known to them - into trouble and a sense that they could or should have avoided the assault mean only a fraction of rape cases are being reported. Of those reported, 50-66% are dropped by police, and of the remaining cases that go on to be considered by the Crown Prosecution Service, 33-50% are discontinued.
About 14,000 cases were reported last year to police, but academics suggest there to be seven times as many unreported cases."
What angers the protesters in India is the apparent intransigence of officials.
When Indian police choose to act, they do arrest and charge somebody in 93.8% of reported cases. However, the conviction rate (based on the total number of reported cases) is 26.4%. This is a sharp drop from 46% in 1971 but apparently (and to me shockingly) still higher than the conviction rates in the UK, the US and even Sweden. Indeed it would appear that 15/16 rapists in the US go unpunished (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gE1QS2fCilbjwmlhX-gawdmUgk_g)
However, to get those results, the victim (even when the police are well-intentioned - which does on occasion occur [but only on occasion]), is put through a horrible ordeal. There is no sensitivity or apparent compassion shown and of course in some cases the Police are reluctant to do anything (witness what happened to the poor girl who committed suicide after the Police forced her to drop the case) and are in collusion with the criminals.
Even after overcoming those hurdles, the Court process is stunningly slow. Cases drag on and on. Each day that passes demoralizes the victim who is usually bereft of much needed support.
Until that changes, the outrage and the anger will grow against the authorities.
Furthermore, women in India - especially in urban areas - are subjected to widespread sexual harassment that has been termed (idiotically in my view) eve-teasing which makes a simple daily commute a horrendous experience.
It should be noted that we are not talking about a majority or even a substantial minority of Indian men doing this but that it occurs on a very wide scale in undeniable.
Delhi, it should be noted, is the worst offender in this regard (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-witnesses-more-rapes-than-the-next-five-metros-put-together/311263-3.html).
This is where the blame cannot solely lie with the authorities but with a deeper societal malaise.
Also, patriarchy, arranged marriages and religious affiliation are red-herrings in this debate.
We know that India was seemingly safer for women in 1953 and these assaults on women - verbal physical or otherwise - while by no means unknown - was much less prevalent and that when the country was even more tradition bound and held in the thrall of such practices and beliefs.
Don't misunderstand me - I do not support patriarchy or the conservative interpretations of religious texts used to subordinate women. I simply say that things have gotten worse even when there have been strides in shaking the old order.
The issues are not closely linked. The old order has to be shaken up and some of it dismantled for reasons unconnected with rape.
Certainly a patriarchal society can easily become misogynistic as parts of India (read Haryana and Punjab) have become.
However, India's religious patriarchy or social-ills (and there are many) do not explain why in countries where they don't exist, crimes against women and rape in particular are so common as to be almost endemic.
See for example Korea:
http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2009/08/high-rates-of-subway-sexual-harassment-in-korea-and-japan/
http://asia-gazette.com/news/south-korea/127
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/07/south-korea-confront-rapes-after-girls-death/
http://thegrandnarrative.com/category/korean-feminism/sexual-harassment-korean-feminism/
or the links I provided for the US and the UK.
Or am I misreading things and that even the developed world (and I include Korea in that) has a strong misogynist undercurrent that no progress heretofore made is able to curb crimes against women and to get higher conviction rates?
I firmly believe that the rise in crime against women in India is as a result is an unresponsive, unsympathetic and corrupt police force, a lack of adequate victim support from either family or society and a ponderous judicial system where law-breakers are unpunished.
= new reply since forum marked as read
