South Asia Citizens Web

Any effort to suggest that rape is exclusively indigenous to a particular culture, community or region must be discarded. Violence against women is endemic. It is not an exotic ritual that the uncivilized third world practices as some commentators in the developed countries of the North would believe and neither is it unique to the modern, urban, ‘westernised’ India as the marketing department of Indian Tradition proclaims.

Any notion of talking to these worshippers of violence should then presumably be a no-brainer, a non-starter. At heart, they are child killers, psychopaths, delusional murderous scum. They look at women and girls and see whores and whores-in-waiting, which makes you wonder if they have accidentally stumbled across some porn.

The day that Sindh celebrated Sindhi Culture Day — an icon of peace and humanity — a manic mob brutally trampling mores of Sindhi society lynched an accused blasphemer after dragging him out from police custody in Seeta village of Dadu district in Sindh. The audacious crime went unhindered either by any state institution or by any sane citizen. The first of its kind in Sindh’s recent history, this incident has traumatised the predominantly liberal and progressive ranks in rural Sindh. Seeta village is a grim reminder of the fact that egregious faith-based violence is not just an insinuation and can easily proliferate to other parts of the province as well. Reluctantly, one has to admit that Sindh is under assault of religiosity that may intensify further if left unbridled by the government, civil society and political parties.

Why is it becoming so unsafe for women in India and particularly in the cities and towns? Part of the answer is the attitude to women which simultaneously worships and denigrates the female. One consequence of female denigration is the terribly skewed sex or gender ratio. India has one of the worst records in the world in this respect. Indeed, South Asia along with China has the most dismal record - worse than the western countries, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa.