The story of a critically injured 6-year-old Indian girl shows the so-called Rashômon effect in action.
Here's how the same incident was reported by different news organizations:
IBN: A six-year old Dalit girl was set on fire by a man in Mathura because the girl and her mother chose to walk through a path reserved only for upper caste villagers. Even the police refused to take any action. The girl is now admitted in a hospital in Mathura and is critical.
Indo-Asian News Service: A six-year-old Dalit girl was in a serious condition in Uttar Pradesh after an eight-year-old boy pushed her into a burning heap of garbage in Mathura district. ... With her mother chasing her, [the boy] caught her and flung the girl into the fire, a police spokesperson told IANS Wednesday.
Associated Press: Police in northern India arrested a man who allegedly threw a girl into a pile of glowing embers after he caught her trespassing, an attack authorities said Wednesday may have been motivated by caste. ... [22-year-old Madan] Singh discovered the girl relieving herself Tuesday in a field he owned and demanded she immediately stop what she was doing and leave his property. "When she did not respond, he simply lifted her and threw her in a heap of embers," local police official Govind Agarwal told the Associated Press.
NDTV: A six-year-old Dalit girl in Mathura is fighting for her life after she was burnt by an upper caste man on Tuesday evening. The provocation for this brutal attack was that the child was crossing an area dominated by upper caste villagers. The attacker, Sunny, ordered her to stay away from the area and later threw her into a pile of burning waste.
Press Trust of India: A dalit girl was allegedly thrown into a fire by an 18-year-old youth who objected to her passing through a road next to his house in a hamlet, about 40 kms from this temple town. The six-year-old girl was pushed into the hot ashes of a fire on Tuesday by the youth following an altercation as she passed through the road along with her mother in Tarauli Janubi area, police sources said.
Posted by Mike Carney at 09:42 AM/ET, April 30, 2008 in Asia
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/04/6-year-old-indi.html
amytan wrote: 7h 34m ago
Nothing will come of this. As with the case in Iraq of the father killing the daughter for her relationship with a Caucasian, a UK soldier. 'operations' has it right....while Americans get all worked up and go off on moral tangents, raging about who has the "bomb", and 'savages' that don't deserve the grace of our 'help' and assistance....we are unwilling to recognize and understand the customs and mores of other cultures...and those other cultures take our moralizing, good that it be, as an affront and Western hubris. Patriarchal societies have been practicing female infanticide for centuries...India today still has many cases of wife burning by husbands and families...mostly over dowry disputes, and while there have been domestic violence laws against women, only since 2006, police rarely act on violations against women, as in many countries. China's one child policy has actually encouraged female infanticide..since amniocentesis the rate of female fetus abortions has rocketed. Americans should understand that we do not have the right to tell the world how to live...for those that think we do, we should be telling the world to live in peace...and proceed to set the example.
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