Check out this story from last month from the Times of India.

Excerpt:

27 years old, Ida Loch Hansen from Denmark, who had been in the city working, ironically enough, on the issue of women welfare, faced a harrowing experience when she was molested blatantly in a crowded bus on her way back from Hazratganj to Indiranagar. Choosing to sit in the cabin near the driver because she considered it safe, Ida was molested by a young boy of about her age. Though she had faced eve-teasing before, this blatant physical assault was made at her for the first time.

What was more shocking for her was the fact that though the bus was full, nobody tried to take a stand in response to her screams and in fact, it was only when she raised an alarm that the conductor asked the molester to take a backseat. To add to her misery, instead of reporting the matter to the nearest police station or dropping the man out of the bus, the driver and the conductor forced Ida to get off before her destination.

I think we could end this little problem pretty quickly by allowing women to purchase and carry legal firearms. Imposing stiff penalties for these kinds of sexual assaults would also be a good deterrent. I would not want my daughters to have this kind of thing happen to them. And I find the lack of moral courage of bystanders to be very unsettling.

I’ve noticed that this happens a lot with European bystanders who are confronted by Muslim thugs. Do secularism and Hinduism have the worldview scaffoliding to ground self-sacrifical acts, such as protecting the dignity of others? Maybe some of our Indian commenters can comment about why no one in the bus stood up to protect the screaming victim?

UPDATE: Andrew e-mails this story about a Sudanese woman who is facing 40 lashes… for wearing pants. This is ridiculous.