Salman Rushdie’s in India and he talked to the BBC there. I transcribed most of it.
The bigger question India needs to ask itself is about gender relations, is about how men think about women, and actually to an extent how women think about women because again there’s a lot of oppression inside families by matriarchs of daughters-in-law.
And many women bring up these boys, you know? And don’t teach them proper ways to behave.
Rajini Vaidyanathan: What appals you the most about the way women are treated here?
Well just the brutality of it, the easy brutality of it, and the fact that mostly people get away with it.
It’s nothing to do with what clothes they wear, with whether they go out in the evening – it’s to do with the way men behave towards them.
He cited the disppointing reaction from politicians, gurus, the police.
Unless these attitudes change – and I think young people have to demand that they change –
Vaidyanathan: What would your recommendation be?
Well first you’ve got to start talking about it the right way. You’ve got to stop criminalizing women in this situation and shift the focus to how men think about women.
You’ve got to start changing the terms of the conversation.
He’s talking about culture, ideas, discourse – what confused people label “radical” feminism. It’s not radical. It’s core feminism.