Big B Asks: If Goddesses Are Worshiped in India, How Can We Treat Girls So Badly?

In the week after the brutal December 16, 2012 gang rape of a young woman in Delhi, a crime that shook the nation and filled the streets with protesters, Amitabh Bachchan gave voice to the contradiction at the heart of India's anguish.

"If goddesses are worshiped in India," he asked, "how can we treat girls so badly?"

Why the question landed

India worships the feminine divine with unmatched fervor: Durga the warrior, Lakshmi the provider, Saraswati the learned. Navratri sets aside nine nights for the goddess. And yet the same society produces female foeticide, dowry deaths, child marriage, and the everyday harassment that Indian women navigate as a matter of routine.

Bachchan's question stripped the paradox to a single line. The goddess on the altar and the girl on the bus inhabit the same country but, apparently, not the same moral universe.

The context

The December 2012 Delhi case, in which a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang-raped on a moving bus and later died of her injuries, became the catalyst for the largest protests for women's safety in India's history. The outrage crossed every divide: students, professionals, housewives, and film stars marched and spoke out together.

Bachchan, the most revered voice in Indian cinema, joined the chorus demanding not just punishment but a reckoning. His framing mattered because it denied the country its favorite alibi: that reverence for women is already embedded in Indian culture. Reverence for goddesses, he implied, has become a substitute for respect for women.

The uncomfortable answer

The question answers itself, uncomfortably. Worship of the goddess is worship of the ideal, the powerful, the safely distant feminine. The girl on the street is real, and therefore controllable, punishable, disposable. Societies that put women on pedestals often do so precisely to keep them off the streets.

The protests of December 2012 forced legal change: the Criminal Law Amendment of 2013 expanded the definition of sexual assault and stiffened penalties. But Bachchan's question outlived the legislation, because laws change faster than cultures.

FAQ

What did Amitabh Bachchan say? He asked how India could worship goddesses while treating its girls and women so badly, speaking in the aftermath of the December 2012 Delhi gang rape.

When was the Delhi gang rape? December 16, 2012. The victim died of her injuries on December 29.

What changed afterward? Mass protests led to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013, with tougher penalties for sexual crimes.

Why does the goddess paradox persist? Critics argue goddess worship venerates an idealized feminine while real women face control and violence: reverence without respect.

The takeaway

Bachchan asked the question in a week of national grief. More than a decade later, it is still the right question, and India is still working on the answer.