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Dangers Come With Freedom for Indian Women | Ellen Barry

1 November 2013

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LETTER FROM INDIA

Dangers Come With Freedom for Indian Women

By ELLEN BARRY

Published: October 29, 2013

NEW DELHI — Often, after I have finished thrashing through a notebook to find quotations on some episode in the news, I put it on the shelf with a sneaking feeling that a different story is still there in its pages — something harder to put my finger on, but probably more important.

So it is with violence against women in India. This is the theme sucking up all the oxygen this year, as we approach the anniversary of a gang rape on a bus in New Delhi. As a newcomer to India, I covered the death sentences handed down to four defendants in that crime (“Phansi do! Phansi do!†— which translates as “Hang them! Hang them!†— was the first full phrase I learned in Hindi). This week, I pieced together the disparate perspectives on another gang rape, this one in Mumbai.

It is a dark picture, I know.

But often when I return from a reporting trip, my overriding impression is of something completely different. Talking to Indian women on roadsides and in courtyards, in cities and in villages, I am struck by how swiftly they are expanding their freedoms. [. . .].

Full Text at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/world/asia/dangers-come-with-freedom-for-indian-women.html