Murder most foul: India in
transition By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - A series of heinous attacks on
foreign women in the national capital of India has
raised several questions about safety, cultural factors
and the way in which women are perceived in this
country. Observers say that India is a nation in
transition, with an ever-increasing gap between the
haves and the have-nots, as well as those benefiting
through globalization and a liberalized economy, with
the bulk of Indians left out. This reflects itself in
social strains, one ramification being an increase in
crime against women, a section of Indian society widely
discriminated against.
Australian citizen Dawn
Griggs came to India seeking solace in spiritualism,
something she had done before. This time, she never went
back. Griggs, 57, flew to New Delhi from Brisbane last
Tuesday, touching down at 1:55 am, before catching a
pre-paid taxi (considered safe) to the city. But the
Byron Bay writer and educator never made it to her
destination. A taxi driver, Jyotish Prasad, 24, has been
charged with her gruesome murder.
Griggs fought
her assailant when he tried to rob her, said the joint
commissioner of police operations, S K Chowdhury. "He
thought she was an easy victim since she was alone." In
his statement to the police, Prasad said he decided to
rob Griggs after noticing the heavy jewelry she was
wearing. He took her to an area of forest behind the
airport and tried to strangle her. When she fought back,
Prasad stabbed her three times with a screwdriver before
taking her belongings, shoes and passport.
Griggs was a long-time member of the Brahma
Kumaris yoga movement and a frequent visitor to its
ashram, a usually secluded residence of a religious
community and its guru, at Mount Abu in Rajasthan. She
intended to visit the ashram and Sri Lanka. It was
Grigg's passion for learning that resulted in the third
international Soul in Education conference that she
helped organize in Byron Bay last year.
The
attack on Griggs is one of a series of crimes committed
on foreign women in the past few months. While Griggs
lost her life, others were luckier to have survived
their ordeals. Just this Sunday, another foreign
tourist, American Elizabeth Anna Antunovich, was
molested by three young men at Connaught Place, the
heart of Delhi. This is the fifth incident of a
foreigner being assaulted in the past six months.
On October 14, 2003, a Swiss diplomat was raped
at the posh Siri Fort area where a film festival was
being hosted. The diplomat was pushed into a vehicle in
the parking area by the rapist and an accomplice and
assaulted in the moving vehicle. The rapist is still at
large, despite police launching a massive manhunt. The
diplomat has left the country. The very next day a
similar attempt was made on an Indian woman at the same
parking lot.
On February 27 this year, a German
tourist was molested by four youths in the Gole Market
area near Connaught Place. In yet another shocking
incident on March 7, a Fijian girl was raped in a car
near Deer Park, a popular jogging area. The girl
allegedly had a few drinks too many at a popular disco
in a five-star hotel before being picked up by a
businessman who raped her in the car.
While it
is true that such unfortunate incidents can happen
anywhere in the world, observers see a pattern in this
violence that has manifested itself in other forms as
well here in India. Not a single day goes by without
reports of the elderly - usually staying alone with
children settled abroad or elsewhere - being murdered in
New Delhi. As in the case of Griggs, the motive was
robbery.
As India hurtles towards progress with
a powerful information technology and business and
process outsourcing industry, the majority of Indians
continue to live a life of drudgery. This has created a
situation, especially in the major cities, of rapid and
disorganized urbanization. Penury exists alongside
living standards that can match any in the world.
For example, in Delhi, swank buildings designed
to house call centers and other back offices of
multinationals are being constructed at a frenetic pace.
To cater to the demands of people employed at these
locations, malls, multiplexes and housing condominiums
are being constructed at an equally fast rate. However,
the thousands of construction workers and laborers
needed to build these facilities are employed at abject
daily wages and living in appalling conditions. Children
literally live on the streets, some of whom die due to
disease or are run over by vehicles. Construction
workers and laborers, who form a migrant population in
the urban areas, constitute one of the major
perpetrators of crime.
Indeed, the high pockets
of growth in the country have spawned an equally
desperate and disordered section of the Indian
population just as keen to garner the fruits of growth.
Tourism and executive travel have spawned people such as
Jyotish Prasad, who belongs to a small village in the
poverty stricken Bihar, trying to strike out on his own,
whatever be the cost and without proper checks and
balances by the authorities. The call centers have
engendered a breed of fast and reckless drivers who
ferry executives to and fro through the night. Nuclear
families and working couples rely on maids and
man-servants to raise families. No proper verification
procedures are followed with the servants, from poor
villages, who often turn against their employers. The
kidnapping of children and burglary are on the rise.
Television advertisements and other media try to
cater to a mindset wherein consumerism is flaunted in
the form of clothes, cars and women. One of the most
affected is the youth, whether rich or poor. Those who
can earn them fairly do so, but there is an equally
desperate section asserting itself through means not
fair.
Worsening the situation is the fact that
women are discriminated against and attitudes are
primitive. This is reflected in the United Nations
Population Fund's finding of India's declining child sex
ratio in the age group of 0-6 years that makes for the
most depressing news. The country as a whole had only
927 girls to every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group, at
the dawn of the 21st century, down from 945 girls per
1,000 boys in 1991. This is in contrast to the world
average of 1,045 females to 1,000 males.
The
situation deteriorated at an alarming rate in the 1990s.
As many as 70 districts in 16 states witnessed a drop of
over 50 points in the child sex ratio. What was seen as
a nascent trend in the 1991 census has become a
disturbing reality in 2001.
Worse, the killing
of female children has spread to the whole of Indian
society; across all religions; in rural as well as urban
areas; among rich and poor. Education levels,
development and prosperity has made no difference, in
fact it has only worsened the situation.
"To the
extent that social mores and customs are deep-rooted and
take time to change, a constant if unfavorable
sex-ratio, distressing as that might be, could perhaps
be explained away. But not a worsening sex ratio. That
is far more damning. It shows that society, instead of
progressing, has actually regressed," says prominent
sociologist Asis Nandy.
Here is where the
government and the law enforcement agencies need to step
in. As India grows, it is incumbent upon the authorities
to ensure that all those left out of the cycle are
effectively taken care of. That's when the country will
truly "shine" - to take from the current election slogan
of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist
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