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As an Indian, this makes me really really ashamed and sad and angry. I would apologize to her as an Indian. To understand what is going on in Indian society, I recommend this book by Naipaul, written over 20 years ago, but still very relevant: "India, a million mutinies now" http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55676.India Basically India is in an utterly chaotic transition from an old established hierarchy where your caste and gender fixed your place in society to something that looks very different. One part of the societal transition is that there is a vast horde of (mostly male) migrants to major cities in India and these men are absolutely not rooted in anything. They are away from their villages, their families, their social networks. For most of these young men, the social system, particularly gender roles, they experienced in the villages is very different from what they see in a big city. You put a lot of young men in that situation, they think anything goes, particularly when they see a foreigner or an urbanized Indian woman. They think of her not as a person, but as an object - but it is a different kind of objectification, where they feel inferior to the object, it is unattainable to them, so they act with cruelty and savagery. That is what is different between this form of objectification and normal patriarchal behavior which would try to be patronizing and protective towards women. Those very same men, in their own village, would not do the same thing to a foreigner, because normal social restraints would apply. In a vast urban space, they feel the protection of anonymity and feel they can get away with anything. The only short term solution, being tried in states like Tamil Nadu, is a massive increase in female police presence, both uniformed and plain-clothes police officers in public places in big cities. This does improve security for women where it has been tried (Chennai is an example of such a city). I hope her post serves us a wake-up call for the governments in India to think of measures like this. |