Rape documentary: Is there an attempt to undermine India?

Statistics would indicate that a rape occurs every 20 minutes in India. While this is not a pretty picture, one must picture this. In the United States of America, there is a rape that occurs every 6.2 minutes.

While this is the case, it is sad to note that a rape that occurs in India goes on to hit headlines with the nation being branded as the rape capital of the world. So, which country is the rape capital of the world?

It is the Republic of Congo and rough statistics would show that there are an approximate of 1,000 rapes that occur everyday which even led the United Nations to term rape as an instrument of war.

Undermining India

Several law makers in India have termed the making of documentaries showing India in very poor light while ignoring their own plight as a ploy to undermine the success of the nation.

The UK had even invited a particular lady from an NGO to give a talk to its Parliamentarians about a coal project. She was on her way to the UK to speak about the ill effects of the coal project and surprisingly she chose to address her concerns at UK instead of speaking to the 530 odd members of Parliament in India and 230 members of the Madhya Pradesh legislative assembly where the coal project was coming up.

Several lawmakers that oneindia spoke with say that there is a deliberate attempt to undermine India. Many documentaries and films that are shot on India would portray the slums and the problems. There is always two sides to a story and very often we find that the better side of India is never potrayed.

When China called Delhi the rape capital of the world

On February 8 2013, an article in China's Xinhua said India is known for "rampant rapes" and "Delhi is called the rape capital of the world".

The Chinese embassy went a step further and advised its citizens to exercise caution especially in New Delhi. While every country has a right to ensure the safety of its citizens, China in particular should have exercised caution before getting judgmental about New Delhi.

Here are some interesting facts about rapes in China. It is one of the most common crimes, but is never discussed by the government controlled media.

Marital rapes are not illegal in China and neither is same gender rapes either. While the US department of state had reported that there are 2.3 cases of rapes per 1 lakh people rough statistics had shown that there were at least 31833 rapes.

However when it comes to crime statistics in China, there is never any official data available. There is no data relating to rapes and neither to the number of Tibetans that have died in struggle. It is a strict no by the Chinese government.

The US needs to speak about its own statistics

Big Brother comes two on the list of rapes in the world. In the year 2011 there were 24,206 rapes reported in India while in the same year the US reported 83,425.

A report in the Washington Post read, "Leslee Udwin, who has spent the past two years producing a searing documentary that examines the cultural underpinnings of a shocking Delhi gang rape that ushered in a painful bout of soul searching in India, conceded as much. The article in the Post was titled, India fails to silence BBC film.

Sally Kohm in the more.com writes, " even if sexual assault in India is dramatically underreported, which most likely it is, the statistical difference is still striking-as is our uniquely American inclination to dismiss such monstrous human rights violations as problems that other countries face. Not only is violence against women a global pandemic but the United States may be leading the pack.

An ingrained culture of female repression in India

"The unspeakable details of her ritual humiliation belong in another century, and yet they tell of a deeply ingrained culture of female repression in India, " is what the Telegraph, UK had to say while reviewing the BBC documentary.
The article starts off by saying, "India's Daughter (BBC Four) verged on the unwatchable. It told of the gang rape - on a bus by five men and one juvenile in December 2012 - of Jyoti Singh, a Delhi medical student who died in hospital of her wounds. One Indian woman is raped every 20 minutes."

While yesterday OneIndia had reported that it is the UK that has the colonial hangover(85,000 rapes in the UK: Wonder who has the colonial hangover? ), here is another statistic from the UK about rapes.

According to ons.gov.uk, sexual offences recorded by the police increased by 20% in the year ending March 2014 compared with the previous year across England and Wales. Within this, the number of offences of rape increased by 27% and the number of other sexual offences increased by 17%.