THE older woman’s slaps come quick and hard, followed by a shrill, “Have you no shame?” The younger woman sits still, eyes downcast, holding a hesitant hand to her stinging cheek as if in disbelief. Captured earlier this month in the city of Aligarh, 140km south-east of the Indian capital, Delhi, this little act of violence was mild by the standards of videos that go viral across India’s 1.2bn mobile phones.
Yet the scene was widely shared, and for compelling reasons. The two women were complete strangers. The older one happens to be Sangeeta Varshney, a prominent local member of India’s ruling party. The younger woman, who is Hindu, had been spotted sitting in a teahouse with a man who is Muslim. In a later interview on television, Ms Varshney explained that as a mother and a Hindu herself, she had a God-given right to hit the other woman. This was, she continued, a clear-cut case of “love jihad”.
Ms Varshney is far from alone...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/2wZjl8W
EmoticonEmoticon