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This behavior is the unfortunate effect of modernization and move into cities. India, is predominantly a rural society. Like many traditional socities in asia,

by npalli 13y ago

This behavior is the unfortunate effect of modernization and move into cities. India, is predominantly a rural society. Like many traditional socities in asia, morality is enforced by concepts of honor/shame/loss of face. So, you have individuals who behave appropriately with women in their local villages or towns. Your family will loose face if you behave inappropirately and you will be cut off from society. However these guys land in cities far from their local environs and suddendly all sense of morality goes out of the windows. Everyone around you is new so what does it matter, you can do some crime and move somewhere else. It must be noted that most of this criminal behavior is committed by recent entrants to cities. That in itself is not new. Every society has this problem (of modernization) but India has an additional issue. The state (internal police, law etc.) has historically been very weak and continues to be so. Enforcing any laws is a huge problem so these cases keep getting compounded by the day. Some dude seems his neighbour get away with stuff and he gets emboldned to do the same.

sridharvembu 13y ago
Your comment captures the ground reality well. Rapid urbanization combined with a weak, ineffectual state is bringing out the worst in young men moving into cities for work.
noisy_boy 13y ago
Like most things Indian, all villages in India are not same. Depending upon location and consequently prevalent culture, in some places women call the shots and rampant abuse of women is pretty much not tolerated (typically those in north-eastern states). There are also those where women are treated as cattle, to be used and abused and have no rights whatsoever (example states being Haryana/some parts of UP/Bihar) - families do not lose face in these places if men behave inappropriately towards women, they lose face if the man doesn't beat up the woman "to put her in her rightful place". So all villagers in the city do not act like boors, like most things people do, it depends on their upbringing and the culture of place/family they hail from. Weak state is not a unique problem. Some south-east asian countries have far weaker/ineffective state, but this blatant objectification and abuse of women is not rampant there. Unfortunately, culture doesn't change overnight and lack of quality education contributes to lack of introspection/critical thinking.

by npalli 13y ago

sridharvembu 13y ago

Your comment captures the ground reality well. Rapid urbanization combined with a weak, ineffectual state is bringing out the worst in young men moving into cities for work.

noisy_boy 13y ago

Like most things Indian, all villages in India are not same. Depending upon location and consequently prevalent culture, in some places women call the shots and rampant abuse of women is pretty much not tolerated (typically those in north-eastern states). There are also those where women are treated as cattle, to be used and abused and have no rights whatsoever (example states being Haryana/some parts of UP/Bihar) - families do not lose face in these places if men behave inappropriately towards women, they lose face if the man doesn't beat up the woman "to put her in her rightful place". So all villagers in the city do not act like boors, like most things people do, it depends on their upbringing and the culture of place/family they hail from. Weak state is not a unique problem. Some south-east asian countries have far weaker/ineffective state, but this blatant objectification and abuse of women is not rampant there. Unfortunately, culture doesn't change overnight and lack of quality education contributes to lack of introspection/critical thinking.