With the increase in sexual assaults against women in India, everyone is in shock and deep outrage. It breaks our heart to see nothing has changed since the 2012 Delhi gang-rape.
Just like many women, the famous Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi Shankar, reacted to the brutal rape and murder of the young veterinarian in Hyderabad. While narrating her own experience of sexual assault. she shared:
“India, in particular, is no country for women,”Â
She took to Twitter to share her anger and disappointment:
“Nearly seven years ago to the day, the world mourned together over the horrifically brutal gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey. Just how the earth’s axis changed after the 2004 tsunami, I felt an emotional axis bend at this point in time.”
“My own life changed with her attack. This to me was the real beginning of the women’s movements we’ve seen in recent years. I felt her attack in my own body and ended up sharing a video about my own sexual abuse. This was part of a wave of women in rage and pain demanding change.”
In another tweet, she mentioned how people have been demanding justice but there seems to be no change:
“India made new laws and set up new courts and people demanded justice. And yet… Where is the change? This week it was Priyanka Reddy, gangraped and burnt and murdered. In the last year alone I’ve cried over eight year olds and twelve year olds meeting similar fates.”
While questioning women’s safety in the country, she said:
“This is a global epidemic. And India in particular is no country for women. And I’m enraged. And I’m numb. And I don’t know what to keep doing. I want to scream and yet for once I feel voiceless. Because nothing fucking changes and women are being raped every minute every day.”
And in the end, she shares how women across the world are disciplined and blamed for rape rather being boys taught about consent:
“Around the world and people still ask us what we were wearing or why we traveled alone at night instead of teaching boys and men to see us as humans and to stop fucking touching us and entering us without our consent.”
While we can feel Anoushka’s pain, we hope justice would be served to the 27-year-old vet and her family, who are going through immense suffering and pain.
