Global News Podcast - Bonus: The Global Story - Why can't India tackle its sexual violence crisis?

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Your weekly bonus episode of The Global Story. The brutal rape and murder of a student on a bus in Delhi shocked the world in 2012. Yet despite the Indian government introducing stricter laws on sexual violence, little progress has been made to actually make women safer.Last month there were widespread protests after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the hospital where she worked. What should India’s leaders do differently to protect women at home, at work and on the streets?On this episode, Katya Adler speaks to the BBC’s India correspondent Soutik Biswas and presenter Devina Gupta.The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide, one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world.For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you got this podcast.Producers: Alice Aylett Roberts, Laurie Kalus, Tse Yin Lee and Peter GoffinSound engineers: Dafydd Evans and Mike RegaardAssistant editor: Sergi Forcada FreixasSenior news editor: Sara Wadeson

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson with your weekly bonus from The Global Story, which brings you a single story with depth and insight from the BBC's best journalists.

There's a new episode every weekday. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your pods and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Here's my colleague Katya Adler. Before we start today's episode, I just need to let you know that we're going to talk about rape and sexual violence against women, some of the stories we're discussing contain very upsetting details. India's seen a wave of furious protests across the country that follows the rape and the murder of a trainee doctor in the hospital she was working in. But alongside these very public displays of anger and of outrage, there is a deep sense in India of frustration as well. I travel by public transport every day and I get harassed each and every day. This cannot go on.

A whole raft of new laws have been introduced in recent years to supposedly clamp down on sexual violence. But government data shows, on average, a woman reports a rape every 15 minutes in India. And that is presumed to be just the tip of the iceberg, with a lot of the aggression going unreported. So today we're asking, what can, what should India's leaders do differently to ensure that women are safer at home,

at work and out and about on the streets. With me today is the BBC's India correspondent, Shottik Biswas. Hi, Shottik. Hello, good to see you. Hello. And presenter Davina Gupta. Davina, hello. Namaste. Hello. Namaste. Welcome back both of you to the program. You are great friends of The Global Story. But today, we're talking about a subject that's new to us as a group talking to one another, the problem of sexual violence and the treatment of women in India. And Davina,

before we start, I mean, how much of an everyday issue are sexual aggressions or the fear of it for women in India for you? Well, Katya, I have worked as a journalist and I would say I'm a person who's sort of hardened with this profession. And I've lived in India's capital city, Delhi, which is also notorious for its bad record on women's safety. And it doesn't take much. It could be just a simple stare that a person gives you that, you know, that stare, which makes you uncomfortable. I know now working in the UK, when I came here first, I would still look over my shoulder as if somebody would follow me, I would carry a pocket knife, a pepper spray in my bag, just because I had this fear in my mind, every time there would be a little bit late in the night and I'm talking 10 p.m onwards I would just feel so unsafe psychologically and I think when I look back

at it now it's because of my days in Delhi and my nights in Delhi when I was working there and this this fear is what becomes so normalized that you somehow are responsible for your own safety but a stare from somebody could just make you feel so unsafe. What sparked these recent protests was that a young trainee doctor in August finished a long shift and just tried to get a few hours of sleep in a hall in her hospital in Kolkata in West Bengal. Shatik, tell us what happened next. This was another in a long line of horrific rape and murder that we've seen over the last 15-20 years. And she was just 31 years old. She went to a state-run hospital, a very big hospital in Kolkata, a very old hospital in Kolkata, about 150 years old, called Ajikar Medical College.

She had a grueling 36-hour shift, like a lot of young interns have to contend with. And after the shift, she didn't go back home at that point because it was, I think, one o'clock in the morning or something. So she, I think, watched the Olympics on TV with her colleagues for a bit, and then she fell asleep in a seminar hall due to lack of designated rest areas. And next morning, around seven o'clock in the morning, her colleagues discovered a half-naked body on the podium bearing extensive injuries. So Calcutta woke up to this devastating crime, the country woke up to this devastating crime. And I mean, it really sparked not just women,

but men on the streets across the country. You were reporting at those protests, Shatik, for the BBC. I'm from Calcutta. I've not heard about or seen images of such a mass protest in Calcutta in God knows how many years, in decades. And these protests continued for over a month, really. And they were largely peaceful, but there was a huge reclaim the night protest all over West Bengal. And Calcutta is the capital of West Bengal. A hundred million odd people live there. And people came out in districts and small towns and in the cities carrying torches and chanting. As a woman, I will claim my independence of roaming around in the night without being judged because I don't think that the night is private property of any specific gender. And every woman, every

person who belongs to the marginalized gender community has the right to access nights just the way they can. We've heard crowds shouting, we want justice, I want justice, reclaim the night. Presumably that means let us be able to be safe in the night. But it has echoes very much of another terrible rape and murder case in India, which made me feel when India's top court said in this recent case that it shocked the conscience of the nation. Did it really? Let's think 2012, Shottik. Tell us about the case then near Bahia. Yeah, in 2012, in December, this woman who had gone to see a film, Life of Pi, with a male companion at a cinema theatre in Delhi, they actually took a bus, which had promised to drop them

somewhere near their home. It was one of those private buses. It was empty. And what happened in the bus was at some point, there were three men inside the bus who attacked her. And she was kind of gang raped

in front of her male companion. She died a few days later. She was eventually taken to Singapore and she died of her horrific injuries that she had. And this set off a male storm of protest in Delhi and also at that point in Delhi where I have been based since for the last 20 years. I've never seen such a thing in Delhi. There's growing pressure on the government in India to do more to protect women. This in the wake of the gang rape of a student on a bus in Delhi. It's a crime that sparked big demonstrations in the capital. Riot police have used water cannon to disperse

protesters. New laws were introduced after that terrible rape case on the bus in 2012. And yet here we are again. So when India's top court talks about shocking the conscience of the nation, I mean, the nation's conscience surely was already shocked. And if we hear about a rape being reported every 15 minutes across India, and those are just the ones reported, is that really a shock or is this something that is sadly commonplace? anger and frustration. Because I remember reporting in 2012 from near the parliament, I was part of those young men and women who marched and camped for two weeks in the biting cold, braving water cannons. There were tear gas used by the police against protesters. And they were also fired at journalists. And I remember one colleague of mine was injured,

but we all stood there with these protesters because we thought we were trying to make a change. It was a spine-chilling case. I saw this extraordinary bravery from the mother of Nirbhaya. So Nirbhaya means the fearless one, which she was being called by the press at that time. The mother of Nirbhaya, Asha Devi, became this embodiment of courage. She said, I will not take the victim shaming and blaming.

I will make sure that the perpetrators are brought to justice. There was a public support which led to an emergency session in the parliament to change laws, making it difficult for such crimes to take place in India. Then again in 2015, as her fight continued to bring those accused to justice and to seek justice for her daughter, in 2015 she decided to make name of her daughter public. And the reason was because she said, it's those people who have done this heinous crime

who should be ashamed and not my daughter. So even after this kind of courage, this moment of where the nation was brought together, we've seen time and again these cases come to light. And you're right in saying this, Katya. A lot of people don't even report this because for them it's all about the owner of the family. We're looking into the issue of violence against women in India, in particular two cases of brutal rape and murder a decade apart, which outraged the country and brought in new laws.

Next, are those laws being fully implemented? And what can the authorities do to better protect to protect women in India. This is The Global Story. We bring you one big international story in detail, five days a week. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen. I'm talking to Shottik Biswas and Davina Gupta. Now, Shottik, in the wake of this Kolkata case in August, Prime Minister Modi called for justice for women. That was in his Independence Day speech. But it had echoes, didn't it, of his Independence Day speech 10 years ago, when after that gang rape and murder on the bus that we were just talking about. And Shottik, you said that laws, new laws were introduced after that that case in Delhi just over 10 years ago to better protect women. What were those laws? Well, the new laws essentially were closer to addressing crimes against women.

For example, the new crimes included stalking, which is intimidating and often leads to assault, even murder. Acid violence and disrobing were made specific crimes. Voyeurism, which is spying on a woman when naked or circulating her pictures without her consent, was made into a specific crime. The law also kind of expanded the definition of rape and said explicitly that the absence of physical struggle does not equal consent. All these laws are fairly progressive, but you know, we are really not sure whether these laws are working, but whether everything is being reported properly and investigated properly. I'm not so sure about that. And I'll tell you why. unsafe inside homes. This is a point which people miss when you look at the data. You know, in 2022, we have the last data for 2022, the surprising majority, and it has been happening for a very long time. The shocking majority of crimes against women are cruelty by husbands or relatives

inside homes. That's one third of crimes against women. That's followed by kidnapping and abduction, which is about 20%. Rape is about 7% reported. Now, the point is that Indian women are not safe in many, many homes. Could I just ask you, Shatik, under law, is rape in a marriage, so if a woman is raped by her husband, is that considered a crime? That's still being debated. That's still not been specified as a specific crime. So a lot of it just goes unreported. And even if it's, you know, there are huge barriers to kind of social stigma and so on. So when I spoke about the

societal problems, it's about a lot of stigma that kind of women face inside households. So they face stigma inside households. So they face stigma inside households and they often face violence inside households by their husbands and they often would be molested by relatives. I have heard so many cases of my colleagues in my previous jobs, women colleagues telling me that they were molested by cousins and uncles, you know, at a very early age. I used to be very shocked that how could this happen, but it seems to be a fairly grim reality.

And the data bears it out that, you know, the majority of the violence that happens, or the assault that happens, happens inside homes. Davina, as for when you have enlightened laws, I remember reporting on this in Italy many years ago, where there were very progressive laws as regards sexual violence and aggression against women that were introduced. But they weren't being carried out, not by police, not by the judiciary fully. So it's all very well having sophisticated laws.

But if they're not being implemented and respected, I mean, in the Calcutta case just now, there were calls for the police chief to be removed in West Bengal state, weren't there? Well, we're right to say that the first step is to report these crimes and that social stigma that prevents families from reporting these crimes. The second is an investigation, which involves questioning of those people who are involved in this crime. So it could be first gathering evidence. So things like marital rape, for example. Why is it a controversial piece of legislation?

Because often women themselves don't want to bring shame to their family. It's difficult to prove. And then the kind of questions that are asked, that becomes embarrassing in the court of law. Similarly, when you have cases where sexual assault or rape, that comes out. It starts from a simple thing as going to a police station where you're asked embarrassing questions in front of people. Now, why is it embarrassing? Because in India, we don't even talk about sex openly. The body anatomy of a female is to be covered up. You would have people telling women how to dress, how to cover their head,

how to cover their chest with a scarf or a dupatta, as it's called. So it's to be covered up. And that's where we don't have an open conversation. So for a woman to even go ahead and start talking about this during the course of investigation, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for her family. Then there is a long legislative process. And I remember Shortik has actually done a piece about how courts in India are already overburdened with case. And if I'm not wrong, there's an average case would take at least four years to be heard.

So it's a long judicial process in which the survivor could be intimidated. She could be facing a boycott from the community just because people get to know what's happening. She would also face restrictions at her workplace and she might have to even shift her city just because she's come out and said something which the society felt should be under the wraps. So there is an entire cycle, when I say of victim shaming and blaming, which befalls on someone who even comes out to make use of these laws. And that is where these laws fail. They just fail at the very start.

The problem in India, as it is often with a lot of developing countries, is that when you bring modern laws in any sphere of life, you have to back it with a modern state. Now, with the new rape laws, what happened is you needed police reforms, you needed educational reforms, you needed training of personnel in the criminal justice system, like, you know, services like well-equipped rape crisis centers. Now, those haven't happened at this speed. Does it mean that we should not have these laws? No. It's not a question of putting the cart before the horse. We should have those laws. The laws are welcome. The

laws are very good, actually. It's just that the system doesn't keep pace with modern laws to make sure that they are being implemented properly. This is a very depressing issue to discuss. And it's devastating. I mean, Shatik, you pointed out both these cases now that we've gone into detail of. They are high profile cases. There are so many cases that never even come to light and so much suffering that's going on in the shadows. So what more can the authorities do? Introduce new laws? Yes. What about reform her, which is of sexual assault, there should be a female officer who should be present at that time just to make her feel comfortable. But often we do see that there is more that we can do to get more women officers in the force. And perhaps one example that comes to mind for women officers is Kiran Bedi, who's now retired from the service. But she became this embodiment of courage and somebody who's a fighter. And it gave a lot of courage to women to see someone in that position.

And that message then trickles down quite fast. If you have such examples in the society, then it's a way that you see women differently. You see women in power position. And that's also a way where it changes the social mindset of men who are used to looking women as their property, as this inferior creature, as somebody they can abuse or control. For those men to see a woman in that position.

If we can normalize these power positions, perhaps that's where the change is, or at least that start of that conversation could be. This is such a deep problem. It is in the deep-rooted kind of pathologies of Indian society, which is caste, the fact that it's intensely hierarchical, the fact that you can yield power over somebody, it could be a man, it could be a woman, with impunity because you think you're born into an upper caste. Because Dalit women, who are the lowest in the caste hierarchy in India, suffered the most in terms of sexual assault, rape and everything else.

So they are the most affected if you look at the data. Half of Dalit women face some kind of assault. So this is a serious structural infirmity and a pathology born out of thousands and thousands of years of a very unforgiving caste system, which also contributes to how women are treated and which also contributes to patriarchy, which is still very strong. The fact is, whatever you say about India, the opposite is also true. There are more women officers in the force than ever before. India has the maximum number of female pilots in the world. They are doing very well in sports. So there is an absolute resurgence of women everywhere I go. You know, most of the hospital anesthetists in India are women. So you see a lot of them, more than a third of doctors in India are women. So all that is happening. At the same time, these women are all fighting back. But you know, it's a big country, a fight back takes a long time, and the system is not very supportive, let's put it very simply. Divina, you're in a very interesting position from your upbringing, your family in India,

but living now in the UK. How entrenched is that patriarchy and the caste system that Shottick was talking about? And how much do you see things moving in the right direction? It's very difficult to put a number on it, because as Shottick says, such a big country and so many regional differences. But what is your sense as an outsider insider? So I come from, I would say, a privileged background than many other women. And in the terms of I got a good education, I was given the choice of choosing my career and perhaps an outlier in my own joint family to be a single woman traveling to the UK for work and unmarried at 38. So in some societies, I'd be an outcast, Katya. But I think it all comes down to two words, Indian values. Now, patriarchy seeps in,

in a way that you would see where there'll be a difference in a household between a girl child and a boy. So a boy, for example, would be allowed to go outdoors to play sport. A girl is expected, again, in many families, and this is perhaps not true for all the families, but in many families, expected to just learn how to cook or help her mother in the kitchen. A boy would be, it would be known that if there's a boy, then you would have, that boy would grow up to be a doctor or an engineer. A girl is expected to get married, and career is an afterthought. And you would see that reflected in global studies where female labor force participation in India is still very low. Now, these Indian values is how you are shaped. In my home, where I live in a joint family,

these roles are very well entrenched. And I have seen as well how the body language changes for men and women. Girls would have their shoulders swooped in, almost as if trying to hide their breasts. They'll walk in a way which is extremely quiet. They'll have long hair. Men, on the other hand, would be walking broad-chested, absolutely filling a room with their presence. I have seen in my own home when I would laugh out loud, for example. It's just an example. I'm sorry, but if I laugh out loud, my grandmother used to tell me, you know, you need to laugh like a girl. Girls don't laugh like that.

I cut my hair because I was like, this is how I would rebel. I don't want to have long hair. I've seen, unfortunately, my grandmother, who was from a village, cry when my sister was born because she felt our male lineage is destroyed. And she didn't rejoice when the girl child is born. And it all comes down to the fact that a son becomes S-U-N or son of a family

around which all the planets revolve. That's so much premium which is placed on this son. The son is expected to take care of their parents, take care of his parents when they grow old. A daughter has to move out of the son. The son is expected to take care of their parents, take care of his parents when they grow old. A daughter has to move out of the house. So there goes your old age insurance. And a daughter has to move out of her house to her husband's house. Then you pay a dowry, which is illegal in India, but many families expect gifts when she's getting married. So that becomes another saving, another financial burden for families. So in this situation, I think these are the, again, becomes quote unquote, Indian values,

where you define patriarchy. And when you step out of it, and you suddenly realize that, yes, there's a voice that I have, that voice needs to be heard as well. I also have dreams. I also have careers. So it doesn't become an instant realization. It voice needs to be heard as well. I also have dreams. I also have careers. So it doesn't become an instant realization. It needs generations to change. In my home, my mother was the first one to work outside of the family, which meant that she would still come home, prepare meals for my father and my sister. She was expected to do all the household chores because my father would not do them. It's not the role that he was trained under, one would say. And that generation went through this cycle for my generation to grow up on those and to be part of that narrative that changed. So me and my sister,

for example, are more progressive. When we have children, they would grow up thinking that, yes, equal roles can be seen in a family. I don't have to sacrifice my dreams for a man or a husband, or I don't have to fit into that role. So this is the story of change that you can see in Indian families now, the Indian value system that is now changing. And I think that's where I do have hope. That's where I feel that there are a lot many women from the previous generation who want their daughters to be different from them, who are not holding them to the same standard. They're not teaching them to go and make that dish perfect. They're saying, go make your life perfect. Don't be bound like me. Try and live out your life. And when these instances and these crimes happen, you sort of also look at that country where this change is happening.

But there's so many challenges of trying to fight for that space. The winner is completely right. You know, there is hope, but hope moves slowly in India and change is slow and gradual. I see Indian women much more resilient today. Indian women are some of our best doctors, scientists, athletes, name it, space scientists are women. We have a woman president. Does it mean that emancipation has happened fully? No, that's not how societies work. Is it tokenistic? No, the growth is extremely organic. Things are happening. Women are getting out of stifling environments and doing it. They're getting new support from their mothers. Fathers, patriarchal

fathers are sending their young daughters to become boxers in one of the most patriarchal states in India called Haryana. So change is happening. You need incentives. You need social change. You need the economy to grow. There's more jobs for women to get into it. And you need people to wake up to the fact that the caste system is going to be there for a long time, but we have to get rid of the more venal aspects of it.

Davina and Shottick, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to get in touch, and we hope you do, we read all of your emails. Do drop us an email at theglobalstoryatbbc.com, or you can send us a message or voice note on WhatsApp. Our number is plus 44 330 123 9480. And you can find all those details in our show notes. Wherever you're listening in the world. This has been the Global Story. Thank you for having us in your headphones. Goodbye. If you enjoyed listening to the Global Story and would like to hear more, there's a new episode every weekday. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts and be sure to click subscribe or follow.

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