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Indian Gov't Wants Worldwide Ban On Rape Documentary, Including Online 356

An anonymous reader writes India's far-right Hindu Nationalist government headed by Narendra Modi has banned telecasting and viewing online of a BBC documentary on the 2012 Delhi rape which shocked the nation. The documentary consists interviews of the rapist Mukesh Singh, his lawyers and the victim's parents seems to expose the male dominant nature of Indian society. Indian government is now attempting to ban the documentary worldwide. Critics of the Indian government's action has accused it of not addressing issues women face and instead trying to hide the dirty secrets of its culture from the world. Some Indian websites have also reported that the views expressed by the rapist are echoed by policemen, lawyers and politicians of the nation. So far the government's attempt to ban the video online is with mixed success.
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Indian Gov't Wants Worldwide Ban On Rape Documentary, Including Online

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:18PM (#49202231)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:29PM (#49202259)

      Also, "worldwide ban". Good luck with that. Indian government, the attempt at a ban says much more about you than the documentary itself does.

      The fact that this incident sparked mass protests, on the other hand, shows that many people in India are good and decent, and of course abhor things like this. I wish them the best of luck in taking control of their government someday. It's something we're still struggling with ourselves on a regular basis.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:05PM (#49202395)

      Most of the people in India agree with him, including women. That is the main problem with Indian society in relation to rape. It's not just "policemen, politicians and lawyers" but average people as well. Views like "women are responsible for what (rape) happens to them if they dress in a certain way and go out in the evening alone" are commonplace.
      Those opposed are mainly educated people in the cities, and even among them, there's no real consensus. Remember, this is a huge country with a large portion of rural dwellers, caste system that persists in spite of being banned by government and very conservative views on many issues.
      It's also a country where most people will rather buy a slightly more expensive phone than replace their outhouse with a running water toilet.

      Streisand effect is working in his favour on this one, even though his intentions are obviously impossible to achieve, simply because it shows his constituents that he shares their world view.

      • by bingoUV ( 1066850 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @11:27PM (#49202673)

        caste system that persists in spite of being banned by government and very conservative views on many issues.

        Caste "system" is not banned and it never was. Even the British loved it as it was a nice way to divide people. Complexity of Indian caste system lends itself to creative uses.

        It's also a country where most people will rather buy a slightly more expensive phone than replace their outhouse with a running water toilet.

        "Most people" in India don't have an outhouse, most of those who have , don't have any running water to their outhouses.

        Those with running water to their outhouses don't have any need to practice economy. So you are wrong in every way.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @08:01AM (#49204027)

          1. Discrimination against lower castes is illegal in India under Article 15 of its constitution. It is however still prevalent. Not sure how your example of British rule which ended many decades ago has any more relevance to current situation than, for example, the fact that during the same period rape within marriage was completely legal everywhere Europe.

          2. The obvious elephant in the room that you chose to ignore to get to claim that "I'm wrong in every way" on this one is that it's a well known and documented fact that there have been several programmes that allowed almost any Indian person to get a running water toilet for minimal price. It was widely rejected by people who preferred to put money in things like buying slightly more expensive smartphones instead. This was noted all the way up to the prime minister of India.

          I'm not sure why you're so hell bent on making the "you're wrong in every way" claim as to ignore things like Indian constitution, well documented charity programmes and even PM statements.

      • by dasunt ( 249686 )

        It's also a country where most people will rather buy a slightly more expensive phone than replace their outhouse with a running water toilet.

        Is this a problem? I'm not sure about outhouses in India, but I've used them in the US. A flush toilet isn't that much of an improvement from a personal use perspective - the main advantage is that it can be inside the house. So the trade off is "having to walk outside" versus "having to walk to a room inside".

        Contrast that with a fancy phone which provides comm

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:33PM (#49202505)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Nethead ( 1563 ) <joe@nethead.com> on Saturday March 07, 2015 @12:02AM (#49202785) Homepage Journal

        Yeah, I got about 20 minutes in before I was about to put my fist through the monitor. The main perp said that only 20% of women are decent? I though we had rednecks in the US. Nothing like these total pieces of shit.

        Now I see why women avoid IT jobs with all the H1-B dudes roaming the halls.

        • by Intrepid imaginaut ( 1970940 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @07:20AM (#49203941)

          Did you know that over 90% of those in prison for violent crimes are men? Men are evil! But wait - 99% of men have never had and will never have a conviction for a violent crime, so saying men are evil is flat out bigotry as bad as any Klanner roaming the backwoods with a length of rope and a shotgun.

          When you project the crimes of a miniscule minority onto much larger groups, you're a bigot.

          A similar principle applies here. Let's take for example this article [shaktivahini.org] which claims a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes. While it goes without saying that any rape is too much rape, this makes it sound like India is the world's rape capital. Once every 20 minutes, my god!

          Except the population of India is 1.25 billion, so counting the number of 20 minutes in the year we get around 26297. Divide 1.25 billion into that and look, we get 0.00002, or two per hundred thousand, which is considerably lower than most western countries. A very different picture emerges. Yes, scumbags and psychos exist in India the same as everywhere else. No that's not an indictment of Indian society, and what they're trying to do is protect their national reputation in the same way they're prioritising a space programme over indoor plumbing.

          What happens when hysterias like the feminists and other carrion creatures manufacture for fun and billions in profit take hold is people suffer and die [dailymail.co.uk], torn to death by mobs without trial or due process. Trying to spin this call for a ban into the government protecting rapists is just more of the same - the government is acting in a confused and not terribly intelligent manner, but it doesn't want the country painted in a bad light.

          And that's before we start talking about dowry law abuses, domestic violence law abuses, and maintenance law abuses, of which there are a great many. A quarter of all male suicides in India are directly attributed to family problems.

          So, we have well provisioned westerners sitting behind their screens, tut tutting at the dastardly H1-B dudes roaming the halls scaring off all teh wimminz, suckling at the teat of hyped up outrage, squinting myopically through their little electronic rectangles at a world they've never experienced and have little understanding of, proudly touting the merits of skepticism in their signatures while massive human suffering goes unnoticed.

          Still, that outrage feels good though eh?

          • by Nethead ( 1563 )

            I was going to reply but the AC in post #49205121 said all that needs said about your rant. But please allow one point: " A quarter of all male suicides in India are directly attributed to family problems." So? I'm surprised it's that low. Besides just plain mental health issues I'm guessing that family and business problems are the cause of most suicides, anywhere.

            As far as "..a world they've never experienced and have little understanding of.." I've walked those halls for over two decades as employee an

          • by Rakarra ( 112805 )

            Let's take for example this article [shaktivahini.org] which claims a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes

            That poor woman...

      • by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @03:32AM (#49203441) Homepage Journal

        Which is precisely why the world should see this video. Because those "ideals" are far too prevalent in Indian society, and the nation should not be allowed to gloss over just how backwards so many of their people are beneath a veneer of respectability. It wasn't until this case that rape was even really taken seriously by the government itself, and then only because of mass protests.

        It's not that all the people support the viewpoint by any means.

        But it's important to show the world just how entrenched that viewpoint is in Indian society so that the rest of the world can apply pressure for things to change.

    • He only gets elected by local citizens though, so outrage from foreigners doesn't matter much, and may even help his election chances in his strongly nationalistic party.

  • by AndyCanfield ( 700565 ) <andycanfield&yandex,com> on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:23PM (#49202243) Homepage
    So what's the bittorrent name for the file? I've got to grab it just in case the Hindu fanatics win.
  • by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:28PM (#49202257)

    Hey India: "Sticking your head in the sand ignoring the issue doesn't make it go away!"

    Deal with it.

    • by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @12:01AM (#49202781)

      Hey India: "Sticking your head in the sand ignoring the issue doesn't make it go away!"

      I suspect you could say that to all governments, on lots of issues.

    • Hey India: "Sticking your head in the sand ignoring the issue doesn't make it go away!"

      India doesn't want the issue to go away, because that would mean changing, and no one wants to. India wants people to go back to pretending everything's okay. That's why "shocking" documentaries are dangeours, and get banned.

      It's why freedom of speech is so important: rising issues to public consciousness is the only way to resolve them peacefully. The only alternative is letting them shimmer until they reach the point o

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:34PM (#49202277)

    How can a country that hosts so many of the world's call centers still have no idea how the internet works?

    • Re:Tech Support (Score:5, Informative)

      by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:05PM (#49202393) Homepage

      How can a country that hosts so many of the world's call centers still have no idea how the internet works?

      Well, if their understanding of Microsoft Windows support is any guide [arstechnica.com] ...

    • Politicians vs. technology is in the same crappy state in India as it is everywhere. How can the US be the inventor of the internet and still have politicians who in general know nothing about this series of tubes?

  • After all, traditional marriages are arranged by the parents, per dowry arrangements and negotiations. Parents of the bribe, I mean bride, must pay life's savings to marry off daughters. You must avoid getting stuck with feeding her and her illegitimate children for your entire life. If you can manage to marry her off, then even if her husband dies first, the custom dictates that she must throw herself on her dead husband's burning corpse as part of the ritual funeral ceremony, If he can't feed you you'

    • by rubycodez ( 864176 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:02PM (#49202387)

      uh, your information is dated, they don't do the fling-yourself-on-the-pyre thing any more. It was outlawed in 19th century in India, and in 1920 in Nepal.

      "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs." -- Commander in Chief in India, to Hindu priests complaining that they couldn't do the Sati thing any more.

    • Pot vs Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:19PM (#49202455)
      It was illegal to do that in India a few year before it was illegal for you guys to keep slaves - you should have thought about that before you played the "backwards savages" card.
      The current situation is based on current problems that can exist in places other than India (or toga parties in the USA).
      • that the US _wasn't_ a bunch of backwards savages. See, this is a common mistake people make. Assuming because someone takes the moral high ground that they're not willing to admit their faults. As an American let me step in here to say we're just as awful, possibly worse. The stuff we did (and continue to do) to the Middle East and South America (I hear we're back to trying to destabilize Venezuela) makes this crap look like small potatoes. And don't forget our last Vice President brought back torture as a
    • And yet the feminist movement is so powerful in india it can literally keep the government from outlawing raping men.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by s.petry ( 762400 )

        This is where you should begin to wonder who is controlling these movements. I saw the signs women were holding during their rallies in India. Signs were in English and matching the exact rhetoric we see on signs in the US Feminist movement. "End gender based sexual assault". So men that are raped are not allowed in _their_ arguments, and neither are women raped by other women. The former is a staggeringly high statistic if you include incarceration, and the latter seems to match male on female rape by

        • by Megol ( 3135005 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @03:17AM (#49203409)

          Yes men are sexually assaulted by men and women. Yes men are raped by men and women. So what?

          What this article is about is a culture that accepts rape and even murder for someone that dresses wrong and does the wrong thing. IFF they are women.

          Your attempts of misdirection is simply pathetic.

        • I saw the signs women were holding during their rallies in India. Signs were in English

          Please, try not to be a colossal idiot. Before complaining, ask yourself what you're complaining about. Why would the signs be in English? Because their own government doesn't give a fuck about their rights, and they're appealing to an international audience to try to get some traction.

          Just think for just two seconds instead of letting your knee jerk. Nobody fucking cares how put upon you think you are by this anti-rape movement. It's not about you.

  • by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @09:55PM (#49202357) Homepage Journal
    Hopefully you have a "Plan B." One would think, ideally, one of your plans would be to not rape people. I mean, just throwing that out there. After, I dunno, the third or forth news story I was all like "Wow, they're really raping a lot of people in India all of a sudden. Did one of our fraternities start outsourcing or something?" And you guys do know that raping people is bad, right? I mean, based on your reaction to this movie, it does seem like you're aware of that. So maybe try not raping people for a while, see how that goes for you.
  • BBC Full Documentary- 'India's Daughter' on Nirbhaya Delhi Gang Rap | Jyoti singh | HD | Banned

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxkMzBqjgw8

  • Will watch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by moondo ( 177508 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:01PM (#49202379)

    An issue that I never cared about suddenly became interesting. Thanks Indian government for stimulating my interest.
    And thank you to the people who posted links here.

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:17PM (#49202447)
    The rapist's comments in the documentary are pretty shocking - he blames the victim for the rape, for being out at 9PM rather than at home doing house chores. I suspect this perspective isn't unique to this one man and thus the government considers it an embarrassing reflection on the nation as a whole. Maybe that's a good thing.
    • by grep -v '.*' * ( 780312 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @12:32AM (#49202905)

      The rapist's comments in the documentary are pretty shocking... I suspect this perspective isn't unique to this one man and thus the government considers it an embarrassing reflection on the nation as a whole.

      I just finished watching it (after DLing in case it disappears.) I find hints of "honor" and what I've heard about the Middle East and about Islam appearing as well.

      a) woman should always be accompanied by members of their family when outside (in public), and
      b) need to cover themselves so that strangers won't lose control of their facilities (presumably by their penis.)

      Are men so sexually animistic that they can't control themselves after seeing a boob? In this case it seems like the guys were out for an opportunistic "good time" and wanted to teach her a lesson for resisting.

      Maybe the idea is that teenagers might be lacking in self-control and so you need to help them along. Completely blaming women and hiding them away does not solve the problem though. But maybe that is the exact procedure to keep the male leaders (family, town, precinct, area, state) in control.

      Perp:
      "A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night."
      "A girl is far more responsible for a rape than a boy."
      So: It's not my fault, she made me do it to her.

      Lawyers:
      "A woman means I immediately put the sex in his eyes."
      "A female is just like a flower .. [that] always needs protection."
      "In our society, we never allow our girls to come out from the house after 6:30 or 7:30 or 8:30 in the evening with any unknown person" "If very important, she should go outside BUT she should go with a [parental guardian]"
      "The women are more precious than ... a diamond. It is up to you how you want to keep that diamond in your hand."
      "If my daughter/sister engaged in pre-marital activities, and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this [person] to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family I would put petrol on her and set her alight."
      So: if you let your women out at night unaccompanied, they get what you deserve. And it almost sounds like they're living with wild animals roaming the streets. Well, maybe they (and we) are. Self-control, anyone?

      Seems like there's also a hook to "terrorism" and "conforming to society will protect you" here, but I just can't place my finger on it quite yet. "Be somewhat afraid of the general population because they might not be civilized like you are" comes to mind.

      • Are men so sexually animistic that they can't control themselves after seeing a boob?

        Men from cultures which have not expected them to control themselves haven't learn to control themselves, on average. Which is why we need to bring pressure to bear upon them.

        Of course, we still have rape in the west. We have the very same sentiments here, just less of them. Let's worry about our own conduct, too and not pat ourselves on the back too much for not being like them.

    • Embarrassing perhaps... in my humble opinion, this is PR pure and simple. The real question is why focus on PR instead of actually fixing the cultural issues that make rape okay in India? Rape is rape - embarrassment or not.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @12:09AM (#49202809)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • and want safe streets for themselves and their women

      Surely you see the irony to referring to women as possessions while ranting about the plight of women.

    • by jbssm ( 961115 )

      While the Government of India may be trying to ban it and the some conservative rednecks of the country hold crazy views, it seems that the majority doesn't..
      It is the same Indians that are mass-protesting in response to rapes, to corruption, and want safe streets for themselves and their women: https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... [youtube.com]

      I believe your are mixing the majority with the vocal minority, like we do so many times about so many issues.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07, 2015 @02:05AM (#49203235)

    I'm of Indian descent. I used to live there, and frequently visit. I speak one of the main languages. I'm well aware of their culture.

    India is missing 50,000,000 girls. No typo, that's FIFTY MILLION. If you don't believe misogyny is a fundamental part of the national fabric, why don't you tell me WTF happened to these girls?

    Here's another way to look at things:

    Chance of being killed in Syrian Civil War: 1 in 300
    Chance of dying before five years of age if you're a girl in India: 1 in 20

    No opinions, those are numbers. If you doubt them, research the latest Indian census, World Bank data on child mortality, wartime data from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, among many many others.

    Is the picture becoming clearer?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So whats the chance of dying as boy before 5? 1/25?

    • The under-five mortality rate in India is 53 per 1000. In other worlds 1 in 20. Which of course means you've added "if you're a girl" for no reason other than to try and imply something that is isn't true.

      Yes the child mortality rate in India is high, but it is not gender specific as you are trying to imply. Which is the antithesis of "no opinions, those are numbers".

  • To be fair, this kind of publicity creates hugely disproportional view of a country.
    I see this all the time on local news sites in Israel. Since 2012, rape case from India get a front page mention -- and absolutely no other kind of news from India! For the past 2 years the average reader, who has no business in India and knows nothing about it, is learning a single fact about a place that holds ~16% of all people -- women are getting raped there.
    Will this documentary help in the long run? who can tell (no
    • I see this all the time on local news sites in Israel.

      Yeah, you should see what the news says about Israel.

      see this all the time on local news sites in Israel. Since 2012, rape case from India get a front page mention -- and absolutely no other kind of news from India!

      So, is there any other kind of news from India? Is there anything worth mentioning in comparison to the ongoing rape? Answer, no. It all pales by comparison. Nothing else happening in India is vaguely as interesting as how rapey they are, just like nothing more interesting than the ongoing Third Reich-esque treatment of Palestinians is ongoing.

  • I was in Pune when a report of a rape of an Australian girl in New Dehli came through. Basically they dragged her into a bus and a mob raped her on the bus while they drove around the city, they threw her out at a hospital but she died from her injuries.

    A week later another one happened to an American girl, a photographer who was with a guide. They beat up the guide and tied him up while 5 raped her over two days in a run down factory in Mumbai. What was pretty fucked up is that somehow the police made out

    • Everyone is trying to make a buck and it's not that Indian men are all rapists but I think the poor have to be master opportunists to survive and some of them are rapists.

      When the government insists that women are at fault for their own rapes, then there is provably an actual culture of rape. Period, the end. When these things can happen in public and no one gets in trouble, there is a culture of rape.

      The fact that a small minority of Indians are protesting against it doesn't change the fact that they live in a culture which protects and even encourages rape.

      • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        When the government insists that women are at fault for their own rapes, then there is provably an actual culture of rape. Period, the end.

        Oh, there is no doubt about that however it's not the only problem that exists there. For a moment imagine driving on the roads of a country where the people can learn to drive but they can't read the road rules. Our perception of India is based on our perception of our own countries where as it should be based on barely controlled chaos that for some strange reason, works.

        You do anything you would do in any western country but it's three times bigger than America's populace and still a democracy. Wonderfu

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