by MARK MAGNIER
Sonia Gandhi, front right, the leader of India’s ruling Congress Party, visits the family of a teenage girl who committed suicide after she was raped in Haryana state. PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images
A 16-year-old committed suicide after being raped in India’s Haryana state, where such crimes are prevalent. The incident and officials’ reactions that appear to justify or excuse rape stir outrage.
NEW DELHI — Politics, an official’s controversial comments about rape, and an upcoming election.
This may sound like a senatorial race in Missouri, but it’s all part of a scandal that’s unfolded in India over the last week. The anger, introspection and frustration among women’s groups and social critics, however, have echoed American reaction to recent suggestions by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women’s bodies are able to prevent pregnancy in the event of “legitimate rape.”
The issue hit the headlines here when a 16-year-old girl committed suicide in the northern state of Haryana this month after being raped.
On Friday, Communist Party of India leader Brinda Karat threatened to stage a major protest early this week over the crime, lack of follow-up and insensitive comments by officials that appeared to justify or excuse rape.
The girl’s family, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of the tragedy.
“I can’t even imagine what she was feeling,” said her uncle, Satyavan, 30, a government employee who uses one name.
“She was scared, terrified,” he said. “She probably felt ashamed. She said she feared her family would beat her because she’d been raped.”
The media have highlighted rape statistics from Haryana — including more than a dozen high-profile sexual attacks in the last few weeks — to argue that the government isn’t doing enough. “15 Rapes, 30 days, Zero Sensitivity,” said a banner headline on a nationwide “Times Now” television broadcast Friday.
Aware that the incident offered an opening to political opponents as state and national elections approach, India’s most powerful woman and head of the ruling Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, made a well-publicized trip last week to visit the victim’s family, vowing tough action against the attackers.
Although several senior political leaders are female, women’s social status in India ranks low in most international surveys. A poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation in August rated women in India the worst off among the world’s top 20 economies, just behind Saudi Arabia.
In a nation where female infanticide is prevalent, Haryana has the worst record: 830 girls born for every 1,000 boys, compared with a national average of 914 girls for every 1,000 boys.
Haryana, a wealthy and conservative state adjoining Delhi, is known for its male-dominated local councils, called khap panchayats, that often assert iron-fisted control over a dozen or so contiguous villages, frequently serving as de facto judges and enforcers.
The khaps have a history of repressing women and Dalits, the lowest-ranking, or so-called untouchable, caste members. The councils often openly justify, or even order, “honor killings,” in which relatives or neighbors kill young lovers who marry in violation of caste rules. The slayings frequently go unpunished because of the khaps’ political clout.
“They’re kangaroo courts dominated by rich landowners,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of Delhi’s Center for Social Research think tank. “But no government in Haryana has the courage to stop, or even speak out against, khap panchayats. They have money and political power.”
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