As a solo foreign traveller once said" I love India, but only during daylight". This has been known for decades but the recent rape cases and atrocities against women have made the picture clearer for the International traveller. The Delhi gang rape case was so horrendous that it shook not just the world but also every Indian. So many foreigners that want to visit India ask - Why is it like this in India?
Travel to any tourist destination in India be it Taj Mahal, Agra or Qutub Minar, Delhi, you will notice many foreigners visiting in large groups, but you will also notice men lurching around looking for a chance to get a picture clicked with the foreign women. Foreigners do not understand the attraction to the white skin. For you information, the whole country is crazy about white skin, with skin creams that make you whiter have had the best laugh to the banks, this is a multi dollar industry feeding the young women with the dream of getting fairer instantly. Every potential groom is looking for a white bride. Every luxury marriage in north india has rich people having white women as bartenders, servers and paying them Rs.10,000 per night. It is money that many european women won't earn in western countries also. The Industry is growing and it is being fed by contest images of the media. A famous movie takes it further - Zindagi Na milegi Dobara ( You only live once) famously portrays three men taking over their fears with a trip to Spain - deep sea diving, bull running and sky jumping. Yet the main actresses are not Indian. Katrina Kaif, foreign born half Indian, looks English and another European actress. More and more Bollywood movies are depicting white women in the movies, feeding the already saturated mindset of the Indian. Indian middle class is still tolerable , since education and constant international travel helps you feel normal. The problem is the rest of India which is more than 600 million poor, the highest number for any country in the world.
A poor manual labourer works for less that $50 per day and works tirelessly the whole year with every few holidays. One will always see a labourer in dust and scanty clothes, moving around with cement, machines or some other construction material. For him to see a well dresses International woman walking alone on the road is a dream come true. The idea of indulging in an inappropriate act and the consequences do not waiver him. That is where the problem begins.
The richer farmers son, who now has Mercedes in villages and constantly visits places around India has a new sense of the power, armed with more information that he has been able to consume from the internet and having the best luxury in the village, he thinks he is invincible. This is scary not just for foreign women but Indian women too. We hear cases everyday and the media constantly displaying public anger on such rapes. But nothing changes and it will not change in the near future.
Women in India are treated as a second class citizen in the villages. Many huts and I mean more than 20 million of them do not have a toilet. This creates further risk for women when they go out to fields, riverside, forests to defecate. The recent Badaun Rape and Murder case in Uttar pradesh displays that clearly.
So what is the government doing? Well to start with nothing has been done ever since we know, but they have strengthened the law, but does this help, we clearly doubt, execution in India is another story. CCTVs are being put, well India is a big country and it will take decades to have control through CCTVs. Infact , there are many cases against politician sons alleging rape. Moreover, the reaction politicians have when rapes happen will make you realise why the country is still not changing. Globalised, tech savvy and 3g connected, not for better assess but for worse control. Many cases have been reported where women's complaints of molestation, rape are not taken by the police in India. The shamelessness just does not go.
Nevertheless, foreigners if take certain precautions and follow some cultural rules will find them as safe as anywhere in the world. Foreign women have loved India and many keep coming back again and again. That the thing about India. Either you love it or you keep loving it.
Travel to any tourist destination in India be it Taj Mahal, Agra or Qutub Minar, Delhi, you will notice many foreigners visiting in large groups, but you will also notice men lurching around looking for a chance to get a picture clicked with the foreign women. Foreigners do not understand the attraction to the white skin. For you information, the whole country is crazy about white skin, with skin creams that make you whiter have had the best laugh to the banks, this is a multi dollar industry feeding the young women with the dream of getting fairer instantly. Every potential groom is looking for a white bride. Every luxury marriage in north india has rich people having white women as bartenders, servers and paying them Rs.10,000 per night. It is money that many european women won't earn in western countries also. The Industry is growing and it is being fed by contest images of the media. A famous movie takes it further - Zindagi Na milegi Dobara ( You only live once) famously portrays three men taking over their fears with a trip to Spain - deep sea diving, bull running and sky jumping. Yet the main actresses are not Indian. Katrina Kaif, foreign born half Indian, looks English and another European actress. More and more Bollywood movies are depicting white women in the movies, feeding the already saturated mindset of the Indian. Indian middle class is still tolerable , since education and constant international travel helps you feel normal. The problem is the rest of India which is more than 600 million poor, the highest number for any country in the world.
A poor manual labourer works for less that $50 per day and works tirelessly the whole year with every few holidays. One will always see a labourer in dust and scanty clothes, moving around with cement, machines or some other construction material. For him to see a well dresses International woman walking alone on the road is a dream come true. The idea of indulging in an inappropriate act and the consequences do not waiver him. That is where the problem begins.
The richer farmers son, who now has Mercedes in villages and constantly visits places around India has a new sense of the power, armed with more information that he has been able to consume from the internet and having the best luxury in the village, he thinks he is invincible. This is scary not just for foreign women but Indian women too. We hear cases everyday and the media constantly displaying public anger on such rapes. But nothing changes and it will not change in the near future.
Women in India are treated as a second class citizen in the villages. Many huts and I mean more than 20 million of them do not have a toilet. This creates further risk for women when they go out to fields, riverside, forests to defecate. The recent Badaun Rape and Murder case in Uttar pradesh displays that clearly.
So what is the government doing? Well to start with nothing has been done ever since we know, but they have strengthened the law, but does this help, we clearly doubt, execution in India is another story. CCTVs are being put, well India is a big country and it will take decades to have control through CCTVs. Infact , there are many cases against politician sons alleging rape. Moreover, the reaction politicians have when rapes happen will make you realise why the country is still not changing. Globalised, tech savvy and 3g connected, not for better assess but for worse control. Many cases have been reported where women's complaints of molestation, rape are not taken by the police in India. The shamelessness just does not go.
Nevertheless, foreigners if take certain precautions and follow some cultural rules will find them as safe as anywhere in the world. Foreign women have loved India and many keep coming back again and again. That the thing about India. Either you love it or you keep loving it.
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