… seems to be the Sena’s response to the horrific rape of a 17 year old college student in a police chowki, in the middle of the day. And this too in India’s “safest” city for women, Mumbai.

In a scathing editorial in their mouthpiece Samna, it observes that ” the dressing habits of the youth, especially low waists, and the spread of Page 3 culture in society …… they attract the evil eye of men”

It pronounces that

“… A girl does not become modern by dressing up scantily, adding that there appears to be a competition among girls to display their under-garments. It says that parents are mistaken if they think they are giving freedom to their children by letting them wear whatever they want. Sexy dances accompanied by remixed songs were corrupting the entire generation. The article wondered who is to be blamed if a youth misbehaves with an innocent girl – the youth or the society at large. “

Wow.  this from a party whose corporators run dance bars across the length and the breadth of the state (an euphamism for bars with female dancers) – so if you were wondering why the current Government is suddenly clamping down on dancebars, this could be one reason. It’s cutting off the money supply of the Sena.- a party which has it fingers in every dirty little pie in the state. Interesting morality.

Why is it the reflex action of the Right to blame the rape victim for the crime?

Bhawari Devi was a fully clad social worker who was gang raped in Rajasthan, Phoolan Devi before she became a dacoit met the same fate. Rape is not necessarily carried out against the most sexually attractive person. It is carried out against the most helpless person. It is not an act of attraction, it is a brutal exhibition of power and rage. The man who rapes a woman does so because he can.

The Sena is essentially implying that all women who wear “skimpy” clothes are asking for it, because this is the way “man” behaves. I am not quite sure whether their stance is more insulting to women or to men.