On Saturday 05 Apr 2008 5:05:08 am Rishab Ghosh wrote: > On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 03:30:35PM +0100, va wrote: > > Not increasing ? According to the NRCB (2006) reports: > > /quote > > Murder has increased by 231% (from 9,803 in 1953 to 32,481 in 2006); > > Rape by 678% (from 2,487 in 1971 to 19,348 in 2006); Kidnapping & > > Abduction by 356% (from 5,261 in 1953 to 23,991 in 2006); Robbery by > > 120% (from > > 8,407 in 1953 to 18,456 in 2006) and Riots by 176% (from 20,529 in 1953 > > to 56,641 in 2006) > > /unquote > > this does not appear to be per-capita adjusted. the population has > increased by about 380%, assuming a 3%->2% annual growth rate. so only rape > at 678% has increased on a per capita basis, and i think it's reasonable to > argue that twice as many rapes that occur are reported today than 50 years > ago when they were hushed up.
I believe that the definition of rape too has been changed to include many events that were previously considered "OK". The Hindu and Muslim injunctions that a wife should "serve" her husband in every possible way have probably been questioned for the first time in millennia. However the attitudes that consider a wife anything more than a servant are yet to spread far and wide. The British are to be thanked for giving Indians the idea that "records" should be maintained of anything at all, be they births, deaths or crime. That idea has taken ages to spread. Not surprising considering that the British exerted marginal or negative control over human rights across most of interior India while they exerted economic and strategic control. 600 princely states did pretty much whatever they wanted and it is only after India became a republic in 1950 that things could be changed over vast areas. Changing lives and attitudes of 300 million plus people started after 1950 and the population has not remained static for the very reasons that lives were changed ostensibly "for the better". Other than China, no other nation in the history of the world has had the target of changing so many lives in any period of time long or short. shiv
