Back home, needs psychiatric help for ‘ordeal’.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A young girl majoring in South Asian studies at the University of Chicago got more than she bargained for on a recent trip to India.
Michaela Cross went to the subcontinent as part of her school’s Study Abroad program, during which she traveled to Pune and Goa. Her trip was filled with wonderful sights, fantastic experiences, but also a large amount of unwanted sexual advances and harassment from local Indian men.
“This is the story you don’t want to hear when you ask me about India,” says Cross. “But this is the story you need [to hear].”
Cross posted her story onto CNN’s iReport, using the alias “RoseChasm.” (It should be noted that CNN content producers have included a note with the post saying that they have no way of definitively validating all the claims made by Cross.) Her account tells of men in India following her around, taking pictures of her, groping her in bazaars, and some even more disturbing acts of sexual aggression. The story has garnered international attention, with people in America, India, and other countries both expressing their sympathy and condemning her words against the country.
“India is a paradise, but for women India can be hell,” wrote commenter sanchit123. “The problem here [in India] is that men do respect women, but [men like this] are very few in number.”
Another commenter, cyberidian, says Cross is equally to blame for her treatment. “[A]s a South Asia Studies major, she should have been more aware of Indian culture. If you are aware that a country has issues with [the] treatment of women, I do not think it is reasonable to go there and not follow the cultural norms.”
Many comments condemn the actions of those who allegedly stalked and pursued Cross, but caution her against singling out India alone as a place where such things happen.
Cross’s story comes at a time in which India is attempting to implement societal reform in regards to the treatment of women. Last year, India received international scrutiny for the gang-rape and murder of a 23 year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi. Earlier this month, a seven year-old girl on a train was raped in a bathroom after being enticed away from her parents. In Lucknow, a group of girls, all of whom are survivors of some form of sexual assault, have come together to form the “Red Brigade,” which aims to bring sexual assaulters to light and subvert the typical situation in which the assault victim must live in silent shame while the perpetrator’s life remains unchanged.
Official figures from the Indian National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) put the number of rapes in major Indian cities at 3,025 in 2012, with one out of every five being in the city of New Delhi. The total number of rapes throughout India for all of 2011 was 24,206, a staggering rise from the 2,487 just 40 years earlier. Now, Michaela Cross is attempting to show that India’s problem with their treatment of women does not extend exclusively to those living in the country.
“For three months I lived this ways, in a traveler’s heaven [but] a woman’s hell,” she wrote. “I hoped the nightmare would end at the tarmac, but that was just the beginning.”
Cross goes on to describe how she was diagnosed with a personality disorder upon waking up one morning with suicidal thoughts. “I ended up in a psych[iatric] ward for two days [and] held against my will, and was released on the condition that I took a ‘mental leave of absence’ from school,” her iReport post says. She was later diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an affliction common for those who have been through rape, war, or other severely affecting ordeals.
The University of Chicago’s South Asia Studies program offers extensive study abroad programs in the country via assistance from the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). The students are housed in double-rooms in a “modest hotel,” get breakfast and some dinners, are housed in similar accommodations during excursions to other cities (like Goa) during the program. The program’s website currently lists 92 students as part of the program. The university itself is a privately-funded institution with an overall enrollment of nearly 15,000 students; it is considered one of the top universities in the country.
The South Asia Studies program issued a statement after Cross’s CNN post became a viral sensation, with nearly 900,000 views and over 1,200 comments.
University of Chicago’s Dipesh Chakrabarty, a Distinguished Chair in the school’s Departments of History and South Asian Languages & Civilizations, said that faculty and staff in both Chicago and India “counsel students before and during the trip about precautions they need to take in a place like India,” and that “ensuring student safety and well-being is [our] top priority.”
Chakrabarty, who also joined the students on the trip for its first three weeks, added that “This is the first time I personally have come across such a serious problem.”
TO contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com