Attack on African students, rape of foreigners, are such incidents denting India's image abroad- Comment
India being largest democratic country, is also known as cultural superpower. India has a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society living together. India's diverse history, its culture, traditions all fascinates foreigners to visit India at least once. India has many tourist places where people from other country used to visit. India being an education hub, particularly in Asia and also digitalization in India creates more opportunities for foreigners. India's cinemas and entertainment is an important factor to fascinate people from other country.
In any part of India many foreigners are residing and many of them are visiting different places and enjoying the culture, environment, food etc. of our country. The human beings; a creativity of god never has same thoughts, feelings, thinking process. India being second largest country has many peoples having limited thoughts. People of our country has narrowmindness, their thoughts and thinking process are limited. And also their mentality towards foreigners is somewhat different. Due to the above reasons, we are seeing many incidents with foreigners in our country.
In one case, the 51-year old Danish tourist was gang raped by the group of peoples at knife point in Paharganj in heart of the country, Delhi. She lost her way to hotel and met with a group of peoples. They first robbed her and then gang raped. In other case, an 18-year old German girl was raped by a man sharing her compartment on a train traveling from Mangalore to Chennai in Southern India and in one another case a swish tourist was gang raped and her partner were attacked by a group of men in Madhya Pradesh. Since the December 2012 Delhi gang rape, the nation has been shocked by a string of brutal rapes of Indian and foreigners women.
Despite of government strict laws on sexual violence and sexual harassment, these gang rapes in country are spoiling our images all over the world. These incidents started denting India's image abroad. Now, India is not considered as safest country due to these inhumane activities, By GPI, India is positioned at 141 from 167 country in peace. Attack on Africans students made us racist. Due to territorial possessiveness of some people these incidents took place. Are we racist? The answer is surely not, but due to uneducated mob those wanted to fulfill the territorial desire attacked on these students and blame of that event was imposed on us. It is unfair to paint India as unsafe country because incidents happen in other parts of world too. In Australia, Indians are beaten and teased. Are we blaming the country as unsafe one? No, these were isolated events which occurs in every part of world. Such type of events were not racism motivated.
Any government can impose laws on their republic but can't force them to change their thinking process, mentality. So to reduce these incidents be the change in yourselves. Gandhiji had also told that if you want to change the world, first change yourself.
- SHASHI KANT
