The family of a teenage Indian boy who groped a female American tourist at a New Delhi metro station is accusing the victim of “overreacting” to the incident, arguing that the teen merely got “carried away” during his first encounter with a blonde woman.
The American woman was reportedly visiting India to attend a friend’s wedding. She described her encounter at the train station as the “one unfortunate and ugly incident” that marred a “fun and memorable eight days in India.”
Her story was relayed through social media on Friday by Gaurav Sabnis, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology whose class the woman once attended. She contacted him because she recalled his warning, based on his youthful memories of growing up in India, that she would attract a great deal of unwanted attention based on her looks.
“I told her, be on guard for sexual harassment. Especially in Delhi. Here, you’re just another blond. There, you’ll be a target,” Sabnis recalled telling his student.
According to the woman, strangers began approaching her as soon as she landed in New Delhi, asking to take pictures with her. Recalling Sabnis’ advice, she said “no” to the many men who approached her, but agreed to take a few pictures with women and children.
“But then a teenage boy, maybe 14 or 15, at a Delhi Metro station just ruined it forever,” she said. “He was with his mom and sister, so I thought okay, why not.”
“He puts an arm on my shoulder,” she told Sabnis. “Weird, but okay, he’s a teenager. And then, professor, he just straight up grabbed my breasts hard, and spanked my butt, and giggled like he had played a joke.”
The woman said she “pretty much exploded in anger” and shoved the teen away, inadvertently knocking him off his feet. The teen’s mother accused her of “overreacting” and said she should have indulged her son because “he had never met a blond lady up close, so he got carried away.”
The woman said the incident was enough to sour her on the idea of returning to India, or even South Asia.
“I feel so sad for Indian women. This is their everyday life?” she remarked.
The Times of India (TOI) on Monday described the incident as something of a viral sensation, with social media users generally supporting the woman while chastising the grabby teenage boy and his “overprotective” mother.
“Whenever my daughter traveled in India, she was left deeply bewildered – why people spoke to her while staring at her chest instead of meeting her eyes, why they asked for selfies as if she were an object rather than a person, and why so many felt entitled to touch, feel, or grab her,” one social media commentator said.
“The saddest thing is, some women are the biggest enablers of their ‘raja betas’ behavior,” said another commentator quoted by India’s News18. “It’s a vicious cycle. Boy moms are of a ‘higher status,’ so she is socialized to defend this, rather than beat the s**t out of him as a lesson.”
“Raja Beta Syndrome” is essentially the Indian version of being a spoiled brat, a condition seen as imposed upon some young Indian men by mothers who insist on treating them like princes and pampering their every need. “Raja Beta” means “the king’s son” in Hindi.
Among other things, this approach tends to produce young men with very poor impulse control who view women as servants, the way their mothers have insisted on acting toward them. Raja Beta Syndrome has been invoked in court rulings against men accused of rape and other violence against women. In one recent and controversial case, a court acquitted a woman of helping her son cover up his rape and murder of a five-year-old girl, and commuted the man’s death sentence to life in prison.
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