The 2012 Delhi bus rape case and an ever-longer list of rapes and murders in India have prompted politicians and public figures in India to cite plenty of implausible reasons why rape happens and why men brutalise women or portray women in ways that suggest they had it coming. Many people, when speaking out, tend to minimise the crime or rationalise it in ways that sound ludicrous to many.
A list of such comments was created a few years ago, but it seems like it’s time to add some new entries.
Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Dwarka-Sharda Peeth: The religious leader said allowing women into a temple devoted to Lord Shani will cause more rapes. “Women should not feel triumphant about visiting the sanctum sanctorum of Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra. They should stop all the drum beating about what they have done. Worshipping Shani will bring ill luck to them and give rise to crimes against them like rape,” the 94-year-old swami said. He also reportedly said that women should stop men from consuming intoxicating substances that would put them in a state to rape women. A day later, he blamed honeymooners and picnic-goers for the 2013 Kedarnath flash floods in Uttarakhand, and said such “polluting the environment” of sacred Hindu sites would lead to more disasters. (The Indian Express, Hindustan Times)
Atul Kumar Anjan: The Communist Party of India senior leader said a condom advertisement featuring actress and former porn star Sunny Leone will lead to more rapes in India. “Now there is an advertisement with her (Leone), have you seen it? She is lying down…and a man comes to her. (They show the advertisement) in the morning, at night…an advertisement for condoms, it is such a dirty and horrific advertisement that develops your sexuality and destroys your sensibility,” Anjan said at a rally in UP. “If such advertisements for condoms appear in the country’s TV channels and newspapers, then incidents of rape will increase. It needs to be stopped.” Anjan also noted that he was unfamiliar with pornography, and that the incident prompted him to watch some for research purposes. ““After watching just two minutes, I kept vomiting.” (Hindustan Times)
Mulayam Singh Yadav: The Samajwadi Party leader has sparked another controversy by questioning the possibility of gang rape because it was “not practical”. “Often if one person commits rape, four people are named in the complaint. Four people are named for rape, can it be possible? It is not practical. They probably say one was watching…another was there… If there are four brothers, then all four are named,” Yadav said. (NDTV) Last year, Yadav opposed the capital punishment for rape and said “boys will be boys.”
Sachchidananda Babu, a Bangalore-based astrologer, said on a TV show that zodiac signs predict how women might get sexually abused, and even suggested a mantra for self-protection. He said zodiac signs can also reveal the age of the victim and the place at which the sexual assault may happen: Aries women are likely to get assaulted in a bathroom while Capricorns would be victimized by their father, mother or a colleague. Babu lodged a complaint with the police after an activist launched a Facebook page condemning his predictions. (Deccan Chronicle)
Uttar Pradesh police: Responding to a Right to Information (RTI) request regarding the rising incidents of sexual crimes against women in the state, the police cited reasons ranging from mobile phones and indecent clothing to lack of entertainment.
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NDTV reports: Policemen from Nasirpur in Firozabad district blamed rapes on “lack of entertainment options.” In Allahabad, policemen posted at Parvai station blamed “women’s clothes, appearance, DD telecast, mobile phones and vulgar songs.”
TOI reports: Police stations in Etawah district believed “too much intermingling of boys and girls is resulting in rapes.”
Binay Bihari, minister for art, culture and youth affairs in the state of Bihar: The minister said that mobile phones and non-vegetarian food are reasons for a surge in rape cases, NDTV reports. “Many students misuse mobile phones by watching blue films and hearing obscene songs which pollute their mind,” he said. On food, he reportedly said that non-vegetarian food “contributed to hot temper… and cited sermons of saints that pure vegetarian food kept the body and mind pure and healthy.” (NDTV)
Tapas Pal, lawmaker from Trinamool Congress: The popular Bengali actor was caught on camera threatening workers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and their families. “If any opponent touches any Trinamool girl, any father, any child, I will destroy his entire family. I will unleash my boys, they will rape them, rape them,” Pal said in the video. Pal later apologised for what he termed a “gross error of judgement”. (Indian Express)
Sudin Dhavalikar, member of BJP ally Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party in Goa, India’s beach-party-central state for sun-touched Westerners: Dhavalikar said women should not wear bikinis on Goa’s beaches “for their own safety”, and “girls in short skirts visiting pubs” is against local culture. “For their own protection on public beaches, women should not wear bikinis. I am not against wearing bikinis in private places,” Dhavalikar, 57, told NDTV. “Pub culture is not Indian culture and we don’t want Western culture. Young people go drinking and it often leads to law and order problems. Our sisters and daughters are getting spoilt. Goa was a city of temples and churches. We don’t want pub-tourism.” (NDTV)
Babulal Gaur, BJP minister from Madhya Pradesh: “This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong… Until there’s a complaint, nothing can happen,” Gaur told reporters. More, from CNN-IBN: “Unless the person wants, no one can dare touch her. The item numbers in films create a bad environment,” … The minister cited the instance of a Hindi movie actress who was kissed on the cheek by a leading Hollywood actor on stage in Delhi in 2007. The actress had seen nothing wrong with it, he said. He also suggested that women learn karate and judo to defend themselves, CNN-IBN reported. ( and CNN-IBN)
Read more: Hindu leader says allowing women inside Shani temple will increase rapes
Samajwadi Party leader and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Ram Gopal Yadav, speaking after the recent rape and hanging of two teenage girls in Uttar Pradesh: “vulgarity, obscenity and violence shown on TV channels” was to blame for the multiple incidents of rape and assault in UP. He also said, “In many places, when the relationship between girls and boys come out in open, it is termed as rape.” Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, suggested that reporters look on Google to see that UP isn’t the only Indian state where rape happens. (NDTV)
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Samajwadi Party member and former chief minister, Uttar Pradesh: In April, Yadav said: “Boys and girls ….later they had differences, and the girl went and gave a statement that I have been raped. And then the poor fellows, three of them have been sentenced to death. Should rape cases lead to hanging? Boys are boys, they make mistakes. Two or three have been given the death sentence in Mumbai. We will try and change such laws…we will also ensure punishment of those who report false cases.” (NDTV)
Babulal Gaur, again, commenting on a controversy regarding dresses, said “foreign culture” is not good for India. “Women in foreign countries wear jeans and T-shirts, dance with other men and even drink liquor, but that is their culture. It’s good for them, but not for India, where only our traditions and culture are OK.” In what looks like an attempt to hedge his bets, he also said, “Let women consider what is good and bad for them.” (Business Standard)
Shankaracharya of Puri Swami Nischalananda Saraswati declared western influence responsible for destroying the values and principles of the country. “There is need to change this. Before Independence we were able to maintain our culture and values but in the last 65 years we have lost a great part of it. Such horrific incidents don’t happen all of a sudden. They happen when the thin line of culture and values are crossed in the name of civilization and development.” (Times of India)
Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh: “Countries with sex education in their curriculum only have an increased number of crimes against women.” (Indian Express)
The Anjuman Muslim Panchayat in Salumbur town in Rajasthan has decreed that girls should not use mobile phones outside their own homes or dance at weddings so that “they do not get involved with boys.” Girls cannot dance on the street during wedding processions because that would mean objectifying women, Habiburrehman, secretary of the community panchayat was quoted as saying by PTI. The panchayat has also “warned young people against love marriages” and imposed a fine of 51,000 rupees (approximately $930) on families whose members elope and marry “against traditional social arrangements.” (NDTV)
BJP MP Ramesh Bais told reporters referring to the rape case involving minor inmates of a government-run residential school: “The rape of grown-up girls and women might be understandable, but if someone does this to an infant, it is a heinous crime and the offenders should be hanged.” (Firstpost)
Manohar Lal Sharma, a lawyer who represents three of the accused, speaking to Bloomberg in an interview: Sharma said the male companion of the murdered 23-year-old was “wholly responsible” for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets at night. “Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady,” Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court.
“Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect.” … Sharma said the man and woman should not have been traveling back late in the evening and making their journey on public transport. He also said it was the man’s responsibility to protect the woman and that he had failed in his duty. “The man has broken the faith of the woman,” Sharma said yesterday. “If a man fails to protect the woman, or she has a single doubt about his failure to protect her, the woman will never go with that man.”
Asaram Bapu, self-proclaimed “godman”: “She should have taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said ‘I consider you as my brother’, and should have said to the other two ‘Brother I am helpless, you are my brother, my religious brother.’” In other words, if she’s begged for forgiveness and cited the fraternity of man and called to God for help, all would have been well. Bapu’s spokesperson later responded to criticism of his statements by saying that women who get raped bear a fraction of the responsibility. (Hindustan Times)
Puducherry Education Minister T Thiagarajan, on making girls in the tropical southern city wear overcoats so men won’t be driven mad with lust: “The meeting resolved to introduce overcoats for girl students, operate special buses for them and ban mobile phones in schools. Our government is committed to ensuring safety of women, particularly girl students.” (Hindustan Times)
Rajasthan BJP lawmaker Banwari Lal Singhal: A BJP MLA in Rajasthan has demanded a ban on skirts as uniform in schools to keep girls away from “men’s lustful gazes”. Alwar (Urban) legislator Banwari Lal Singhal has written a letter to the state chief secretary C K Mathew, demanding that skirts should be replaced by trousers or salwar-kameez. “The intention of this demand is to keep girl students away from men’s lustful gazes and for their comfort in hot and cold weather conditions,” Singhal told PTI. (Outlook)
Abu Asim Azmi, state president of the Maharashtra Samajwadi Party: “If you keep petrol and fire together then it will burn. There should be a law to ensure that there should be no ‘nangapan’ (nudity). Those who wear less clothes should also be banned.” Also, paraphrased: fashion and nudity are responsible for the current situation in India. And in rural India, “girls don’t go searching out for boyfriend(s).” It goes on: “I support death penalty for the Delhi rapists but there should also be a law that women should not wear less clothes and roam around with boys who are not their relatives. What is the need for roaming at night with men who are not relatives? This should be stopped.” To be fair, here is the response from his son Farhan: “We are a cosmopolitan family, I have five sisters, they are educated, they drive and roam around in cars, we have always respected girls as equals and is that how it should be.” (India Today)
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Congress MP Abhijit Mukherjee (son of President Pranab Mukherjee): “Those who claim to be students – I can see many beautiful women among them – highly dented-painted [sic] – they’re giving interviews on TV, they’ve brought their children to show them the scenes. I have grave doubts whether they’re students, because women of that age are generally not students.” (Note: by dented-painted, we generally understand this to mean that they’re either a) a bit older and therefore need to be made up to look attractive, b) they’re like a car after a repair job, or c) they’re generally made up, and somehow not serious about their protests against the climate of rape and lack of prosecution in India. (Financial Express)
Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Vijayvargiya: “Only when Sitaji crossed the Lakshman rekha, she was kidnapped by Ravan. If Sitaji (woman) crosses the Lakshman rekha, then “Sitaharan” (crime against them) is bound to take place as Ravans are out there.” Here’s the background on that, along with one hell of a deconstruction of the plight of women “alone in the forest,” by Nilanjana Roy. Vijayvargiya withdrew his remark under pressure, by the way. (Deccan Chronicle)
Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar: “Harm can come on a person if the stars are in adverse positions … We have no answer to this, only an astrologer can predict.” (India Today)
Mohan Bhagwat (chief of right-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh): “A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time, the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her.” (NDTV)
More Bhagwat: Villages that embody the spirit of “Bharat” rather than “India” don’t produce a culture of rape. That’s something that you see in areas in which western culture’s poison has seeped into Indian souls, most notably in urban areas.
Jitendar Chattar (leader of a Khap Panchayat): “To my understanding, consumption of fast food contributes to such incidents. Chowmein leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such acts.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee: “Earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded but now everything is so open. It’s like an open market with open options.” (CNN-IBN)
Dr. Anita Shukla, scientist at the Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya: “When a group of men intend to rape, they will do it. The victim should save herself for bringing the perpetrators to book … Had the girl simply surrendered (and not resisted) when surrounded by six men, she would not have lost her intestine. Why was she out with her boyfriend at 10 pm?” (Indian Express)
Jamaat-E-Islami Hind: Statement released by Secretary General Nusrat Ali: “Co-education should be abolished and proper education facilities meant exclusively for women should be available at all level of education. Educational institutions should prescribe sober and dignified dress for girls.” (Times of India)
MP Rajpal Saini: “Why do housewives and school going girls need mobiles? It encourages them to make futile small talk and get connected with people outside their homes.” (, citing others)
More than half the people you know: According to a survey by Sakshi, an NGO active in gender issues, 74% of judges surveyed a decade ago believed that “preservation of the family” should be a principal concern for women even in the event of violence in the home. And 51% believed that women who stay with abusive husbands are “partly to blame” for their plight. Some 68% felt that “provocative attire was an invitation to rape” and 55% felt that the “moral
character of the victim” was relevant. (via Rupa Subramanya and The Wall Street Journal)