I was sexually abused as child, says Anoushka

AFP/New Delhi

The daughter of legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar said yesterday in a video released for a global women’s rights campaign that she had been sexually abused as a child by a family acquaintance.

Anoushka Shankar, herself a famed sitar player who used to play with her late father, said she had decided to go public in support of the One Billion Rising campaign against violence against women.

She dedicated her message to a physiotherapy student who was gang-raped in a bus by six drunken men on December 16 in New Delhi, and later died in a Singapore hospital from horrific injuries.

The crime sparked violent protests and a round of soul-searching in India about the treatment of women.

“As child, I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years in the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly,” Shankar said in the message posted on YouTube from her home in London.

“Growing up like most women I know I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things like I didn’t know how to deal with, I didn’t know I could change,” Shankar said.

“Enough is enough. I am rising. I am rising for (the Delhi gang-rape victim) and women like her. I am rising with the women of my country,” the US-born musician said.

Thousands of young people joined flash mobs across the country as part of the One Billion Rising global campaign coinciding with Saint Valentine’s Day.

Songs, dances, street plays and a variety of events were held at various locations in New Delhi and other cities to commemorate the day.

“At least 2,000 people joined a flash mob dance at Parliament Street in central New Delhi and danced to the song Jaago Dilli Jaago (wake up Delhi, wake up) composed specially for the event,” Padmini Krishnan, one of the organisers, said.