And then some people just don’t get it. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Babulal Gaur, for instance, who explains that rape is a social crime, sometimes right, sometimes wrong.
Gaur, who is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Thursday that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police.
“This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” said Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in BJP-run Madhya Pradesh.
When is it right? In wartime is it? During riots? When a genocidal mob is feeling really pissed off?
Although a rape is reported in India every 21 minutes on average, law enforcement failures mean that such crimes – a symptom of pervasive sexual and caste oppression – are often not reported or properly investigated, human rights groups say.
More sex crimes have come to light in recent days. A woman in a nearby district of Uttar Pradesh was gang-raped, forced to drink acid and strangled to death. Another was shot dead in northeast India while resisting attackers, media reports said.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was “especially appalled” by the rape and murder of the two girls.
“We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of, ‘Boys will be boys’,” he said in a statement this week that made clear his contempt for the language used by Mulayam Singh Yadav.
I have a much higher opinion of boys than Babulal Gaur does, I must say.