India rape sets off debate over women’s rights

Kumari said the Delhi police commissioner sent her a message Monday asking her group to restart police sensitivity training that it had suspended due to lack of funds.

There have also been proposals to install a quota to ensure one-third of Delhi’s police are women.

There also have been signs of a change in the public debate about crimes against women.

Other rapes suddenly have become front-page news in Indian newspapers, and politicians are being heavily criticized for any remarks considered misogynistic or unsympathetic to women.

A state legislator from Rajasthan was ridiculed Monday across TV news channels after suggesting that one way to stop rapes would be to change girls’ school uniforms to pants instead of skirts.

“How can he tell us to change our clothes?” said Gureet Kaur, a student protester in the Rajasthani town of Alwar. “Why can’t girls live freely?”

Some activists have accused politicians of being so cossetted in their security bubbles that they have no idea of the daily travails people are suffering.

Kumari said the country was failing in its basic responsibility to protect its citizens. But she was heartened to see so many young men at the protests along with women.

“I have never heard so many people who felt so deep down hurt,” she said. “It will definitely have some impact.”

In Geneva, the U.N. human rights chief called Monday for fundamental change in India.

“Let us hope that 2013 will be the year the tide is turned on violence against women in India and all women can walk free without fear,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. “The public is demanding a transformation in systems that discriminate against women to a culture that respects the dignity of women in law and practice,” she said in a statement.

Pillay, a South African of Indian origin, urged Indians not to give in to calls for capital punishment for rapists. “However terrible the crime, the death penalty is not the answer,” she said.

• Associated Press reporters Archana Thiyagarajan and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

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