Brahma Kumaris and the Indian rape crisis (updated)

As most of you will probably know, India has been rocked by a number of particularly vicious and tragic rape cases provoking mass protests and international concern. It is obviously not a new situation but one that has simmered under the weight of India's sexist and caste bound culture.

Surprisingly, although the headquarters is silent, or at least was for two minutes, even the Brahma Kumaris of Mumbai were inspired to join and make political statements ... and the usual loopier section of their congregation were inspired to claim that "RajYoga can save women from getting raped" while blaming the poor classes for the crimes, something which the facts and the slum dwellers from where the victims came are angry at.

But is this true? Upper caste sexual abuse of lower caste women, right up to the Brahmins, has gone unchecked for millennia ... and who do the Brahma Kumaris spending most of their time and resources chasing and sucking up to? The People's Union for Civil Liberties analysed rape figures for 2007 and found that 90% of victims were Dalits (untouchables or scheduled castes), and 85% of them were underage girls.

From a report on Salon.com ...

According to mandatory self-declarations filed by candidates with the Election Commission and tabulated by National Election Watch, India’s leading political parties have offered tickets to 27 candidates accused of rape and a whopping 260 candidates facing charges for crimes against women ranging from assault to harassment over the past five years.

Two members of the current parliament and six members of the various state legislative assemblies are facing rape charges, while 36 others face charges for lesser crimes against women.

And these are only the politicians who got caught, and charged, a difficult thing to achieve in a culture that tells it rape victims to go and marry one of their abusers in order to save face.

Indeed, in another one of the reported case, a 16-year-old girl was raped by two policemen in a Maharashtra police station while her unwitting parents waited patiently outside.

Brahma Kumaris, what are you and your god spirit really doing for the women and downtrodden of India?

Post subject: RajYoga can save women from getting raped.
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:30 pm

Hi,
I was going through the recent gangrape cases in Delhi. the rapists belonged to lower income class like -fruit seller, driver, conducter etc.now that means guys reading in small government schools meant for the poor sections of people are the ones where basic moral education is lacking or since they belong to poor class they grow up with a lot of frustration which might later convert them into criminals.gender sensitivity or respect for women is absent.
RajYoga ----can help our society . why not take up this cause of introducing RajYoga in these small schools where children come from different lower income groups.Rich people send their kids to big univ/colleges for making them engineers n docters. it is kids from these small schools who might take up non lucrative, hard,unattractive jobs of police constables or homeguards,security guards.Some of them might take up jobs of the unorganised sector like fruit sellers,drivers,conducters.AS THESE JOBS LACK ATTRACTIVENESS N GLAMOUR, these guys don't work with passion n responsibility.there is no respect for ones own job and one ownself as these jobs are really tedious and subject to lot of disrespect n undue scrutiny by the senior officers or people around.So these kids if they are properly groomed mentally and emotionally might grow up to be great individuals inspite of working in low income secters.constables might be promoted to the level of police officers n that might bring about CHANGE.I THINK bramhma Kumaris can do a lot in this field.The job has to start now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And what about RajYoga education n GENDER sensitizations in the POLICE???? If we approach the police academy n introduce RajYoga N education like gender sensitivity n respect for the job n one ownself in the police, will this not help?????Something has to be done becoz blaming the police and political class n introducing NEW LAWS will not help.It is respect for one own work n one ownself and respect towards women in our society that will weed out this problem.
So plz plz plz i request brahmakumaris to put a tight plan in place n to approach different organisations like the womens organisation [for rape victims], government schools[for kids],
police training academy[for budding constables n police officers] to provide RajYoga education for the underpriviledged.we have to start now becoz it might take a long time to see the results.Otherwise Delhi alone has seen 635 cases of REGISTERED rape cases in this year, I FEAR it might be on the rise in the coming years.Plz save the women of our society from this brutal horror.i know that lectures n protests are not enough but RajYoga is definitely the best solution.
Plz let me know what u feel about my thoughts.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!
mamoni,
India

Kunan Poshpora incident (Army), [url=Central Reserve Police Force]Shopian rape and murder case[/url] (Central Reserve Police Force), Suryanelli case (42 men for 40 days), Kiliroor Sex Scandal (upper class influential people), Soumya rape and murder case (attack on train), Aruna Shanbaug case (nurse left in vegetative state), Jalgaon rape case (trafficking and sex slavery of minors), Mathura rape case (16 year old by police), Anjana Mishra rape case (Chief Minister and Advocate-General of Orissa), [url=Indian Youth Congress leader]Ajmer rape case[/url] (mass rapes of school girls including an Indian Youth Congress leader - multiple suicides), Bhanwari Devi case (upper class of Dalit NGO worker), Imrana rape case (rape by father-in-law treated as adultery), Vachathi case (155 forest personnel, 108 policemen and six revenue officials involved in gang rape 18 Dalit women) ... and following the New Dehli rape, a 16 year old girl has just come forward accusing her school bus driver of doing the same. Excluding even the 10,000-15,000 Nepalese girls sold into the sex trafficking industry, these are just the tip of an iceberg of an far bigger problem India has.

The response of the India police who are often involved in actual cases? Beat the protestors and filed a case against a news channel and victim's friend for revealing their neglect of the victim, squabbling and refusal to take her to the nearest hospital which meant it took two hours to reach care.

The Brahma Kumari response? "It's their karma ... there's nothing we can do ... the world is impure and going to be destroyed anyway ... far worse is to come ... don't rock the boat and keep in with the powers that be.".

So, much for "Divine Mother India" ...

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Meanwhile, men within the Indian state, political parties and religious groups respond with all the usual flatulent belly aching ...

blaming the girl,
blaming the West,
ridiculing the government's decision to compensate victims,
calling it a "minor issue",
planning to make it mandatory for girl students to wear overcoats,
blaming the victim to be as guilty as her rapists,
blaming migrants, and
claiming all the victim had to do was chant to God Saraswati and she would have been saved.

Watch out for these individuals turning up at a BK mega-event in the near future.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had claimed that the incidents of rape were the result of adoption of Western culture in society as a whole and that erosion of traditional Indian values were more pronounced in urban areas.

"Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes won't happen in Bharat or the rural areas of the country. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gangrape or sex crimes," he had said.

"Where 'Bharat' becomes 'India' with the influence of Western culture, these type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as 'mother'," Bhagwat added.

... and as a tool of class war against the Maoists or Adivasi by the Indian government special police officers the BKs train.

Women enslaved, or trussed like dead animal hunting trophies ...

Adivasi woman taken by Indian special police officers

Adivasi_woman.jpg (32.16 KiB) Viewed 10977 times

There should a social and a natural picture behind all odds. Many social odds can be even in nature whereas many odds in nature can be even in society. But I feel all odds & evens should be judged after considering both angles--social & natural enabling their cure not just treatment.

A hungry boy snatching or stealing a bread for his basic need is odd in society but may not be odd in nature. We have seen and do tolerate other species snatching/stealing foods and still do not mind and do not punish them but we mind and punish for such acts if done by humans.