A Young Girl’s Rape in India Becomes a Crisis for Modi
The rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl is provoking major political fallout for India’s government, with an explosion of outrage reminiscent of the reaction several years ago after a young woman was brutally raped on a bus and later died of her injuries.
In the past few days, as protests erupted across the country, two high-level officials from the governing party have resigned, the Supreme Court has stepped in and Opposition leaders have tried to push India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, into a corner.
Mr Modi issued brief remarks last Friday about the rape case and another recent one, but only after opposition leaders spoke out, criticising his silence.
His statement that the country was ashamed about the rapes and that “our daughters will definitely get justice” hardly doused the growing anger.
What happened to this one little girl, whose crumpled body was found in a blood-smeared dress in January, is now the biggest news in India. It taps straight into some of the most stubborn issues the country faces in the abuse of women and girls and the deep divisions between Hindus and Muslims. The girl came from a nomadic Muslim community in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Police say a group of Hindu men lured her into a forest, kidnapped her, drugged her, locked her in a Hindu temple, gang-raped her and then strangled her.
According to investigators, the culprits confessed after being arrested and said that they had targeted the young girl as part of a plot to terrorise her nomadic community and drive them away. As more sickening details have emerged, the horror has grown. Some of India’s biggest film stars have staged a social media campaign to share their disgust. Many Indians say the revulsion they feel — and their anger at their government — is similar to that after the 2012 rape of the young woman on the bus in New Delhi, the capital, when all of India paused for a moment.
“A rape is a rape. This one may be even worse,” said Deepa Narayan, a social scientist who recently published a book on how women are treated in India.
“The bus rape was a bunch of drunk men looking for a good time who lost all control. This was a very deliberately planned-out crime, using the rape of a little girl over days as a political weapon.” In January, when the crime occurred, the girl’s death barely registered beyond local news reports.