Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Gang Rape in New Delhi and India's Selective Outrage

New Delhi has been at a boiling point ever since the gang rape and death of the 23-year-old woman. The outrage is completely understandable. What's not understandable, notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia in the Bloomberg View, is why there was not equal outrage 11 years ago when the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, allowed a pogrom and mass rapes of Muslim women. She notes:

 Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he was elected to a third term last month and is the presumptive front-runner of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main Hindu opposition party, for prime minister in next year's national elections.

So long as Indians keep rewarding politicos such as Modi, the country's collective outrage after the New Delhi case won't change the culture that makes such atrocities common in India.

Go here to read the whole thing.

Comments

[tarran]

There has to be a first time when people don't get away with a barbaric practice before it can be effectively suppressed.

[Enough About Palin]

^THIS^

Dalmia's piece could have just as easily been written by Shrike.

BUT BOOOOOOOOSH DID IT!!!!!11111!!!!111

[Tim]

Indian women need to carry guns and know how to use them.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And as evidence as to this "genocide" Dalmia points to a report where one of the chapters are entitled "Centrality of Sexual Violence and Sexuality to the Hindutva Project". Really, Ms. Dalmia? That's the unbiased team of international experts you hinge your criticism on? Not even the proverbial "self-hating Jew" would be so naive as to swallow this Pallywood-style blood libel; hook, line and sinker. It's well-known that, like many of the reports that came out of post-Katrina New Orleans, that much of the horrific and lurid tales of violence where just that, tales. And yes, they were told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.

And now, in the past year, the West falls, once again, for the same al-Jazeera manufactured nonsense concerning the "poor, oppressed" Rohingya of Burma.

[Cytotoxic]

Are the Rohingya Muslims not oppressed?

[Heroic Mulatto]

No. Unless you define "defending yourself when Rohingya mobs abduct and rape Buddhist women in an effort to drive Buddhists away so you can claim their land" as oppression.

[Sidd Finch]

Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat

sounds legit

[Dweebston]

Indians Leftists complain constantly sometimes about government dysfunction and corruption. Yet they have little compunction no problem whatsoever giving draconian powers to their rulers in the name of security.

Shikha Dalmia's theory of politics, universalized.

[johnl]

Dalmia doesn't even lay out a case that Modi was resposible for the riots. Maybe he was but it's not good journalism or sound thinking to assume that he was and then go out on a limb with the assumption.

Also this is always something that bothers me. Whenever there is mass violence, people will always cry to think of the women and children. It's almost like an organized attempt to desensitize people to violence against men. Stop that.

[johnl]

I wonder to if too much deference is given to Dalmia when she writes about India. When she writes about Detroit, everything is crisp and clear, click click click. But her India stries are pea soup. She needs someone to lean over the top of his old man glases and ask "really?".

[SIV]

Why does reason publish this woman?If it is "diversity" is it that hard to find a sorta-libertarian-leaning woman writer?
Get one of those YAL chicks. Unlike the late Lucy, they seem to know how to use spell-check.

[M Patel]

All the baseless allegations are proven false beyond reasonable doubt in India's Courts. It is hypocrisy to use word "allegedly" for Godhra train massacre which was proven in Court, and use word "allow" for Narendra modi's conduct. Even anti-Modi investigations and re-investigations, which presumed guilt and did not follow due process of law, could not find any fault with Modi's conduct.

Firstly, Narendra Modi's police detained 35,552 civilians (27901 Hindus and 7651 Muslims), fired 10,000 rounds of bullets killing 170 civilians and injuring many more. With exception of tinanman square, No other government has taken harsher measure against civilians. Instead of criticizing police high handedness, article speaks with a forked tongue, and is cleverly asking for more brutal and lethal police response. Is this how Reason foundation promotes individual liberty and the rule of law?

Secondly, Nobody has been more harsh, than Modi, with his/her support base. When supporters are rioting, Most Politicians behave like DC Mayor Walter Washington or Labor MP in London. Not even a rubber bullet was allowed to be fired during 2011 London riots or 1960's post MLK riots in Washington DC.

Finally, Article deceitfully created the impression that 0 Hindus were killed during riots; However, Nothing is further from truth. Here are the factual numbers: 790 Muslims and 312 Hindus were killed. 61,000 Muslims and 10,000 Hindus fled from their homes.

[4thaugust1932]

Gujarat is developing due to globalization i.e FDI/FII/QIP/NRI/PIO investments ($120 billion/yr).
Modi's contribution is nothing but religious bigotry.

[M Patel]

More examples of selective outrage:
1) Nearly all the 59 victims of Godhra Train Massacre are Women, Children, and Sr. Citizen but there was 0 outrage outside Gujarat; Much worse, Global establishment, acting like defense attorney, "allegedly(*)" it, deny it, and blamed the victims with fake abduction stories.
2) Zero Outrage, from New Delhi Middle Class and Global establishment for Hindu Pandit Genocide, Regular Massacre of Hindus in Punjab, Northeast and regular terror attacks. In fact, Most exercise "omerta" and never fail to "allegedly" it.
The reason behind it is that Global left is supporting Indian left, and Global right has it's own religious agenda. Is Reason foundation "Pseudo-Libertarian" ?

(*) Including this article.