INDIA SUMMARIZED

IN Haryana, rape has become a big election issue. This is hardly surprising in a state that has witnessed 17 gang rapes within the past month. Surely, this dismal trend ought to be cause for voter outrage and demands for law and order. Politicians ought to be jostling to appear tough and decisive, issuing the usual ‘justice will be served’ sound bytes. Instead we have this: our joke-democracy at its finest. Voter appeasement has hit a new low with our leaders kowtowing to rapists and their communities in the name of protecting their electoral base. On one side is Om Prakash Chautala, the senile old man of Haryana politics eager to clamber on the way, way back machine. Explaining his support for the khap panchayat “solution” to rape — i.e. child marriage — he told reporters: Look back at the past, the Mughal sultanate in this country used to misbehave with women and used to kidnap them. In order to prevent that people started getting their young girls married early so that no one do...