A senior politician from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party has renewed outrage about attitudes to sexual violence in his country, after declaring that rape is “sometimes right.”
“This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” Babulal Gaur, home minister of Madhya Pradesh state, was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times.
The comments come on the heels of criticism of another politician, Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, where cousins age 14 and 15 were raped and lynched last week. Yadav failed to visit the scene. His uncle, Public Works Department minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, blamed the media for “blowing” the story out of proportion.
Yadav’s father, Mulayam Singh, who heads the Samajwadi Party, drew anger in April when he denounced a recently introduced death penalty for gang rapists, saying “boys make mistakes.”
Gaur is also cited as saying rape can only be considered a crime if it is reported to the police.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has distanced itself from Gaur’s comments, saying they are his personal views, but party leader Modi has so far remained conspicuously silent about the assault and killing of the girls.
Indifference to violence against women appears to be endemic, with police offering little support even when incidents are reported.
At a demonstration against the rise in violence against women in Uttar Pradesh over the weekend, police — including female officers — used water cannons to disperse hundreds of female protesters.
Police also failed to take any action when the father of one of the two girls reported to the police that the cousins were missing. Two police officers were fired for dereliction of duty after the discovery that the girls had been gang-raped and killed.
One of the girls’ fathers said police took more than 12 hours to respond to a report they were missing. If the police had acted promptly, they could have been rescued, he added.
Not all politicians are failing to represent the dire concerns of their female constituents.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has spoken up about the urgent need for “changing mindsets.”
“There can be no development, no prosperity and no progress if such barbarism is allowed to continue,” he said.
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.