Don't regard India as optional: Engage and debate, rather than remain socialmedia warriors or opt out of India altogether
rape and murder of a young doctor at a medical college in Kolkata is that India is unsafe for Indians. And a rattled and well-heeled middle-class once again is mulling the supposedly easy way out: let's send our children abroad to study, so that they can live in a safer country and prosper. This points to a basic weakness of both social media and the chatterati-knee-jerk reactions.
It is true that the much-tomtommed assertion that Kolkata and West Bengal are «safe» for women has been conclusively disproved by the countless stories finally coming out about unreported crimes, triggered by the RG Kar incident. Though Bengal had been comforted by data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (provided by the state police) showing that Kolkata is the safest city, clearly rapes and murders occur there as much as anywhere else in India.
But is the alternative to abandon India? And go where? To the US, where this year has already seen the deaths of more than a dozen Indian students? Where there have already been nearly 300 mass shootings in 2024? Where immigration and 'migrants' are a sore issue?
Britain and Europe are no better, as they have been doubling down on students from India and other countries, mistakenly considering them to be swamping their land. Recent riots there targeting non-whites should also make Indian parents hesitate to send their children to universities where they may become easy targets.
But millions cannot think of leaving India. They dream of their children getting a good education at the
