By: Asha Naidu
ashanaidu@hotmail.com
June 12, 2004

Lisa Fernandez at Mercury News claims the following in an article about Prasad Lakireddy

"In India, a man from a high caste never would have been punished at all for abusing poor women from a low caste."

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This is the letter I sent to the San Jose Mercury News:

"In an otherwise well written piece Lisa Fernandez makes two errors:

1. Lakireddy is most likely spelt Lakkireddy.

2. She makes an unsubstantiated statement that 'In India, a man from a high caste never would have been punished at all for abusing poor women from a low caste.’

Her statement suggests that: either the Judiciary System in India is both corrupt and casteist, or she is airing her own prejudices. She does not give any details/statistics, relating to pertinent research done by her, which could justify such a conclusion. India is a democracy and the Courts in India are highly respected both in India and around the world, among people with informed knowledge. Indian Courts (with judges often being high caste men) in recent years have pronounced remarkable and landmark judgments (that were later implemented) condemning communalism, corruption and casteism as appropriate to the cases heard by them.

Rape, in India (as everywhere else) is an abuse of power by the powerful against the weak, as Lisa Fernandez's article make's clear. In India, depending on the circumstances upper caste men have raped lower caste women, in the same way that some lower caste men have also raped higher caste women. When cases were filed in Courts, wherever the victims were able to furnish legally acceptable levels of proof - rapists, both high and low caste have been convicted and punished.

Please do not insult the Indian Judicial System. And also, please refrain from over-generalizations that may suggest to trusting readers that all unpunished rapists in India only belong to the higher castes. That is false.

Don't extrapolate, from an article written about a convicted sexual predator, like the senior Lakkireddy to tar all high caste Indians with the same brush. Lastly, please do not imply that Indian society is stagnant and unchanging, or insult Indian society’s capacity for introspection and social change without the dubious benefit of an ‘enlightened western mirror’.

Further as a minority woman living in the Bay Area, I may have to deal with the prejudice generated by these kinds of sweeping statements in otherwise good articles. As it is, I sometimes engage with people who perceive me as being suppressed, unintelligent and living in a quaint, forced and arranged marriage!!

I have had the experience of working with minority women escaping domestic violence both in India and the UK.

Incidentally, India's Constitution was written by a highly educated and respected lower caste man - Ambedkar. Since India's independence in 1947, affirmative action policies have been implemented in the fields of education and employment. The choice of implementing such policies, was initially made by high caste men - who at that time predominated in the Political Arena.

During the 1990's, we have had the good fortune of seeing many lower caste people dominated Political parties take power and rule in Indian States. They were chosen, by their electorate, both high and low caste. True, the India does need to greatly improve its record on caste relations. However Indians in India are trying out both constitutional and social reforms that are supported by men and women who belong to both high and low castes.

Give us a break!!

Asha Naidu