In the two years since a 23-year-old student, Jyoti Singh Pandey, was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi, India has seen tourism levels drop. Well, it’s little wonder – though all rapes are violent, this one was particularly visceral, with a metal pipe being used by the men to further defile Joyti, who subsequently died from her injuries – all because she dared to be on a bus after dark.
You’d hope that India would be making things better there, not just for tourists, but people who live there their entire lives. In some ways, there have been some really positive steps in the form of the new prime minister, Narendra Modi, saying in India’s Independence Day speech last week that he wants to combat people’s attitudes towards rape which too frequently point blame at the victim. ‘Our heads hang in shame when we hear news about rape,’ he said.
However, it’s a case of one step forward, two steps back as, India’s minister for both finance and defence decided to complain that the way what happened to the woman was ‘advertised’ was to blame for dropping tourism rates. The implication was that if people had kept schtum about what had happened to Joyti, or if she hadn’t bravely named her attackers from what was to become her deathbed, India would have been a lot better off.
Arun Jaitley said at a Tourism Minister’s conference, ‘One small incident of rape in Delhi advertised [the] world over is enough to cost us billions of dollars in terms of lower tourism.’
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Jyoti’s parents despaired at this comment. ‘An honest citizen lost her life, isn’t that a loss to the nation?’
Her mum told the ANI news agency, ‘I feel sad and in pain after hearing these words.’
‘When they wanted votes, they used my daughter’s name to criticise the last government. Now they’re in power, instead of doing something, they’ve called her ordeal “small” and have revealed their own small-mindedness to the world.’
Further controversy was caused when it was discovered that in the official government accounts of Jaitley’s comments, the ‘small’ had been removed.
Jaitley has acknowledged what he said and apologised, saying, ‘I regret that some word that I used was construed as insensitive, that was never my intention.'
‘I have always been very outspoken about issues relating to crimes against women,’ The Guardian reported him as saying, ‘I am very sensitive to these issues myself.’
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Maybe some positive action could help a bit, too? The gang-rape made international headlines not only because of protests across India, but because it was horrible and fasinating. It was hardly ‘advertised’, it’s just the world needed to know how bad things can get when rape isn’t taken seriously.
Maybe, to boost the economy a bit, Indian ministers need to work on making the country a safer place to visit – oh, and live in – by encouraging people to treat rape for the crime that it is – after all, old laws have now been tweaked to make the offence much more punishable – instead of simply writing it off as bad PR.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.