Raj, Bhagwat wrong: Bihar low on crimes against women, rural India high

Raj Thackeray has attributed the incidence of rapes in India's national capital region to an influx of Bihari migrants into Delhi. RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat has gone on to say that rapes happened in 'India' and not in 'Bharat' in a not-so-oblique reference to the changing lifestyle and socio-cultural mores in India's urban centres. Beyond the obvious condemnation from progressive sections of the Indian society for the divisive and parochial comments, a thorough study of the National Crime Records Bureau statistics for 2011 completely rubbishes their claims.

Of the 24206 total number of rapes recorded in India in 2011, Bihar recorded 934 such cases while Madhya Pradesh (3406 cases), West Bengal (2363 cases), Uttar Pradesh (2042 cases), Rajasthan (1800 cases), Raj Thackeray's home state Maharashtra (1701 cases), Assam (1700 cases), Andhra Pradesh (1442 cases), Kerala (1132 cases), Odisha (1112 cases) and Chhattisgarh (1053 cases) are way ahead of Bihar in recording higher number of rape cases.

Even in terms of rate of crime which is measured per one lakh people in a state, Bihar at 0.9, fares much better than Assam (5.5), Andhra Pradesh (1.7), Chhattisgarh (4.1), Haryana (2.9), Kerala (3.4), Madhya Pradesh (4.7), Maharashtra (1.5), Rajasthan (2.6), West Bengal (2.6), Tripura (5.6) and Delhi (3.4).

Coming to Mohan Bhagwat's assertion, the top 53 urban centres across the country including cities and towns recorded just 2579 rapes out of the total number of 24206 such cases which were recorded in the entire country. That shows that Mohan Bhagwat's 'India' accounted for about 10.65 per cent of the total number of such cases where as 'Bharat' accounted for an overwhelming 89.35 per cent.

Even the lower crime rates of cities against their respective states are pointers towards the lack of logic in Mohan Bhagwat's words. - Hyderabad (0.8) against Andhra Pradesh (1.7), Kochi (1.4) and Thiruvananthapuram (2.3) against Kerala (3.4), Mumbai (1.2) against Maharashtra (1.5), Kolkata (0.3) against West Bengal (2.6), Delhi City (2.8) against Delhi (3.4). It shows women in cities are comparatively safer than their rural counterparts.

Very interestingly though, Nagpur, the headquarters of RSS, records a 1.8 crime rate for rapes, higher than the state average of 1.5.