India has changed for women, but violence has now become the norm rather than an exception

Famous French critic and journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, which translates to: “The more things change, the more the status quo prevails.”In India, statistics demonstrate that inequality prevails everywhere, particularly in rural India. Change is most noticeable in urban areas. The 21st-century educated Indian woman in our highly urbanised city centers is very different from her sisters in the village, particularly in rural North India.Still, change has arrived in conservative bastions, change that has brought social upheaval, inter-caste feuding and economic upward mobility for some sections of the under privileged, including women.It has also brought an ugly phenomenon of violence against women, a violence that is cruel and questions the basic norms of our culture and civilisation.There was a sense that the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape would be a turning point. I was the Ambassador of India to the Netherlands when this terrible tragedy occurred. With the approval of the MEA and then-EAM Salman Khurshid, a Condolence Book was opened in the embassy so that the Dutch and embassy personnel, including me, could grieve together. I explained that this incident was an aberration in our society, not a norm. Initially sceptical, they finally concurred.When the decline began