Who’s to blame for Bangalore’s mass molestation ‘night of shame’?

Bangalore, an Indian city famed for soothing weather and affable people, faced an unfamiliar storm on New Year’s Eve, when a horde of drunken revellers descended on its business district and proceeded to molest dozens of young women.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that this cosmopolitan city’s “night of shame”, as local media have dubbed it, has elicited such a wide variety of responses and explanations. At first, said officials, it was a case of “such things happen”. Cue public anger. Then, claimed police, it was a case of “such a thing did NOT happen”. Cue more anger. Perhaps it was the fault of Western fashion influences? Cue derision. And the latest theory? It’s those migrants from north India.

While the explanations differ, most people have at least come to accept that, for close to an hour, chaos reigned as police struggled to control a crowd numbering tens of thousands in the area of Church Street, MG Road and Brigade Road – where there is a high concentration of pubs, bars and clubs – and that during that chaos numerous women were molested.

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“Screams for help started ringing in the air... people in dire straits were not able to reach the police as they were caught in a sea of revellers, many of whom were clearly drunk and out of control, and looking to misbehave,” recalled Anantha Subramanyam, a photographer for the Bangalore Mirror and one of many journalists to witness the attacks.

Photographs and video footage of unruly crowds far outnumbering the 1,500 police personnel trying to control them, and of numerous women being assaulted, soon circulated on social media.

Even so, the initial response of some Bangaloreans was denial.

On January 3, Dr G. Parameshwara, the Home Minister of Karnataka, the state in which Bangalore is situated, dismissively declared that “such things happen” and suggested the problem might be that young women were trying to “copy the Westerners, not only in their mindset, but even in their dressing”.

Two days later, another official view, this time from the Bangalore police, was rather that nothing had happened. Despite the mounting footage on social media, the police chief concluded there was “no evidence” anyone had been assaulted.