New Delhi : Addressing a citizen’s meet in Silchar, RSS supremo Mohanrao Bhagwat stirred a hornet’s nest with his comments where he blamed western values for increasing rapes in urban India. Bhagwat claimed that violence against women, in the way of rapes and gangrapes, is a phenomenon restricted to urban India and went on to say that such ‘things’ do not happen in rural India, where traditional values hold sway.

Displaying a bizarre ignorance of rural India, Bhagwat said “Such crimes hardly take place in ‘Bharat’, but they occur frequently in ‘India’.” Fact is, police records and women’s rights groups have enough statistics to suggest that rapes in rural areas largely go unreported.

Lacking any evidence to back his claim or perspective, Bhagwat was quoted as saying, “You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes. They are prevalent in some urban belts. Besides new legislation, Indian ethos and attitude towards women should be revisited in the context of ancient Indian values.”

Talking in the context of the recent Delhi gangrape, where the victim died due to the brutal assault, Bhagwat said the RSS was in support of new legislation on sex crimes and would favour capital punishment for those convicted of rape.

Bhagwat’s comments follow a slew of other insensitive, prejudiced and some downright sexist and patriarchal statements by leaders from various political outfits.