Tourists Beware – India, a Major Rape Destination

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We have always said that Indians are the most hypocritical swines on the planet bar none.

Whether it comes to money, God, minorities or women, what Indians say and what Indians do are two totally different things.

Take Rape for instance.

Indian mythology and culture talk of women’s exalted status in society. But the reality is a completely different animal.

Throughout much of Indian history, at every stage of a woman’s life she’s been ill-treated – often made to work like a farm animal, tortured for not bringing enough dowry, abused constantly, subjected to biased treatment compared to her male siblings, occasionaly burnt alive and frequently the target of rape.

The latest report of the Delhi-based National Crime Records Bureau shows India’s shameful record when it comes to rape.

In 2007, there were 20,737 reported cases of rape. This works out to a horrific 2.37 rapes every hour.

As you read this piece, some unfortunate girl, woman or child is likely being raped in India.

Crimes Against Women in India

Since 1971, the incidence of rape in India has increased by a whopping 734%.

Yes, that’s  734%. No typo here. (Source: National Crime Records Bureau)

Given the social stigma attached to the victims of the crime rather than the perpetrators and the bias of the Indian police and society against women, we believe the real incidence of rape in India could be 20 times as high as the reported figures because many women do not come forward to report their rapes or are shoved aside by the legal system.

So the real rape figures for India could be as high as 400,000.

The majority of rape cases reported were for women in the 18-30 age group (11,984 cases) followed by women in the 30-50 age group (3,530).

Geographical Spread
The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is India’s rape capital with 3,010 reported rapes last year followed by West Bengal with 2,106 cases.

No, you are not safe in South India too.

The Southern state of Andhra Pradesh had the highest incidence of crimes against women last year – 24,738. Do you think it has anything to do with all that hot Avvakai, Magai and Pandu Mirapakayala Karam (Red Chilli) pickles Andhra men consume in prodigious quantities?

India’s capital Delhi, also a major tourist destination, is a favorite haunt for rapists.

Last year, there were 598 reported cases of rape in Delhi. As per the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, Delhi accounted for 29.5% of rape cases, 21.5% of molestation cases and 31.8% of kidnapping and abduction cases among 35 Indian cities.

Courts Unhelpful Over Rape
Indian courts are notoriously slow and media reports suggest they are corrupt too.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, last year 82% of rape cases under the Indian Penal Code were pending in courts, i.e. stuck in the Indian judicial hellhole.

Remember it can take several years – and sometimes even decades – for cases to vend their way through Indian courts.

Foreigners Raped Too
It’s not just Indian women who undergo the trauma of rape.

Rapes and crimes against foreign women are not unknown in major tourist centers like Goa or Delhi.

Some of the foreign women were even murdered after being raped.

As was demonstrated in the rape and murder of 15-year-old British teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa, Indian police is notoriously corrupt and hopeless inefficient.

The Indian police initially tried to cover up Scarlett Keeling’s murder callously stating that she drowned after taking drugs.

It was only after the 15-year-old girl’s mother raised hell that a second autopsy was conducted and the truth about the teenager’s rape and murder came to light.

A Reuters‘ story quoted Goa’s Tourism Minister Francisco X. Pacheco acknowledging the murder of the young girl:

This is a clear case of murder and it has gone out of proportion because the police tried to cover it up.

Recently, there was the alleged rape of a young German girl in Goa and the hard time her mother’s been having in getting justice.

When we were young and growing up in India, we used to occasionally come across reports of women and girls being raped inside police stations. We are not sure if Indian policemen still engage in such heinous practices.

Think and Think Again
So, all ye folks in the West – the next time you think of adding India to your tourist destination list, think twice.

Think a 100-times because India is also one of the world’s major rape destinations. Always remember to multiply by 20 the official rape statistics coming from India.

And God Forbid if you were to be raped, attacked or murdered, you and your family will find it almost impossible to get justice in India.

Did we hear anyone say Mera Bharat Mahan?

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8 Responses to "Tourists Beware – India, a Major Rape Destination"

  1. shyam aggarwal   December 2, 2008 at 4:45 am

    awesome article

  2. joeantony   December 3, 2008 at 12:24 am

    BJP was interested in making a law which would give rapists the capital punishment, I liked it. Recently I read a news that an iranian man blinded a girl by an acid attack (as she refused to marry him), the court gave him a sentence to be made as blind by the same way. I think if I need to come out with a punishment I would make the rapist ineligible for sex permanantly, and make him blind and let him free.

  3. deeplyconcerned   April 19, 2009 at 4:29 am

    I would like to congratulate the forum for this article. Is it by a specific writer with a Username or is it written on behalf of the forum? In any case you have written with the force that the subject deserves and you have very rightly started by highlighting the aspect of hypocricy.

    ” Given the social stigma attached to the victims of the crime rather than the perpetrators and the bias of the Indian police and society against women,…”.

    HOW TRUE!!

    Where do we go from here? The views expressed above need wide publicity on a global scale. At the national level they will be neglected for the very underlying insensitivity which you have implied.

    I seem to have come upon this blog quite late and am a bit disheartened to see only one response so far.

    How can we take these very observations and concerns in strength to the national and international press?

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Not much will come out of a few stray voices shouting themselves hoarse.

    Indians as a group are callously indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow human beings. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much misery in that benighted land.

    It’s partly the hypocrisy inherent in the dominant Hindu religion of the area.

    Change will not come in your lifetime and most certainly not in ours. Social change is very slow and nowhere is it slower than in India. We don’t see significant change happening for 100+ years. Only violence can usher in rapid change and that possibility is also precluded because beneath all that school-yard bully’s bravado, the nation is populated by a race of cowards and weaklings.

  4. vvaa   July 9, 2009 at 1:09 am

    Hmmm – the statistics aren’t wrong – and the crimes alluded to ARE heinous.

    What I am contesting is the overreaching conclusions reached about the Indian people by the author of the article.

    First of all – per capita – the U.S. has the highest rape rate of ANY country. Here are some references – feel free to do your own research.
    http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ad361896/anne/cease/rapestatisticspage.html
    http://www.paralumun.com/issuesrapestats.htm

    This is not to underplay the crime as committed in India. However – if you do a comparison – you will find that there are shocking similarities (less than 20% of the rapes are actually reported in either country, every 2 minutes a woman is raped etc..)

    Regarding rapes by people in the uniform, again the U.S. is not exactly a shining example. Even if we forget about Vietnam – there are several ongoing prosecutions of American soldiers for raping Iraqi women and participating in the trafficking of Afghani women
    http://www.democracynow.org/2005/3/29/u_s_soldiers_accused_of_raping
    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/404388/helping_afghan_women_and_girls

    The action of these men in uniform does not, however, lead the world to comment on the American population at large – as being rapists or hypocrites. If one were to draw the same kind of outrageous conclusions as the author has taken the liberty to draw – one could claim that:

    a) Americans are not satisfied raping at home – so they continue raping on foreign soil as well.
    b) Their religion leads them to do the heinous acts that they commit.

    I am not drawing the above conclusions – but showing how ridiculous they sound when applied to the American rape
    statistics – in the way that the author chose to generalize the Indian culture and religion based on India’s crime statistics.

    The two things I can agree with the author are:
    1) The Indian judicial system is painfully slow – and justice delayed IS justice denied.
    2) Tourist rape HAS seen an increase – which is sad and shocking – regardless of the Government’s response of ‘installing tourism cops’ at popular destinations.

    Again – I am not underplaying the seriousness or the heinousness of the crimes committed against women in India. I am disagreeing with the conclusions drawn about the Indian population at large. The country has its problems – and it needs to deal with them – however drawing inaccurate overreaching judgements about its people as a whole is not going to help in any way.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. Justice in India is not merely delayed but often out-rightly denied based on one’s position in the economic and influence hierarchy.

    2. Given the dominant Hindu culture, our hypothesis is that there are more unreported rapes in India in absolute terms and even per capita. Also, law enforcement is very lax in India

    3. Many Indians have a tendency to look at white girls as those of loose morals and open to their overtures. This leads frequently to rape of foreigners.

    4. Based on our observation, our hypothesis is that a lot of rapes in the U.S. may not be rape at all. American society is undergoing profound change not easily visible from the outside. Economic opportunities for advancement and even survival have been tremendously reduced over the last few decades and the resulting stress and possibility of economic blackmail through the ‘sue-first and think later’ legal system here tends to over-report rape in the states.

    5. True, there have been reports of American soldiers engaging rape and murder but they are punished. In India, only the poor and weak are punished by the justice system.

    6. We stand by everything we wrote in the post and the title Tourists Beware – India, a Major Rape Destination.

    Your whole stand against our post rests on the weird logic: ‘hey, even in your country (i.e our country U.S.) rape is a serious issue’ as if that lessens the magnitude of rape in India. The dominant Hindu culture is very hypocritical and exploitative…otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing such glaring injustice and inequity in India where a few live in magnificent opulence while the bulk of the masses suffer in abject penury and frequently even die of starvation.

    Sadly, the inequity levels in our country (U.S.) is also worsening over the last two or three decades, thanks mostly to the scumbag Republican Party and the weaklings in the Democratic Party.

  5. vvaa   July 9, 2009 at 1:11 am

    [deleted because of repetition]

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Pl do not post duplicate comments. Comments are read and processed by humans (debatable/disputable, according to many of our readers) and not automatically approved by the software.

  6. vvaa   July 9, 2009 at 9:44 am

    Again – I am not disagreeing with your observations.
    You mentioned that: ‘Your whole stand against our post rests on the weird logic: ‘hey, even in your country (i.e our country U.S.) rape is a serious issue’ as if that lessens the magnitude of rape in India.’

    Actually – I belabor this point to death – i.e. U.S. statistics do not in any way lessen the magnitude of rape in India.

    Apart from this factual inaccuracy in your response – as well as the ‘Hindu culture being responsible’ conclusions that you reach – I am in agreement with your observations.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. You write: Apart from this factual inaccuracy in your response – as well as the ‘Hindu culture being responsible’ conclusions that you reach

    Wrong.

    That’s not the way your comment came across to us given the overwhelming space you devote to rape in America in your previous comment (folks, the original post was on Rape in India not Rape in America).

    Out of 22 sentences (including links as separate sentences) in your previous comment to our post on Rape in India, 13 were devoted to rape in the U.S. (i.e 50% plus). Nowhere in the original post on Rape in India are we saying that America is a rape-free haven for women nor was the original post providing a comparative perspective.

    Wonder why some folks get itchy and antsy when the least unfavorable report on India is put out.

    2. Petty quibbles/one upmanship aside, both of us realize that whether it’s India or the U.S., rape as an attack against women or even men (as often happens in prisons) is a traumatic act whose impact lasts decades after the two or three-minute rape act is performed (we are assuming most real-rape last no longer than three minutes given the criminal tag attached to the act and associated fear of being nabbed by law enforcement).

  7. anagram_   October 15, 2009 at 9:09 am

    if you’re going to write an article as “well-researched” as this, then at least have the sense to not generalise and make yourself look like an absolute tard by saying things like

    “Indians as a group are callously indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow human beings. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much misery in that benighted land.”

    how many indians do you know mate? if you’re aware of the population (which you seem to be indifferent in pointing out), then you’ll realise that you’re completely off the mark in terms of relative rape statistics.

    Fact: In 1995, 354,670 women were the victims of a rape or sexual assault. (National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.)

    you said “So the real rape figures for India could be as high as 400,000.”

    okay. let’s take the population of the USA as roughly 300 million. that’s about 0.0012%.

    let’s take the population of India as roughly 1.14 billion. and i just put in your unresearched “400000” value that you seem to have pulled out of thin air, i’m getting 3.5×10^-4. since maths doesn’t seem to be your strong point… that’s a hundred times less than the percentage i’ve just given for the USA.

    Fact: Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

    what did you say? somewhere in India, a woman is raped every 2.37 hours? Horrendous, yes. But even if this figure was once a decade it would be horrendous. Once every 2 minutes… unthinkable.

    then you’ll come running like a little baby and say something about how indian women are too stupid/scared to speak up.

    Fact: The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials.

    But at the end of the day, this isn’t a battle between your country (assuming it’s the USA) and mine (even though i’ve been living in Australia for nearly all 17 years of my life). It’s stupid to tell people not to visit a country as beautiful as India because there’s a risk of crime. why teach a baby to walk when there’s risk of the child falling?

    You’re going on about saying “this has nothing to do about rape in america, it’s about rape in india” — but this just proves your motives for “warning” tourists about india are completely misguided – because you may as well be warning tourists against the whole world, and i sure as hell don’t see that many articles up.

    and i sincerely do hope you post this, because i really want to know what you’ve got to say back to this.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. You write: how many indians do you know mate? if you’re aware of the population

    How many Indians do we know?

    Let’s see. We know around 1 billion (after excluding the illegal Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Chinese, the Nigerians who came on student visas and stayed behind, the White trash from Eastern Europe et al).

    We know the Indian culture well just as well as we know the American culture.

    2. Rape is overreported in America and underreported in India.

    Why do we say this rape is overreported in America?

    Because of various reasons: A lot of women here are neurotic who imagine they are being raped if someone were to accidentally look at them, financial incentives (blackmail), bra-burning feminists want to get back at men for centuries of exploitation (both real and imagined), overzealous prosecutors, criminal justice system et al.

    Why do we say this rape is underreported in India?

    Because the status of women is still abysmally low in India, there is little reporting of rape. Women are forever subservient to men, be it their father, husband, son, brother et al. Then there is that social stigma attached to rape that cannot be ‘washed away’ with all the water from the unholy Ganga and so rape is invariably hushed up, police (often the perpetrators of rape…haven’t you heard of lock-up rape inside the police stations) is indifferent to complaints from women, tendency in Indian culture to blame the girl for all her woes, even if she bears little responsibility for her problems, corruption in judicial system including police leads few rape victims to come forward with their complaints/stories et al.

    Then, you have the new fad, i.e. family rape and probably the most under-reported of the variety of Indian rapes: Are Indian Dads Developing a New Hobby – Raping Daughters?

    3. You write: It’s stupid to tell people not to visit a country as beautiful as India

    India is not a beautiful country.

    Au contraire, the scorched and blighted land is a fuc*ing hellhole for most of its denizens.

    As Mark Twain has so accurately noted, one of the defining characters of Indians is ‘the weird and outlandish character of the most of them.’
    Source: Following the Equator Vol 2, P.71.

    Let’s look at some of the highlights of your ‘beautiful India’ – Plague, the Black Death, Sati, Famine, a million stupid Gods and Goddess, Caste system, Communal Violence, Rape.

    Going by your writings, it seems the healthcare system in Australia is as bad as that in the U.S. Otherwise, your mental ailments, delusions and all would’ve been treated long back and we’d have been spared one more stupid comment.

    Like the Atlas of yore who bore the weight of the heavens, we carry on our broad shoulders all the dolts of the modern world. 🙁

    Must be our Karma.

    4. We say to tourists contemplating a visit to India, beware.

    The path in India for strangers is fraught with perils at every step.

    In the 19th century and even before, we had the dreaded Thuggees, the scourge of travelers, who’d waylay, rob and kill them.

    Thanks to Major Sleeman and William Bentinck, we got rid of the ‘Satanic brotherhood of the Thugs.’

    In the 20th and 21st centuries, we have the Indians who have donned the mantle of the erstwhile Thuggees and pillage, rape and murder foreign tourists and travelers.

    When even the Indian courts have openly declared “A foreign tourist is the easiest prey,” a know-nothing little twit like you comes here and dares teach us lesson on India.

    Who knows more about India? You, shitting down under or a Delhi Sessions Court judge. No, that was not a straight question but a rhetorical question needing no response.

    Now, let’s take an incident involving a citizen from your own country: Australian tourist killed near airport

    Two taxi drivers convicted for tourist’s murder

    Different times, same people (i.e. Indians) committing the crimes against travelers.

    Scoot, you moron.

    5. In conclusion, India is a Shitty Country, Literally.

    Mera Bharat Mahaan.

  8. anagram_   October 19, 2009 at 7:15 am

    Well done! you ignored almost every statistic i’d put up. the arguments you came up were, just as i’d expected, racist and derogatory.

    1) you will never hear america is a beautiful country. but you will hear, a hell of a lot more often, that india IS. the two cultures are completely different. the US had a shitty civil war between ITSELF. the indians at least had the sense to go and fight OTHERS. america’s history is just as plagued as any other history in the bloody world, and this is just with my elementary knowledge of the plight of the american indians. every country has its violent past – yeah i know you’re going to bring up the Aboriginal australians here, and i agree that was exactly the same. so don’t bring up history.

    2) what do you expect to gain out of attacking australia as a country anyway? the US is the butt end of the majority of sociopolitical jokes. the entire country is a farce, australia is not. by the way, you didn’t bring up any statistics regarding australia, i noted.

    3) you attempt to allude to several “high profile” writers such as mark twain et al, trying to add credibility to your cause but you fail to realise … your quotes are not that great – “outlandish character” – i suggest you take a look at some of your rednecks, or some of those morons pulling off hoaxes with balloons (hopefully you’re as well informed about affairs that matter to know what happened there). outlandish .. yeah, you could define centuries of tradition and culture outlandish. Or you could just not.

    4) YES. i agree with you here. women are treated like shit in india. it’s not much different in any other third-world country though. so there’s no point singling out india.

    5) what the hell? of course a foreign tourist is the easiest pray in ANY country you twat! think about what you say before you type it

    i don’t even have much more to say. you barely replied to any of my prior comment. obviously you thought it’d look better for you to go off on a tirade of your own, so you could attempt to build up a maddox-style reputation for yourself. shall i quote him, since you’re so fond of quotes?

    “Congratulations! you’re mediocre”

    so i’m not going to add anything, and hope you’ll read the rest of what i’d typed 🙂

    i for one respect america and i think it gets a lot more shit than it deserves, but with people like you it’s no wonder it DOES.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. You write: what the hell? of course a foreign tourist is the easiest pray in ANY country you twat! think about what you say before you type it

    Imbecile, you don’t now the difference between ‘pray’ and ‘prey’ and yet you have the audacity to lecture us.

    2. We’ve responded to the statistics. Just that you lack the skills to comprehend our points. Since brain transplant is still well into the future, sorry we can’t help you.

    3. You write: the US had a shitty civil war between ITSELF. the indians at least had the sense to go and fight OTHERS

    Moron, are you a complete idiot. Now, don’t respond to that please. It was a rhetorical question.

    What do you think the various battles between Hindus and Muslims, landed and landless, upper castes and the so called untouchables et al that are raging daily in India are. These are nothing but civil wars. But how would a nincompoop like you understand such things.

    Take an ax to your finger next time you feel the urge to keyboard some nonsense.

    4. You write: what do you expect to gain out of attacking australia as a country anyway? the US is the butt end of the majority of sociopolitical jokes. the entire country is a farce, australia is not.

    Australia is not? Let’s see: the horrid treatment of aborigines, the treatment of asylum applicants (imprisoning them in remote islands, off the Australian coast), the recent attacks on Indians….You must be a delusional idiot.

    5. You write: i don’t even have much more to say.

    Well, you never had any to begin with. Keyboarding nonsense doesn’t count.

    6. You are right, the balloon hoax was ridiculous.

    The next time some child really gets into trouble, the police are going to be very skeptical. Sad.

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