Priyanka Kumari

"Defaming whole country?" I literally wrote, "I love India. It is and always will be one of my favorite places in the world" and she accuses me of defaming India for addressing the plight of women in the country. I also wrote, after someone who read my post made nasty remarks about India: "Respectfully, you should be ashamed of yourself, sir. Yes, the situation for women is egregious. But let’s walk and chew gum for a step. The culture is one of the most richly beautiful and philosophically insightful of any I have ever seen. And I’ve seen most of them. Few cultures offer such bewildering depth or captivating beauty. It’s almost no wonder that enlightenment itself was conceptually conceived in these lands. And the food? And the music? And the nature? And, best of all, the people. Problems exist. I’m the last person you have to tell because I’m a strident critic of India’s flaws. As I am of Gaza, Korea, Israel, China, the US, Peru, and other places that I love. The places I do not love, I care less if they improve. Yes, problems exist. But so do the charms, and if you don’t know them, you don’t know India. In fact, I will tell you something more. I have already shared some of the awful stories of sexual assault in India, but of the many women I have met and come to know as friends in India, all of whom had such experiences in one way or another, not one ever concluded that India was a shithole worth nothing. To the great credit of these wise women, they saw the horror more directly than you or I, and the beauty. None became bigots. None walked away despising Indian people on the whole. None determined to snort at their entire culture. And thank god, because it would have been their loss, not India’s. The issues regarding treatment of women are only the tip of the iceberg, to be frank. There’s a lot of ugly to discuss of India. This contradiction seems to be confusing many people in my replies. Welcome to India. But although some countries are perhaps as beautiful, none are more so." And yet @sharmarekha says I am "defaming" the whole country. This is what you get from NCW types. I am not Indian, so take my view for whatever it is worth, but my Indian friends do not seem to have much respect, if any, for NCW and one reason for this is because it has a deplorable habit of blaming women when they are attacked, raped or even murdered. NCW makes India less safe for women when it does these things. Sharma herself has faced criticism for failure to respond to complaints filed by women's rights groups over credible allegations of women being publicly stripped naked, beaten by mobs and raped in public. And yet here she is with the gall to accuse me of defaming India. Ms. Sharma, it is you who defame India by presiding over a group called the National Commission for Women and doing nothing about the issue noted above, and then criticizing people like me for drawing attention to this important matter. I love India. I don't have enough heart to hold all the love I have for India, nor enough words to express it. But do you?

Ph.D. Oral Examination (POE) scheduled for Chhavi Dawar Ph.D. student on January 21, 2022 at @CSIR_IND @ccmb_csir @ProfSangwan