Editor’s Note: We warn readers that this is an angry article. We are simply fed up by the double standards of American media in targeting India for violence they ignore in America & Europe. We have tried to be as logical as possible but our anger does seep through.
Sound like a provocative and extreme sentiment, right? But is it? Has that time finally come both on moral and practical grounds? Read below and decide for yourselves.
Earlier this week, we saw a tweet from Jim Yardley of the New York Times,
- Jim Yardley
@JimBYardley
4 Jun Again, a woman attacked in India. At#IndiaInk, American Tourist Gang-Raped in Manali, Police Say http://nyti.ms/18QCqMb
Sadly, a women gets attacked every day in India, in America and in virtually every part of the world. Jim Yardley hasn’t cared much about all these unfortunate women and he rarely tweets anyway. So the fact that she is America must have been the reason for the tweet. That’s fair, though. Every American should be concerned first about well-beings of Americans.
This Yardley tweet was followed almost immediately by a tweet by Indian reporter Neha Thirani Bagri of the New York Times.
- Neha Thirani Bagri @NehaNotes 4 Jun – Yet again —American Tourist Gang-Raped in Manali, Police Say: Vishnu Varma and I report for India Ink india.blogs.nytimes.com .
We were disturbed and upset at the news. No woman, man or child anywhere should be subjected to attack or rape. So we read the NYT-India Ink article. But having read the article, we felt more upset about how Indian reporters of NYT-IndiaInk again targeted India.
1. The facts
According to the article by Neha Thirani Bagri & Vishnu Varma in the NYT,
- “The woman arrived in the resort town of Manali on Monday with three other women and was staying in a guesthouse in the old part of the town, …”
- “On Monday evening, she headed to meet a friend at Vashisht, which is about 2 miles north of Manali and famous for its hot springs. At 1 a.m. on Tuesday, she was looking for an auto-rickshaw to return to the guesthouse when three men in a truck offered to drive her to Old Manali. Instead, they took her to a secluded spot and raped her, the official said.”
While we feel deeply for the pain suffered by this woman, we simply cannot understand her adventurism. She was not in South Mumbai which is alive with people even at 1 a.m. in the morning. Manali is a relatively small resort town and Vashisht, about 2 miles north, is even smaller. Why did this woman find herself alone in such a small rural backwater area at 1 a.m.? And how utterly adventurous was she to jump into a truck driven by three men whom she didn’t know?
Forgive us. We don’t wish to hurt any sensibilities of any one. But frankly, very frankly, if you jump into a pack of hungry wolves alone, you are not going to fare well. This is a fact in every city in every country in the world.
2. Was this woman lucky? What could have happened to her in America?
Our first thought was that this woman was simply lucky to be alive. We thought so because we live in New York City and know Chicago well. If you get caught in certain areas of Chicago or New York at 1 a.m., chances are you might be killed. And you don’t to have to look for such trouble as this woman did in Manali, India. Trouble comes looking for you past midnight in New York or Chicago, whether in a subway station, in parks or simply on the streets.
How random, violent and unbelievably tragic can life be in New York City? Let us share a story that we know personally. A few years ago, a young gifted Chinese graduate student in Columbia University was killed just outside the campus. This young man was crossing Broadway, a major avenue just outside the campus, at about 10:30 p.m. He was attacked by 3 American teenagers on the median. His death was mourned by his fellow students and by Columbia University.
We knew this young man and were deeply grieved at this wanton loss of life, a life of a young man in his prime, a life that might have meant a great deal to Mathematics & Statistics.
But no one in New York media, not even the New York Times, made a big deal about what happened to this young man. No one wrote about how dangerous America is and how American culture is so violent. If we recall correctly, the New York Times didn’t even report this on the first page.
Because America is a simple straight country. America’s message to visitors & tourists is simple – come to America and live here at your own risk. And above all, be smart, sensible and practice safety. If you get hurt by your stupidity, it is, frankly, your own problem. The police will do what they can to find and punish the people who attacked you but only as a part of their normal routine.
Getting back to the young Chinese student who was killed because of the assault, the three teenagers were found and put in jail. We recall a mother of one of these men claiming loudly that they were innocent and were railroaded because they were of a minority. No NY newspaper reported whether justice was served or whether the young teenagers escaped with a minor punishment.
The Chinese student died in the simple act of crossing a major avenue just outside Columbia University. He was not being adventurous or foolhardy. He was simply going home. In contrast, the young American woman in Manali was foolhardy enough to go to a relatively isolated area 2 miles away from a small resort town and then utterly stupid to get into a truck with 3 unknown men inside.
Yet, the New York Times made it appear as if this is a shameful blot on India and on all Indians. The same New York Times that didn’t bother to display any anguish about the death of a bright Chinese student in Columbia University, the pride of New York City.
3. The Racist Behavior of Indian Police
& of Indian Government
If you read NYT-India Ink or WSJ-IndiaRealTimes, you will notice that the police in Manali and the state went into high gear to find the men who raped the American woman. This is only because the woman was an American and because the Indian Government was under intense pressure to find & punish her rapists.
Unfortunately, this also means that Indian victims of other crimes in the area take a back seat. The Indian police force is notoriously understaffed and cares little for ordinary Indians anyway. And with the pressure to find the rapists of an American woman, we can imagine the police telling other victims in Manali that their complaints will ignored while the American woman’s case is being handled.
If you doubt us, just read the NDTV story about a Delhi girl allegedly gang-raped in Ghaziabad, blackmailed with video. The police effort in this case is described as “a case has been registered and efforts are on to arrest them”. Typical Indian police behavior with ordinary Indians.
By the way, no Indo-American blog reported this case. But wait, we might be too harsh. After all, NYT-IndiaInk, Reuters & WSJ-IndiaRealTime are all American entities and so they should be mainly concerned about Indo-US stories, right?
Fair enough. That leads us to ask whether these Indo-American Blogs have ever written a story about violence experienced by Indian tourists or visitors in America. We haven’t seen even one such story in NYT-IndiaInk, Reuters or WSJ-IndiaInk. Not one Indian reporter, not Neha Thirani Bagri of NYT-IndiaInk, not Tripti Lahiri of WSJ-IndiaRealTime, not Anuja Jaiman of Reuters has cared to investigate or report on how Indian tourists can get into trouble in America.
Getting back to the Indian police, what happened to the intense efforts of the Indian police to find the men who raped the American woman? A Big Story in the Associated Press tells us India Court Jails 3 Suspects in Rape of US Woman:.
- “A court in northern India has sent three men arrested on suspicion of gang-raping an American woman this week to prison while police investigate. … Police arrested the men Thursday, but they haven’t been charged. … On Friday, a court in the resort town of Manali, where the alleged rape occurred, ordered that the men be held in prison for two weeks. When the two weeks are up, police will present their evidence to the court.. “
We sincerely hope we are wrong but this article does bring to mind various scenes of police investigations from Bollywood films. In these scenes, the police round up suspects and put them in jail to satisfy their senior officers and government officials who are clamoring for arrests in high profile cases. Then the police beat up these suspects in jail and try to coerce confessions which can then be used as evidence before a judge who is also under pressure to close the high profile cases with convictions.
We deeply and sincerely hope that this sort of stuff is only for Bollywood films and not for real cases like the rape case of the woman in Manali.
By the way, no progress has been reported in the case of the Delhi girl who was gang-raped and then blackmailed with a video.
4. Why a moral appeal to European-American women to not travel to India?
The Indian police and the Indian Government care far more about “white” visitors than about Indians. So they will spend far more time and effort on handling your cases than they will on handling even more serious cases of ordinary Indians. And they are understaffed any way.
So if you get into trouble in India and approach the Indian police, you will in effect hurt and damage legitimate complaints of at least 3-7 Indian families in that area. Do you really want this on your conscience? Do you want to be responsible for hurting the citizens of the country you visit for your pleasure?
If you don’t, then heed our appeal. Choose some other country for your tourist travel. Just avoid India.
5. Why Indian Government should ban tourism by European-American women?
This is very simple. You, the Indian Government, are a diffident cowardly bunch. You don’t, for example, have the candor or guts of America which essentially tells all visitors that they visit America at their own risk, that they should practice safe & smart tourism in the interests of their own safety and that they will not get any favored treatment if they get in trouble.
And the American press is in an attack mode against you. No matter what you, the Indian Government, do, it will not be enough. Some “white” tourist will get into trouble by being stupidly adventurous and that will broadcast all around the world as the fault of Indian Government, its culture and its society.
In case, you haven’t found out already, these attacks have registered and they are having an impact on your ratings. So it is time to cut your risks and simply ban all tourist visits by single European or American women to India. Simply not worth the hassle.
Of course, you don’t need to ban all such tourists. Allow by all means rich Western women who will only stay in 5-start hotels and travel in escorted limousines. Frankly, one such tourist can bring you more revenue than 50 tourists who will live in guesthouses and get you into trouble by their adventurous behavior.
And by the way, by all means encourage travel by African and Middle Eastern women. Reporters of NYT-IndiaInk, WSJ-IndiaRealTime or Reuters don’t care what happens to non-white women in India.
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