Even before but more so after the sensational Nirbhaya gang-rape case of December 2012 India has been portrayed as the rape capital of the world where violence against women is enshrined. But what do the numbers tell us?
Other countries in fact have much higher rates of rape than India, but the media for their own reasons sensationalize the ones in India – more on that later. According to this “country-by-country rape statistics”[1] India has one of the lowest rates of rape in the world something one would not know if one listened to the media reports. It proves the adage “don’t believe everything you read in the paper.”
The rate of rape is determined by dividing the total number of reported rapes by the total population and the units of measure are the number of rapes per 100,000 people. Thus even though India may seem to have a rather large number of rapes reported in any given year but considering that India has a population of 1.3 billion people the rate of rape (number of rapes divided by 1.3 billion) becomes very small. And even if as some people claim that many rapes go unreported that even if we double or even triple the number the rate would still be low compared to many so-called First World countries.
According to rape statistics of 2010 India had only .4 rapes per 100,000 people whereas countries like Canada had 1.7, Switzerland 7.1, Austria 10.4, Ireland 10.7, Finland 15.2, Norway 19.2, New Zealand 25.8, USA 27.3, Belgium 27.9, Australia 28.6, and Sweden a whopping 63.5! [2] Thus a country like the USA had a rate of rape that was more than 68 times that of India.
India actually has a high conviction rate for rape:
“According to the Guardian, just 7% of reported rapes in the U.K. resulted in convictions during 2011-12. In Sweden, the conviction rate is as low as 10%. France had a conviction rate of 25% in 2006. Poor India, a developing nation with countless challenges, managed an impressive 24.2% conviction rate in 2012. That’s thanks to the efforts of a lot of good people — police, lawyers, victims and their families — working heroically with limited resources.” [3]
But while the number of reported rapes in India is rising rapidly surprisingly the number of rape convictions has declined. “The conviction rates were 44.3 per cent in 1973, 37.7 per cent in 1983, 26.9 per cent in 2009, 26.6 per cent in 2010 and 26.4 per cent in 2011.” [4]
How can this be? The reason is simple, because of institutional misandry in India where the laws are all stacked in favor of women there has been a huge increase in false rape allegations [5], which after investigation are thrown out.
‘As per a TOI report, “Now, there’s some evidence to support this claim. Statistics on the disposal of rape cases in Delhi’s trial courts show a sharp increase in the acquittal rate after the infamous December 16, 2012, gang rape. While in 2012, the acquittal rate in rape cases was 46%, in the first eight months of 2013 (for which exact figures are available) it shot up to 75%. Sources said acquittals remain high this year as well, accounting for around 70% of the cases. Legal experts say the high acquittal rates are because of a spurt in the number of false rape cases being filed. The observations of judges in acquittal cases also bear this out.”’ [6]
The Courts say women misuse rape laws.
Because of the Westernization of India consensual premarital sex and adultery has become rampant and women often abuse rape laws as a means to achieve vengeance on their former lovers or to simply extort money.
‘Justice Kailash Gambhir said rape law was often misused by women as weapon for “vengeance and vendetta” to harass and blackmail their male friends by filing false cases to extort money and to force them to marry them.’
“Many of the cases are being reported by those women who have consensual physical relationship with a man but when the relationship breaks due to one reason or the other, the women use the law as a weapon for vengeance and personal vendetta to extort money and sometimes even to force the boy to get married to them,” the court said in a recent order.’
“Out of anger and frustration, they tend to convert such consensual sex as an incident of rape, defeating the very purpose of the provision,” Justice Gambhir said, while hearing a case related to a woman’s complaint against her lover in Rani Bagh area July 13, 2012.’
‘The rape complaint was filed against Rohit Chauhan, who was allegedly in a relationship with the woman for three years. … “
“Cases like these not only make a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage but also inflate the statistics of rape cases which further deprecates our own society,” the court said. [7]
False Rape allegations have major traumatic effect on the accused man.
In 2014 a 25-year-old model in Mumbia, accused Sunil Paraskar a senior police officer of raping her. This devastated his life, he was suspended from work for 18 months and it severely impacted all his social relationships leading him to seriously consider suicide.
‘Speaking to mid-day, Paraskar said, “After the case was registered, my family was in the worst form of trauma. Meeting the constables I had worked with was the worst kind of embarrassment. My brother’s daughter got married in May. It was very embarrassing there. The looks we got spoke louder than words.” He further added, “A number of officers have committed suicide after such allegations. There was a time when I contemplated suicide too.”’ [8]
And what was the reason that this woman accused Paraskar of rape? She hoped that she would become famous and that the notoriety would get her a place in a reality TV show.
‘The case of rape and molestation against Mumbai DIG Sunil Paraskar got murkier after shocking claims were made by the model’s former lawyer. The Mumbai Police recorded the statement of model’s former lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui who said the following: “My client did not mention to me that she and Paraskar are close to each other. I did not find enough substance into the allegations which my client was making. My client told me that she was doing it for publicity and she wants to get into a TV show.” “When I learnt that my client is misusing my name and reputation I decided to back off. I have submitted the CCTV evidence and my version to the police,” he added. ‘[9]
To fulfill her selfish desires of becoming a TV star she was willing to ruin the life of an innocent man who would face complete public humiliation, lose his career and all social standing, become suicidal and either face the death sentence or a very long prison term.
We can only refer to the accuser as a “model” or “she” because if you look in any of the news coverage of the case the name of the accuser is not mentioned only the accused so nothing comes back on her. She can move on with life as if nothing happened while even though the man was acquitted his reputation is stained forever.
Women lodging false rape cases should be punished.
Currently the woman faces no punishment for misusing the law and falsely accusing the man while the man’s reputation is ruined because while the media widely publishes the rape charge it is silent on the charge being dropped unless the accused is high profile. There are now calls for such evil women to be punished.
‘Time has come for courts to deal firmly with women filing false rape complaints as they are tormentors warranting punishment, a Delhi court has said.
‘False rape cases makes the crime graph shoot up, play havoc with the crime statistics and tend to trivialize the offence of rape and, “no sooner that the news of a person having been accused of rape spreads in the society, he is looked down upon by all and sundry,” it observed.
‘While the act of rape causes intense emotional distress and immense humiliation to the victim, at the same time one cannot lose sight of the fact that false implication in a rape case causes equal humiliation, disgrace and mental agony to the accused, the court further said.’
‘”He (rape accused) as well as his family is ostracized from the mainstream. He is humiliated and ridiculed everywhere. Even his honourable acquittal by the court is not taken note of and does little to salvage his lost honour and dignity. He has to live with the trauma of having been a rape accused throughout his life,” Additional sessions judge Virender Bhat said.’
‘The court made the remarks while directing lodging of a complaint against a woman who had registered a false rape case against a Delhi businessman at the behest of someone who wanted to settle scores with him. … “Time has come when the courts should deal firmly with the women filing false complaints of rape. These women, who turn out to be tormentors and not the victims, should be punished under the appropriate provisions of law,” it said.’ [10]
Considering that currently in India a convicted rapist faces the death penalty therefore a false accusation against a man who is executed is equivalent to murder. Women who make such false accusations should be charged with attempted murder and punished accordingly and not just given a slap on the wrist.
The criminalization of “marital rape.”
And, if the current rampant misuse and abuse of rape laws were not bad enough a new law about the criminalization of “marital rape” is now seriously under consideration in India. We can only imagine how that will be misused. The following link https://www.change.org/p/law-commission-of-india-opposing-marital-rape-law gives a thorough analysis of the situation and has many links regarding how current rape laws have been misused.
Women should be even more concerned than men about the misuse of these laws.
The laws were made with the good intent of protecting women who have actually been raped but what will happen to real victims when so many false claims of rape have been made? Well just as the boy who cried wolf too many times was not believed when the real wolf appeared actual rape victims will have a much harder time proving credibility and the real rapists punished.
The following “Ted Talk” by Ms. Deepika Bhardwaj details the damage done to society both to falsely accused men and real female victims by these women who misuse laws actually meant to protect women. According to recent studies 85% of dowry accusations are false and as noted above 70-75% of rape accusations in Delhi alone were false.
It is the longstanding desire of the Western media to stereotype Indian males as sexual predators.
Earlier I wrote: “Other countries in fact have much higher rates of rape than India, but the media for their own reasons sensationalize the ones in India …” One should question why is the media making such a big issue about rape in India? What is their motive?
‘A huge row has erupted in India over India’s Daughter, a film made by the BBC on the gang-rape and murder of a young medical student on a Delhi bus in November 2012. What aroused particular anger was how the film, designed to be shown in seven countries to mark International Women’s Day, seemed to want to portray India as the rape capital of the world, with its headline claim that the country has “a rape every 22 minutes”.
‘But what has also come to light is that when the film was privately previewed in Delhi, its original version included evidence that in many countries in the West the incidence of rape is actually much greater. In Britain, the official Crime Survey for England and Wales 2014 estimated that there are 85,000 rapes every year, or one every six minutes. Equivalent US figures suggest that 1 per cent of all women are sexually assaulted each year, one every 25 seconds.
‘Those who saw the preview of India’s Daughter in Delhi have testified that the original version did make comparisons with the rest of the world. One, Anna Vetticad, praised it as a “balanced documentary”, because it ended with “worldwide statistics highlighting violence against women from Australia to the US”. But when the final version emerged, all this had been cut out. India was shown standing alone, as a country where rape is an exceptional problem.
‘What also led the Indian courts to ban showing the film was its portrayal of a country where violence towards women is part of its national culture. …
‘If there is a cultural problem here, it is the longstanding desire of the Western media to stereotype Indian males as somehow, to a special degree, sexual predators. Back in 1984, Western screens showed the TV series Jewel in the Crown and the film A Passage to India, both featuring rapes by Indian men of white women (although one was imaginary). More recently no films about India have been more popular in the West than Slumdog Millionaire and Monsoon Wedding, again featuring rapes, although this time by Indian men of Indian women.’ [11]
This has all led to serious damage of India’s reputation in the West.
‘As for the BBC’s latest effort at reinforcing this stereotype, there is already evidence that it has done damage to the image of India in the West, such as the much-publicised case of the Leipzig professor who barred an Indian student from an internship on the grounds that “we hear a lot about the rape problem in India, which I cannot support”. Female professors in Germany are reported as refusing to teach Indian male students for similar reasons. But the question the BBC has to answer is why did it so deliberately omit the evidence from the final version of that film, which might have given its worldwide audience such a different picture? [12]
The answer is that it is part of an ongoing effort of certain Western elites to negatively portray India, her religions, culture and challenges in an effort to undermine India’s growth as an emerging power.
“According to them the percolation of negative perception of Hinduism would impact the social behavior of Westerners towards Hindus, consequently affecting an individual Hindu’s growth negatively. They conclude that, ‘since the image of a country’s culture plays a vital role in international engagements, such perceptions are also detrimental to the economic growth of India’.” [13]
And,
“India, once a major civilizational and economic power that suffered centuries of decline, is now newly resurgent in business, geopolitics and culture. However, a powerful counterforce within the American Academy is systematically undermining core icons and ideals of Indic Culture and thought. For instance, scholars of this counterforce have disparaged the Bhagavad Gita as “a dishonest book”; declared Ganesha’s trunk a “limp phallus”; classified Devi as the “mother with a penis” and Shiva as “a notorious womanizer” who incites violence in India … and interpreted the bindi as a drop of menstrual fluid and the “ha” in sacred mantras as a woman’s sound during orgasm.” [14]
Like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and Syria, before them – are India’s internal social problems also going to be managed by foreign interventions in the name of human rights? [15]
Conclusion
Rape is a horrible crime and rapists should be severely punished however media portrayal of India as the rape capital of the world is simple false as almost all First World countries have much higher rates of rape than India. As a result of well intentioned laws made to protect women many unscrupulous women have purposely misused and abused these laws to falsely accuse innocent men of rape for revenge and especially for financial gain. This not only seriously harms innocent men but also hurts real victims of rape who will now have a much more difficult time being believed because of the one’s who cried wolf. Western media is particularly anxious to adversely portray India in a dark light so as to give India a odious reputation in the community of nations to slow India’s growth as a world power.
End Notes
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#Rape_statistics_by_country
2 Ibid
4. http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/decline-in-rape-conviction-cases-govt/1080623
7 http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/women-misuing-rape-law-marriage-consensual-sex/1/273110.html
12 Ibid
13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invading_the_Sacred#Section_I_.5BChapters_1-10.5D
14 http://rajivmalhotra.com/books/invading-sacred
15 Ibid
References and Further reading:
Horrific real live cases of men being falsely accused of rape, sexual molestation, and dowry in India.
A short video documenting how the young Rohtak sisters beat and robbed men using extortion and threat of putting false case of molestation against them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KqEO4oi1LY
INVADING THE SACRED
An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America(free down load)
http://rajivmalhotra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Invading-the-Sacred-Final.pdf
Why Rape Seems Worse in India Than Everywhere Else (but Actually Isn’t)
False rape cases on the rise: Are tougher rape laws being misused?
Women’s panel claims over HALF the rape cases registered in past year were false allegations
Women lodging false rape cases should be punished: Court
Court says rape law is being misused by women
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/women-misuing-rape-law-marriage-consensual-sex/1/273110.html
OPPOSING CRIMINALIZATION OF MARITAL RAPE LAW IN I.P.C
https://www.change.org/p/law-commission-of-india-opposing-marital-rape-law
Woman who had consensual sex can’t cry rape: Mumbai court
Why to blacken India on rape do they have to omit the facts?
Cry wolf: Wails of the non-Nirbhayas
(This one is in Ireland) Woman who cried wolf about rape may have to face her victim in court
thanks for sharing such nice article…
thanks for sharing such nice article…