If we were to implement Shantaram Naik’s words, raping a woman after dark would sure be legal. He feels that any woman talking or moving with strangers after dark herself wants to be raped. I wonder what Mrs Sonia Gandhi has to say about this since Naik happens to be a Congress MP? I know she won’t really bother with such mundane things. For that matter the party itself has not really condemned this statement. The opposition too has kind of dismissed the whole stuff as too minor to be talked of much. To be fair to them BJP has indeed said that this remark is uncalled for and Naik must apologize but this as ‘feeble’ as their ‘request’ to kar sevaks was to not bring down the Babri Masjid. Neither did that work in 1992 and nor will this.

We can actually see a pattern here which seems to be part of a well thought out action plan to save John Fernandes, the accused in this case of rape of a Russian girl in Goa. It so happens that John is a well known politician from Goa. He unsuccessfully contested in the recent elections in Goa on a ticket from Save Goa Front. Another minor reason for all this ’support’ for John is that he is supposed to a very wealthy man. As for this plan, it seems to be working because not only has the friend of the victim who was supposed to be with them said that there was no rape but now the victim herself wants to take her complaint back (Check it out on NDTV here). She says that she is being terrorized by supporters of John. Well, I really won’t be surprised if nothing much happens in this case. After all the accused is a wealthy politician.

Coming back to those ridiculous remarks of Naik, it is rather amazing to see how political parties come together to save one of their own. It’s something like tit for tat. I save your guy today and you save mine when the time comes. These comments by Naik were not really an off the cuff remark suddenly when a mike was thrust on his face by some journalist for his comments. They were read out from a prepared text in the Rajya Sabha by him. Just to mention that Mr Naik was a lawyer in his earlier avatar before he became a politician and so he knows what he’s talking about. He may be morally wrong in saying what he did but you can’t really fault him on his statement’s legality. It’s not against the law for sure. Another small little fact is that he happens to be from Goa though from Congress.  To top it all Mr Naik is also a member of Parliamentary Standing Committee for Women and Child Development. And this is his idea of women’s development- A woman is not supposed to interact with people after dark. I really wonder if there has been any exchange of cash in this episode of an MP making such a derogatory remark against women. In all probability Mr Naik only just spoke those words but I feel they were written by John Fernandes. And Mr Naik, I’m sure, would not have said it for nothing. Would he have?

This disease of trying to malign the victims in cases of rape is actually nothing new. We have seen this crap in so many Bollywood potboilers like Damini etc. And politicians from Goa are pretty good at it. Even in the case of Scarlett Keeling who was murdered in the city politicians tried to paint her mother as a characterless woman who did not take care of her child as a result of which she was raped and murdered. Whether the rapes are part of a plan by a section of Goans to limit the influence of foreigners in Goa or not may not be very clear as of now but I sure have very serious doubts that it is. Well if it is, I must say that this is a very poor plan. Not only is this criminal but it can also backfire. Imagine if Russians strike back at Indian women in Goa themselves or pay other criminals to do this dirty job for them. Like I said, it’s a very poor plan. As it is the Goan govt itself feels that Goa is fast becoming the rape capital of the country. Their Tourism Minister Fransisco Pacheco (Of Congress) has himself said this on 12 Dec 09. You can read about it here.

Congress seriously needs to look at these issues which concern not just women in general but our entire tourism industry as well. There have been so many cases of crimes against foreign women that our country is not exactly considered safe for them. Women travelling alone now avoid coming to India.  We can keep building billion dollar airports and other infrastructure but if our govt cannot ensure safety of women coming to India tourists will just stop coming to us. For starters Russian consulate has already asked it’s citizens especially women to stay indoors after 10 pm. Whether they were only heading to Mr Naik’s advice or whether they genuinely feel that India is not a safe place is for all of us to guess. Is Congress listening?

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Posted on December 18th, 2009 India calling • Tags: BJP, comment, Congress, fernandes, goa, rape, remark, Russian. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback