JOIN USA women’s group and Jawaharlal Nehru University students protested at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday against anti-women remarks by some well-known people after the Delhi gang rape.
Members of All India Progressive Women Association (AIPWA) and All India Students’ Associaton (AISA) were up in arms over the recent remark made by Asaram Bapu who said the victim was equally responsible for the rape.
“The so-called spiritual leader says the victim should have begged the accused at the time of rape. She might have done that too in such a situation. But who is he to comment about the victim who died a painful death for no fault of hers. And such patriarchal and hypocritical attitude is revered by people of this country,” said a protester.
Echoing similar views, an activist Kavita Krishnan called to stop putting people like Asaram Bapu on a high pedestal.
Delete from history
“Such people should be deleted from the history of this country. These people claim to be saints but are demons inside,” she said.
The protesters condemned statements made by Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat regarding women and rape.
First he said rapes do not take place in rural but urban India, which was followed by another comment that a woman was bound by contract to look after her husband.
“We want these people to get arrested. Such irresponsible statements after what happened to that girl are unacceptable.”
“They cannot handle that the women of this country are finally asking for their rights,” said another protester.
Effigies of Asaram Bapu and Bhagwat were set on fire.
‘Dented and painted’
Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee had called women protesters as ‘dented and painted’.
Recently while Chhattisgarh women commission chief had said women were equally responsible for crimes against them, the state’s home minister Nanki Ram Kanwar said sexual offences against them occured because their stars did not favour them.
Protests have been taking place after the December 16 gang rape. The victim, who was raped on a moving bus by six men, died on December 29.