WOMEN WON’T PUT UP WITH IT ANY MORE

Casual oppression and sexual harassment is what the fair sex faces every day in India, according to a BBC TV3 programme.

FIRSTLY, it was good to see the Beeb tackle this subject – perhaps it was a bit late in the day to come back on events that erupted with such force six months ago in India.

Then the country was almost literally in arms over the brutal rape and murder of a young medical student. There were marches, near riots and much chest thumping.

That women have it tough in India is a given – how can it be anything but when more than half of girl babies have disappeared from statistics completely. In many parts of India, whether you are rich or poor, having a girl is seen as a burden and a waste.

Sadly that is the unflinching reality for women in India, so too is sexism, often referred rather dismissively as Eve Teasing – here, we have another name for it – sexual harassment.

Pitting a British Asian woman into this quagmire – 28-year-old Radha Bedi was always going to cause sparks.

These were not necessarily when she travelled there for this BBC documentary, but earlier when she went for a family wedding, she revealed she had been ‘touched up’ by a male dresser in a shop.

On this trip, she decided to make a complaint rather than run away from the whole incident – which is what she did when it actually occurred.

The Delhi police took her case seriously and while there were better ways to identify her attacker than a simple meeting for verification, something has changed.

Even male officers are taking these charges seriously. Of course, Radha did wonder whether they did so, knowing she was foreign and British and possibly, making a programme for the BBC.

There were some powerful interviews with the medical student’s father – genuinely moving and sad, as was her interview of a 15-year-girl whose face has been completely disfigured by a male classmate who threw acid at her for not speaking to him.

There was also an interview with a doctor no less who faced harassment from her family because she gave birth to two twin girls. These showed how far India has to go and it should have been right at the top of the programme.

In my own discussions, there is a sense something has changed. ACV is not so sure; in the immediate aftermath of such a horrific case, it is easy to be passionate and vocal about women’s rights. But will it be the same a year from now again??