ADRIAN MA, HOST:
A warning to listeners that this next story deals with the subject of gender-based violence and sexual assault. Doctors across India are leading protests for safer working conditions. That’s after a young doctor in Kolkata was raped and murdered while working a hospital night shift earlier this month. On top of protests, many doctors have gone on strike, and to explain why the reaction has been so intense and how the Indian government is responding, we’re joined now by Karishma Vaswani. She covers Asian politics for Bloomberg Opinion, and she recently wrote a column titled “India Needs More Than Protests To Change Attitudes Towards Rape.” Karishma, thanks for being here.
KARISHMA VASWANI: Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here.
MA: Karishma, gender-based violence is not a new or unique thing to India, yet the case of this doctor has really galvanized some major protests across India. So I’m wondering, like, is there something about this incident that feels different?
VASWANI: I think this particular incident, what it’s brought to light is the fact that this took place in a hospital. And that in itself has been starkly horrifying for a lot of people. This was a doctor, a 31-year-old. She was within the hospital lecture confines. And this is apparently where she was brutally assaulted, raped and murdered – and has again raised the focus on or rather shone a spotlight on the fact of whether women are safe when they’re working, when they’re out on the streets in general. And even one of the top courts in India has said that this has become something that has shocked the conscience of the nation and that they’ve criticized the authorities for their handling of the investigation.
MA: Well, let’s talk about that official response. In the case of this doctor, there were apparently a number of breakdowns in the official response to it. Can you explain what those were? And, you know, how common are they?
VASWANI: Now, according to authorities in West Bengal, where the murder and rape took place, there was a delay in getting the investigation underway in the first place. And this is actually quite common when it comes to crimes of this nature. One of the reasons that experts have told us is because authorities involved in the investigations themselves get very nervous about doing the wrong thing or being found guilty. And so there is a culture of secrecy that in and of itself holds back the investigation.
But a lot of these things were supposed to be put to bed after a 2012 rape that horrified not just people in India but across the world, when a young, 23-year-old was brutally sexually assaulted, raped, and then left dead, unconscious on the side of a street. Now, at the time, after that, there were laws that were implemented to prevent precisely this kind of thing from happening again. That hasn’t been the case. In fact, we’ve seen violent crime against women go up since 2012. And despite the fact that there have been tougher penalties, as well as an attempt to ensure that reporting isn’t delayed and that police officers are, in fact, held accountable for the crimes that are reported to them, the number of cases has gone up, and the number of convictions has not.
MA: That is shocking. I mean, what do you make of that?
VASWANI: I think the problem is that you’re dealing with a society that for centuries has belittled the role of women and the value of women within Indian culture. Now, obviously, there are lots of examples of very successful, educated women who are doing extremely well across the country and around the world. But across the board, there is a culture of misogyny where women are valued less than men.
MA: You know, we looked up this index that Georgetown produces. They call it their Women, Peace & Security Index, and they rank India 128 out of 177, so closer to the bottom of that index in terms of peace and security. So I wonder what you think is sort of behind that. Like, what may be some of the root causes of gender related violence in India? Or how does it show up in everyday life?
VASWANI: Women in public life do not hold the same power that men do. Now, if you think about this, you know, with respect to the United States – and no country is perfect. There is gender-based violence against women all over the world, frankly. But when you look at a place like the U.S., for instance – or actually a better example with regards to what I’m about to tell you is the U.K. because if you look at the police force, the level of participation from female workers in the police force in the U.K. is actually quite high.
Now, in India, it’s around 10%, despite there being an ideal aim to have a third of the police force be women. What happens as a result – or the consequences of that are that when a woman goes to a local police station – and I’m not talking about the big cities, but just, you know, in rural areas or in smaller towns – and she has been a victim of sexual assault, and she needs to go – and she wants to go and report this to the police station, to police officers, it is extremely uncomfortable for a woman from a conservative family and a conservative background to have made the decision to actually go to a police station and then report a crime that’s taken place against her, to have to tell that to a man. And a lot of this comes down to the fact that women’s complaints and accounts of what has happened to them are regularly dismissed by men.
MA: In the meantime, India’s Supreme Court has also set up a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on workplace safety. Could you talk a little bit about that and what else the Indian government is doing kind of in the short term?
VASWANI: Well, the recommendations for this task force themselves have at times been quite controversial. Within the state, there was a suggestion – where the crime took place – that perhaps one of the things that could happen would be to limit the number of working hours for women at night and effectively putting the onus on female doctors to keep themselves safe rather than make the environment safe, you know, in hospitals or in public places for women. Now, I can understand the intention, but the consequence of that would be frankly ludicrous, in my view, because the point is to make sure that women are emancipated and feel comfortable going about doing their jobs.
I think these sorts of measures are really important, and I think they will be worked out in time. It simply comes down, again, to a lack of understanding about what it is that women actually require to feel safe and also the fact that, you know, while you have well-intentioned motivations within even the Supreme Court at the very top courts of legislation in India, again, it goes back to representation. There simply aren’t enough female judges making these kinds of decisions and being able to push them through at the policy level.
MA: We’ve been speaking with Karishma Vaswani, who writes for Bloomberg Opinion on Asian politics. Thank you so much for joining us.
VASWANI: Thank you for having me.
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