“BOYS will make mistakes,” Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said of rape, on Thursday. ... Mr. Yadav believes new rape laws ... are being misused by women to punish their boyfriends. … [His] lieutenant, Abu Asim Azmi, meanwhile invoked Sharia law to call for the death penalty — but, for the victim.

…[T]hese kinds of attitudes aren’t exclusive to the Samajwadi Party. From the Rajasthan legislator who thinks rape happens because schoolgirls wear skirts to the Puducherry minister who wants them covered up in overcoats … there is no shortage of Indians willing to blame rape on anything and everyone other than the rapist. … The hideous truth is that in India … there is something that can only be described as a pro-rapist lobby that extends beyond political pulpits into streets and homes. — (April 12)