India not a country for women: Anoushka Shankar

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Mumbai, Dec 4 (IANS) Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar has reacted to the barbaric gangrape and murder of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad saying India is "no country for women".

Calling rape a global epidemic, the composer tweeted: "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 fu**ing changes and women are being raped every minute every day."

Anoushka posted a series of tweets venting her pain and anger at the brutal incident and once again pointed a finger at how such incidents repeatedly keep happening in our country and yet nothing changes.

Reminding everyone about Delhi's Nirbhaya gangrape case of 2012, Anoushka wrote: "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."

She continued: "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."

However, despite introducing new laws and setting up new courts, the scene of women's safety in our country remains unchanged, feels the sitar maestro.

She tweeted: "India made new laws and set up new courts and people demanded justice. And yet... Where is the change? This week it was (Hyderabad victim), 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 Anoushka has expressed deep pain and a feeling of numbness, which she is going through after learning about the Hyderabad incident, singer Sona Mohapatra and filmmaker Alankrita Shrivastava have blamed the patriarchal mindset dominating Indian society for such crimes.

Alankrita said: "In our country misogyny is accepted, violence against women is normalised and patriarchy encourages crimes against women", Sona feels that the society is unnecessarily preachy towards women who are constantly told "how to behave, what to wear, what time to come home at."

--IANS

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