According to various media reports and Amnesty International, an all-male village council in India sentenced two sisters, including a 15 year old girl, to be raped as punishment for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste. The accounts state that Meenakshi Kumari, who is 23, and her younger sister, will then be paraded naked with their faces blackened through the streets as part of this disgraceful, primitive sentence.
The family are “untouchables” or members of the lowest Dalit caste. The brother ran away with a woman from the Jat caste after she was forced into an arranged marriage. They eloped but reportedly returned after the good people of the village tortured the untouchable family. in India – one aged only 15-years – are to be raped as “punishment” for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste in the latest caste to shock the country. The sentence was declared morally correct as an “eye for an eye” punishment.
The problem is that these “courts” are allowed to operate outside of the legal system in their imposition a mix of religious and cultural traditions. Because the Jats are politically powerful, the government looks the other way. It presumably cannot do so now. Indeed, in any nation committed to the rule of law, the entire council would be arrested on the basis for the torture allegation as well as other culprits.
The case also shows the continuing desperate plight of women in this tradition oriented Hindu nation. India stands at the crossroads. It must either turn its back on such practices based on ignorance and prejudice or abandon its impressive strides as a leading modern nation.
Source: Telegraph
Whether true of false, political motivation is always interesting to me as similar unconscionable actions are not unusual. Religious tradition is always just the scapegoat for such pathologically motivated events. We should never allow any “man” or women to rule over other adults unless it is by a jury of ones peers and for me sometimes 12 individuals is just not enough to obtain justice, especially under some archaic caste system.
It is proven that the best results come from small groups operating under unanimous consent, hence why our founding father probably decided that capital crimes are determined by this plurality.
Welllllll, for all the heat….it seems the story was a rumor or an incident with a terrific CYA after the world press spread.
Lets put India on the list of Pirate Territories. It has civilized areas under the umbrella of the nation state but other areas purely pirate minded. Not terrorist. But worse in a way.
The 3 leading Republican candidates in Iowa have never held elected office. A white/male, a white/female, and a black man.There’s a revolution afoot. Well, the Dems are still putting up the same old, same old. And I do mean OLD! And whiter than a Klan rally.
Article 17 in The Constitution Of India 1949
17. Abolition of Untouchability Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden The enforcement of any disability arising out of Untouchability shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law
~+~
Unfortunately it is often more of a case of willingness rather than authority that fosters the administration of justice.
Doggy,
Trump would say “I love women, I’ll take care of women!” Of course what he means by that is anyone’s guess.
Inga – more important (since he is the President) what is Obama going to say? One of these girls is about his daughter’s age. He was going to save those Boko Haram girls for her, but I have not heard that happened.
What would The Donald have to say about this?
The culture in India does seem to be cruel to women. I had a Sikh friend that had an abusive husband and mother in law, she had one child and was pregnant with the second, working full time in a physical job and was expected to cook for the entire family. The mother in law wouldn’t allow her any communication with her parents in India. I picked her up from a nearby grocery store after she ran out of the house in desperation and she stayed with me for a couple of days. So sad and shocking it’s happening here in this country among these immigrant groups. Her husband was born here.
One thing I would like to agree with you on Karen, how does a religion known for peace as we tend to think of Hinduism, come to such a barbaric practice as in the case of these two sisters? I wonder how much of it is religion and how much cultural.
“People can agree, or disagree, with his views on abortion. But how the heck do you compare Ben Carson with a backward village sentencing two innocent girls to rape, and forcing a young woman to be essentially raped for the rest of her life in a forced arranged marriage?”
Karen, who made such a comparison? I don’t think anyone compared Dr.Carson to anyone in India, especially not these people who are so backwards. I believe Max was responding to a comment @9:58 AM. I was responding to Max’s comment. It pays to backtrack to the original comment to understand where subsequent comments are made.
One more of my Dad’s stories. One of his fellow officers was in India, when someone asked him how he, an African American, can serve a country that discriminated against and enslaved his ancestors.
He replied that he’d rather be an n-word, in jail, in Georgia than one of their Untouchables.
I remember a colleague of my father’s almost caused an international incident when he was over there representing our military at some government dinner. They brought in monkeys to eat their brains while the animals were still alive. The story goes he pulled his service revolver and freed them. Good man.
How could the birthplace of Nirvannah, yoga, and Namaste also have such a dark side?
Each country has its own brand and degree of hypocrisy, stupidity, and neanderthal like behavior. However, India is right up there with ISIS on this one. A government that allows this, supports this. I’m going to have trouble talking to a Mr. or Miss. Computer Fix It the next time I’m patched through to Bangalore.
I have known 2 Indian women who escaped abusive arranged marriages. One was forced to get repeated abortions because her husband refused to let her use birth control. I also knew a young teenager here as a foreign exchange student, preparing herself to go back home after high school graduation to enter into an arranged marriage to some much older man she’d never met. Her host family offered to keep her here, safe, but she said doing so would mean losing her family forever, which she could not do. Of course, she also explained that once she was wed, she “belonged” to the groom’s family, and no longer her own. So . . . lose/lose for her. Such a sweet, innocent girl. I wonder what became of her.
Usually, when I read about terrible crimes being perpetuated on people, especially children, I mourn that it’s done and over, too late.
But these girls are still OK, I think. We have this window of opportunity to save them. I hate this horrible wait to see if they will be saved or savaged. Poor girls.
Oh my God, can we do anything to rescue these girls, as well as the brother with the poor girl forced into an arranged marriage? Send in an extraction team as a humanitarian gesture? Volunteers? Anything? There might still be time to prevent this terrible crime.
The Untouchables are in a truly dire plight in India, where women’s rights are quite poor.
Paul – too right. Vote with our dollars.
How the heck did this get on Ben Carson? I heard his sentence on the war on what’s inside women. He’s against abortion. He said the womb should be the safest place in the world for a baby to grow, and that our society places no value on what women have evolved an intense instinct to protect.
People can agree, or disagree, with his views on abortion. But how the heck do you compare Ben Carson with a backward village sentencing two innocent girls to rape, and forcing a young woman to be essentially raped for the rest of her life in a forced arranged marriage?