A week after Fiona MacKeown (Photo: left) flew back from India with the body of her daughter Scarlett Keeling, life on her small-holding in north Devon is regaining a semblance of normality.

Children, dogs and hens are running around between half a dozen caravans, a barn and the two-storey dwelling where I find Fiona sitting, tattooed and defiant, like a New Age frontierswoman.

The expression on her fine-boned, weather-beaten face is wary but welcoming. Since Scarlett's body was found on Anjuna beach in Goa, early on the morning of February 18, she has had reason to be both cautious of, and grateful for, the interest stirred up by her battle for justice.

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Previously in AW:

• Travel advisory
• A Brazilian in Goa
• Fiona MacKeown: naive, not negligent
• Creaky paradise
• What her mother had to see
• Another family’s search for truth
• Who killed Scarlett Keeling?

Is the average reader meant to accept these simple papering-over-chasm explanations?

Perhaps this might be the opportunity to clean-up the litter. But then with drugs, rape, murder together with words like Mafia and Police corruption in the forefront of everyones mind what exactly is a place like GOA meant to do.

Background reading

Ian Jackson of the Guardian has a good article tracing a brief history titled ":

[G]oa was merely the oldest, a small enclave in India taken from its Muslim rulers by the Portuguese in 1510. The conquerors' religious zeal and skin-blind sexual desire meant many Goans were Catholic and of mixed race, but this hardly recommended them to either the rulers or the ruled in British India. All the qualities that were later distorted and exaggerated to make Goa "the world's number one party destination"

Will Goa be tarnished? Hardly!

They arrive in Goa like white chicken and leave golden-brown. They pass a lovely week eating, drinking and sunbathing, and all for less than five pounds a day. Goa may be one of the most expensive spots in India, but for the foreign tourist it is still luxury on the cheap.

Time of India

2 Million tourist per annum visit Goa

Goa is a low cost holiday destination for the average Brit but particularly attractive to the new age traveller, than any of the coastal resorts of Greece or Spain.

It is immediately obvious why Fiona Mackeown would feel at home, as a "pursuer of the self-sufficiency lifestyle" or The Good Life, as it has come to be called after the television series in the late 70's.

New Dawn?

This may be the huge and rather stiff door of post colonialism slowly, reluctantly, creaking open and for a ray of light to enter.

A young 15 year old girl was drugged, raped and left to die on a beach in Goa. I saw an episode of "We the People" on NDTV recently, and the attitude of the people and the media in general really shocked and disgusted me.

The show had a mix of Indians, tourists (from the UK mostly) and Goans to give the show a wide perspective. But what I saw from Indians and Goans was totally cheap and underhanded tactics to evade the controversy. It seems like the media and in general - the Indian public have become more or less defensive of this issue rather than face the situation. Goans especially seemed to take it a little too personally and most of them were singing songs praising Goa. I mean sure Goa is a great place and all - it doesn't change the fact that an under-aged girl got killed there. So stop making excuses for yourself and take some responsibility. Find the a******s who did this and hang them. (I also personally feel that the punishment for rape should be capital punishment) A certain Mr. Sequiera who was a part of the show was mindlessly defending the police (and Goa) - wish I could post his comments, but his arguments were not worth remembering. I don't think anybody or anything can defend this terrible incident.

Well its great to see Indians all uniting for a common cause - but here - it was all about ganging up on a mother who lost her child. Most Indians on this show were all about victimizing Fiona MacKeown and brutally criticizing her parenting skills. It was disturbing to see that it was mostly women who were rebuking Fiona and blaming her for her daughter's death. One would have thought that women would have empathized with another woman who lost her child...... Nevertheless, instead of addressing the real issue at hand, which is the terrible crime committed by Indian men - they were focusing on Fiona, highlighting her parenting skills (which I will agree were at best - mediocre) and holding her responsible for her daughter's death.

I have to give it to the Indian media for being so thorough and meticulous in their homework. Lets see some of the aspects of this case that news channels and news papers were talking about -

1. Fiona is a bad irresponsible mother - (Okay I agree that's true - but is it so important that the real culprits seem to be completely sidelined???)

2. Fiona stabbed a sex pest trying to get fresh with a friend - (actually I applaud her for that)

3. Her home in Devon is crap - (This is important to the case because???)

4. She takes drugs - (well she didn't rape her daughter did she???)

5. Scarlett was sexually active as a minor - (Wake up people - a lot of Indian minors are too - I don't think it justifies rape and murder)

6. Well it happens in UK as well - (Oh yes - why don't we all start hacking people with machetes - happened in Rwanda)

And then we have totally incompetent ministers like Ravi Naik - who is unfortunately the Home minister for Goa. The government of Goa not only tried to cover up the tragedy but is also trying to ban Fiona to re enter India. These politicians are using these aggressive tactics only because they realize that their dirty laundry is being aired in public. What do they have to hide? What are they afraid of? Its quite pathetic that we did not have a single leader who could stand up and face the truth - A 15 year old was raped and murdered - IN GOA!!!! It is about time that we face the problems of drug/substance abuse in Goa - but oh wait - that is never going to happen because our respectable political leaders are already knee deep in this business.

Check the link out below for more information.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Goa_doesnt_want_Fiona_to_come_back/articleshow/2875465.cms

Yes I agree that Fiona was a terrible and completely irresponsible mother. She was stupid to leave her daughter with a stranger. But why are we Indians focusing on that?? Are we so ashamed that we cannot face and accept that this crime occurred in OUR LAND? Do we not have the guts to feel sorry that this happened in our country? Do we not have the competence to find and punish the perpetrators of this heinous crime? Why in the world are we focusing on all aspects except for the murder? Why cant we all raise our voices against the men who committed this murder?

India has always been welcoming to foreigners. I also know that most Indians have honour and integrity and would be ashamed as this event has scarred our accepting and hospitable image. However, to see this cowardice and general lack of outraged shown by Indians has saddened me. I would like to see Indians show a little more responsibility - this is our country and it is our job to make it safe and attractive for tourists. We need to set our own standards and not look to other countries as a benchmark. Many Indians live safely and comfortably in the UK, US and Gulf - its about time that we learn the hospitality we so proudly preach.

Fiona MacKeown was by no means the first parent of a large family to travel from a rambling home in rural western England, in the middle of a damp winter, and see what Goa had to offer by way of diversion. Evelyn Waugh had six children (a seventh died in infancy); Fiona MacKeown had nine (eight since February 15, when her 15-year-old daughter Scarlett Keeling was found dead on the beach at Anjuna). Waugh travelled from Piers Court, a Georgian mansion in Gloucestershire. MacKeown came from a huddle of caravans near Bideford, Devon, a home summarised as "a mountain of old tyres ... empty beer bottles ... and rubbish" by Wednesday's Daily Mail. But the bigger difference is that Waugh left his children behind.

He came to Goa in December 1952. "The scenery [is] delicious ... the people soft and friendly," he wrote to his wife.

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The life and death of Scarlette Keeling has left in its wake a media feeding frenzy. To be sure, the rape and murder of the British teenager goes beyond your average “sansani” (sensational) crime story: There’s the sun and sand of “idyllic” Goa, a heady concoction of drugs and alcohol, a botched police cover-up, accusations of a powerful drug cartel with political links and, finally, the apparently freewheeling lifestyle of Scarlette’s mother Fiona MacKeown.

I have nothing but contempt for stories that focus on Fiona’s past escapades, lifestyle and lovers. I unequivocally agree with Brinda Karat who said in Parliament last week that you cannot victimize the victim.

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It is hard to classify MacKeown. Her children's names - including Merlin, Kisangel, Isis Celeste and Trinity Willow - suggest mellow hippiedom. But she defines herself as a gypsy; when she sought planning permission to put caravans on her land she was backed by the Romany council. She is unconventional but when she says she was naive rather than negligent, I believe her. Those who have seen her with her children were struck by how bright, well mannered and affectionate they are.

With her brood of children, MacKeown would receive about £25,000 a year in benefits. In order to pay for the Goan holiday she told me she had saved £200 a week for months by living frugally - buying only rice to supplement the family's home-grown vegetables and buying clothes for the children only from charity shops. Eventually they had about £7,000 for the trip, topped up by selling a pony for £1,000. It was a tiny budget for a six-month holiday once the flights for nine had been paid for.

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Since Madeleine went missing my eyes have been opened like never before as regards the media and its subtle and not so subtle messages: I watched a BBC Crimewatch special yesterday evening about Levi Bellfield the so called 'Bus stop killer'

It was obvious from the report that Bellfield hated women, particularly blonde women and when they spurned his advances he killed them. Poor Kate Sheedy described how after getting off a bus she saw his people carrier sitting with its lights off but its engine running, so she crossed the road to avoid it. She described in graphic detail how he then revved the engine, took off at speed and hit her head on, deliberately running her over. She told us that she heard her bones cracking as he did so and as she struggled for breath, he reversed the vehicle and drove over her poor broken body again, leaving her for dead.

It takes a certain type of hatred and venom to attack a young innocent woman for no reason. That he singled out and hated blondes is peculiar to him...or is it?: I've commented on the current theme in the media of insisting that Shannon Matthews is being treated differently to Madeleine because of 'class'. Many journalists have wrung their hands and berated the public for not caring about Shannon because she is poor, and blaming you and I for the lack of ink she merits in the papers. These journalists are, ironically, writing about not writing about Shannon....rather than writing about her..

But alongside the 'class' argument, has come the subtle blonde/attractive vs brunette/plain debate. We are told that as Kate Mccann and Madeleine are blonde and attractive, the public care more about them than Shannon and her mother as they have been deemed by the media as not blonde and not attractive. I personally find it abhorrent that any child, let alone a missing one, should have their attractiveness rated like some dog at Crufts. I also wince at the rating of their mothers who are currently living in a state of purgatory. The idea that the public pick and choose a missing mother to support based on some Miss World type attractiveness is an idea that exists solely in the head of some journalist who has either lost touch with reality, or is showing their own unpleasant prejudices. The idea that there is a Kate vs Karen; Madeleine vs Shannon; blonde vs brunette; either/or... is not reality for most normal, caring, empathic people and we need to question why this media feel it is.

Kate Mccann has perhaps attracted more comment, both in the media and on the internet, about her looks than any other mother of a missing child. And for me, psychopath  Levi Bellfield holds part of the key as to why she has been torn apart and vilified because she happens to have blonde hair: The image of blondes in the media is a strange one, they are either portrayed as dumb or as sex sirens. Film, television and advertising use young, blonde attractive women as a guaranteed magnet for attracting their target audiences. They are given to us as the 'ideal', the standard by which all women are judged. For many women that causes unconscious feelings of inadequacy and manifests in envy and hatred.

For men like Bellfield, attractive young blondes represent both the ideal and the unobtainable -The adverts, films and pornography magazines make her look like she wants you, that she is there just for you, that if you met her in real life she would naturally be attracted to you - that's the magic of the media. In reality though, she wouldn't even notice you and if she did she would cross the road to avoid you. The mammoth disparity between the fantasy portrayed as reality in the media and the true stark, reality of real life, causes such a shock to the ego that homicidal rage is sometimes inevitable.

We all, it seems hate/envy/mistrust blonde women to one degree or another. That Kate is blonde, 'attractive' and not dumb has added to the vitriol, as has the fact that she is not poor. She seems to have everything we crave and we can find no vulnerability in her to make us like her rather than envy her....But how on earth can you envy a woman whose child is missing? How can you not empathise with a fellow human being whose daughter is lost? How can you be so blinkered as to let her hair colour and facial features erase the reality that her child is missing? Many journalists have managed to do just that, attacking Kate and her looks and in doing so have allowed an outlet for the irrational prejudices of so many. The hair colour of a missing child's mother should have no place in serious journalism.

But the thinly disguised hate seems to go deeper than just blonde women, it seems to have spread to all women: The latest media target is Fiona Mackeown, mother of Scarlett Keeling who was raped and murdered in Goa. Fiona, another blonde, strong intelligent woman who has forced the authorities in Goa to admit that her daughter's murder was covered up by local police. The authorities then rewarded her determination by threatening to charge her with negligence and were aided and abetted in attacking her by certain journalists in this country. Thankfully one journalist bucking the trend of attacking women whose daughters are missing or dead is Alex Crawford of Sky News. Her article here is well worth a read, Alex writes;

Yes, Fiona MacKeown may have had nine children in Britain, where that is viewed as wanton irresponsibility by some. Yes, they may have different fathers, at least four. Yes, she lives with her large family in a group of caravans on a nine-acre site in Devon. Yes, she has tattoos and a lip ring.

But where does that translate into bad, uncaring mother? Perhaps in bourgeois Clapham or in the Home Counties where most of the tabloid female writers are penning their scathing commentaries? And yes, they are mostly female, I am ashamed to say.

Having read many similar scathing commentaries on the forums about Kate Mccann these last 10 months or so, it would seem that the worst misogynists seem to be women, an idea that has left me deeply depressed. And once again we have the familiar sick theme of measuring a person's grief by their public tears, as Alex reports,

Unlike the tabloid newspaper writer who seemed to suggest Ms MacKeown's lack of tears made her want to 'scream at the TV', we have watched while she bent over double with grief, her body heaving with sobs as she showed us pictures of her daughter's battered body.

I honestly think Levi Bellfield, who may have murdered many more women and girls, has fared better at the hands of the press than, Kate Mccann, Karen Matthews and Fiona Mackeown....now how can that be right?

 We have to rape. Rape because the other is wearing a revealing costume. The other is drunk. The other is flirting. The other gave a come on signal and then backed out. The other was teasing. The other was winking. The other was showing a bit of leg. A bit of breast. A bit of shoulder. The other was arrogant. The other is a foreigner. The other is white. The other is black. The other is rich. The other is poor. The other speaks a different language. The other is a woman. The other is a boy. The other is a girl. The other is weak. The other deserved it. The other is an other. The other is not from my country. The other is not from my state. The other is not from my family. The other is not my brother. The other is not my sister. The other is a nobody.

 They will slap a case on Fiona also. How can you give your child independence? Didn't you know that Goa has an underground drug culture. Don't you also know that we are all in cahoots with the mafia. They can rape and kill people because they pay 'protection money' that helps us finance our election expenses. They pay us every day, every week, every month, every week. You will pay us indirectly, probably once in a lifetime. You are useless to us, but these criminals are always so...

 Why can't they treat it as pure and simple crime? Catch the criminal(s) and then we can play the moral game. What does Mr. Digamabar Kamat think? That Fiona is not drowning in guilt – having left Scarlette in the custody of people she believed were friends and would look after her?

 What is Mr. Kamat saying – DON’T TRUST GOANS? We are not the feni-drinking-chilled-out-tolerant-Indians that you think we are. The victim is, by the concerted effort of police, politicians, administration and other officials, being turned into a monster mother who cared not for the daughter. THEREFORE she deserved whatever happened.

 Mr. Kamat – do you have a daughter or a son. A son or daughter, who likes a beer one hot day and is crossing the road and another drunk, riding a car, runs him over. He or she might meet destiny one day and people will hang you.

 Scarlette, people and police are saying, took drugs. That DOES NOT justify the act of her rape and murder? We are all humans, prone to mistakes and sins. Fiona will introspect and undertake penance.

 It is none of our business. It is between Fiona and her soul. As a civil society, we should catch the perpetrator(s) of this crime. They too shall, hopefully, undertake penance, suffer, and see the love, grace and benediction that saves us all. Let us not be partial. Let us not be blind to the crime that has been committed. We all know the story of the cross.

 No Victim. No Crime.

The above photograph is an image of the beach that was on my doorstep when I lived in Pattaya, Thailand. It is almost the same spot where two Russian women were found slumped in deckchairs, dead from gunshot wounds, last February.

The women were apparently watching the sunrise when they were murdered. Their mobile phones sat on a table along with a near empty bottle of Thai whiskey. I was shocked and more than a little scared that two women tourists had been executed on a beach so close to my home.

I scoured the local papers and the internet for news to see if I could find any assurance that western women were not at risk of being shot at random. Within hours the local police informed us all that a gang of farrangs (foreign) living in the areas were probably responsible....in other words not a Thai national. They said CCTV showed a very tall man escaping on a motorbike and that he was so tall that he could not possibly be a local Thai...  They then stated that the two Russian women were probably involved in prostitution....In other words they blamed the women for their own murder and foreigners for aiding and abetting the women in their own murder.

Stating that the women were prostitutes was the undoing of the local police: Russians were, at that time, the main source of tourism and revenue for Pattaya and Thailand. The Russian embassy, horrified at two innocent tourists being labeled prostitutes, made vociferous protests to the Thai government, and suddenly the police were back tracking like crazy.

Within a day or so of the Russian embassy's protest and a threat to advise Russian tourists against travel to Pattaya, the police did an about face....suddenly the tall, white man on the motorbike became a short local Thai man, and was found within hours. Many of us believed that the police had simply picked a local criminal and pinned the blame on him, but it meant the Russian embassy backed off and the media calmed down in their condemnation of the police actions.

The media then set about a campaign of blaming western women for any attacks on them. For parading around beaches in bikinis and around the town in short skirts. Where were our morals? Where was our sensitivity to local people? 'You deserve what you get' was the message, don't blame our people for assaults and robberies against you.

Fast forward a year, to Goa. A place that by the sound of things suffers from many of the same problems as Pattaya; an influx of tourists and the money they bring attracting western and local parasitic criminals who make a living from drugs, prostitution and other criminal activities. Local underpaid police are persuaded by a cut of the profits to become deaf, dumb and blind.

Teenager Scarlett Keeling was found dead on a beach in Goa a month ago. The local police declared that she had drowned after taking drugs and that there wasn't a mark on her body - in other words she was responsible for her own death. Anything other than accidental death or suicide would mean a local had killed her, and they couldn't have that, not with all those tourist dollars at stake.

Scarlett's mother rejected the claim and pushed vigourously for a second postmortem. This proved that Scarlett had in fact been raped and murdered and hadn't drowned at all. Her body far from not having having a mark on her was, in fact, covered in cuts and bruises. The revelation of police covering up a murder sent shock-waves around the world. Goa's Tourism Minister Francisco X Pacheco was embarrassingly forced to  state that,

 "This is a clear case of murder and it has gone out of proportion because police tried to cover it up."

Faced with the double blow of a murder of a young girl and a police cover up, and with the sound of future tourist dollars falling noisily down the drain ringing in their ears, the Goa authorities have gone one better than the Thais:

Despite having Scarlett's passport the authorities are doing tests on her bones to check her age...These are the same people that determined she had drowned. They somehow want to change reality in some sci-fi sort of way to make Scarlett old enough for consensual sex, so that she again takes the blame for her own death....not the man (possible patsy) who they instantly arrested after being caught out in their cover up.

Why stop at 'discovering' her real age to be 18? Why not go that extra mile and 'find' her to be not female?...Or not human? Declare that as you have discovered Scarlett to be aged 54, and from the planet Saturn, that no local man can be held accountable for her death.

But there's more...The Goa authorities have read the global handbook for local police  ' How To Blame The Victim And Keep Those Tourist Dollars Coming In' and have reached Chapter 14; The Madeleine Maneuver:  When the police declared Scarlett's death a self inflicted accident, there were no calls for her mother to be charged with negligence. Only now, after Fiona Mackeown has took on a corrupt system and police force and won a victory of sorts,  have the police  decided to try the Madeleine manoeuver - blame and attack the mother. The hope being that by charging or threatening to charge her with negligence, that people/future tourists will instantly and magically forget that a teenager was raped and murdered.  All they will remember is a bad, evil, strange mother and the planes will fill with amnesiac tourists with all their lovely money.

It's a manever that the Portuguese police have pulled off expertly with missing Madeleine's mother. It worked so well that a large section believe that Madeleine wasn't abducted at all, but was killed by her mother. A smaller section believe that Madeleine was never in Praia da Luz, but was photo-shopped into the photographs we saw. It seems the Goa authority's are impressed with how the PJ achieved such results and have embraced the tactic with enthusiasm...

How long before we see a worldwide law where all victims of all crimes will be charged with negligence I wonder?

The man suspected of raping Scarlett Keeling, a 15-year-old British teenager found dead on Goa's Anjuna beach on February 18, appeared in the local Goa court wearing a police hood. But Scarlett's mother says she is not at all convinced that Samson D'Souza, the 26-year-old barman who worked at Lui's Bar and was seen with Scarlett on the day she died, is the right man. She wants the country's premier investigating agency to take over the case.

Read that story here.

The case has rocked Indian and British media, following allegations of a police cover-up by Scarlett's mother, Fiona MacKeown who refused to accept an initial post-mortem report that concluded that her daughter had drowned. Fiona has maintained all along that her daughter had been raped and murdered, pointing to the bruises and cuts on her body.

A second post mortem was ordered and found that Scarlett had indeed died of drowning. Significantly, it didn't rule out homicide.

Meanwhile, media attention has also focused on Fiona MacKeown who left her 15-year-old daughter behind with the family of the local tour guide she had befriended. Fiona, her boyfriend and six other children headed off to a beach in the neighbouring state of Karnataka, leaving Scarlett behind in Goa. In the Daily Mail, Tom Rawstorne reports that Fiona is clear that she is not to blame

It was meant to be great family adventure - then 15-year-old Scarlett MacKeown was left alone by her mother in Goa. Days later she was dead. Murder... or a drunken accident? Here, her mother insists SHE wasn't at fault.

As she tearfully retraced her teenage daughter's last steps, Fiona MacKeown's eye was caught by an object lying on the edge of the dusty track. It was a leather sandal — nothing special — but its discovery started a chain of events that has sent shockwaves through a part of the world still regarded by some as a corner of paradise.

Fiona knew at once that the shoe belonged to her daughter, 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, whose body had been found on a nearby beach three days earlier.

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And is time running out for 'tourist paradise' Goa? Andrew Buncombe in The Morung Express reports from Anjuna

From his vantage point on a cushion in Anjuna's German Bakery and Café, Thomas Keller smiled nostalgically as he recalled first coming to Goa more than three decades ago. "It was 1974," said the wiry 53-year-old from Denmark. "[Then] it was serious hard-core hippies. Now everybody can come and go." And that may be the problem for Goa. When people like Mr Keller first arrived, they came overland, down the hippy trail that wound from Turkey through Iran and Afghanistan to this tiny former Portuguese enclave on India's western coast. They were few enough in number to blend in among the coastal villages, and if they were in a blissed-out haze on marijuana or hash a lot of the time, nobody minded too much.

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Finally, local Goa newspaper Navhind Times pays tribute to Fiona MacKeown in an editorial:

Goa police have started investigations along a new line into the death of the 15-year-old British girl Scarlett Keeling, but the loss that the state government and police - and collectively all of us Goans - have suffered during the three weeks in terms of image cannot be made up, no matter what we do. The adverse publicity we have got has not only damaged tourism but also our reputation as a state that can take up a case in the right earnest - without hiding or suppressing or manipulating facts - and go straight after the accused. How great a gratitude we owe to the mother of Scarlett, Fiona Mackeown! It was her tireless and determined fight for bringing the guilty to book that rocked the international and Indian media and forced the state government to take immediate steps to ensure fair play and justice to the deceased girl and her family.

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We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. 

In my customarily prolonged hypnopompic condition on Saturday morning, I became aware that there was a government 'initiative' about knickers: One needs to keep them on – preferably at all times. (And this is of course, is in stark contrast to the Policemen of the World - their governors have serious trouble keeping the mouse in the house as it were) 

In India, losing one’s knickers is akin to losing face in society. Plus, it’d be bloody inconvenient, given our weather and all. Knickers are such a wonder of science – they stay on no matter what.

The elasticity of the band valiantly defies gravity thus ensuring round the clock shelter for the family jewels. And of course, a secure band doubles as the chastity belt that mummy instated when she knew it was time. Available in an assortment of sizes, textures, styles and colors – there’s something for everybody.

The magnificent cotton knit variety competes on its own steam with the seductively noticeable Lycra breed. Ubiquitous thongs worn by loose character hoes compete for shelf space with family approved granny pants. Bikini briefs, those naughty party favorites, often make their bashful debut on clothes-lines dotting every society of every city of every state.  

Youngistani’s have arrived. 

Since last month, I’ve been reading plenty about such a pair of knickers in the newspapers.

Apparently, they belonged to Scarlett Keeling - a 15 year old kid from Britain. Not only did she do a number on the Indian authorities by losing her knickers, the ungrateful tosser ended up dying to complicate matters even further! 

Scarlett is one of the many children Fiona Mackeown sired. The evergreen flower-child of the 60’s, Fiona was on holiday with her brood of nine and set shop in Goa – the Miami equivalent of Sunkist beaches this side of Suez. 

This Sharon and Tracy duo partied hard and lived up to their wild reputations as foreigner women of ill-repute. They drank, smoked, doped and barfed – all of which are usually a man’s prerogative in these parts. Of course, the male bastion doesn’t take too kindly to see their ranks filling with the likes of liberated, Ghettofabulous party people looking to get on the no-strings-attached-gravy-train. 

Then Fiona made the grave mistake of leaving Scarlett in the care of someone (who she naievely trusted) in Goa while she scooted off to Karnataka for a few days. The result of this bad parenting incident was that a gentleman owner of a shanty-restaurant was compelled to rape and murder the young girl with probable help from others who may have joined him in their sordid revelry. 

If any of the above makes you recoil with irrepressible rage, you will be forgiven. 

Scarlett Keeling’s murder isn’t just a matter of confabulation. The young girl was obviously way ahead of her alleged counterpart in India in terms of conduct and deportment. 

Much has been written about Fiona’s unconventional style of nurture. Having sired nine children with 5 men, none of whom want to take up the responsibility of parenting, Fiona has played the role of a single parent with a considerable amount of complexity. The family lives on a squalid piece of land, south of Devon in a dilapidated formation of trailers. The family survived on benefits handed out by the state and to make ends meet, Fiona home-schooled all her children. 

Her own unconventional-hippy-style brought-up set the pace for what kind of relationships she would forge with her own brood. Fiona was aware of Scarlett’s relationship with a local boy when it was disclosed that she had been to visit the family planning commission. She also knew of Scarlett’s random habit of cannabis – nothing that a regular 15 year old kid wouldn’t indulge in.

While she didn’t condone either, she was vehement in giving her children the space they needed to find their own footing.

For most Indians, 15 year old children represent strife and hope – an age when they’re evidently banging down the doors of various didactic institutes in their bid to transmute into robots of computing, medicine or engineering. At 15, they’re considered to be at the epitome of their academic form and are grilled into conforming to a life of interminable examinations, instructions and appropriate etiquette to add to the wholesomeness of character. 

It should then surprise citizens of the world to read about accusations being hurled at Fiona by the imminent of the judiciary and the Indian Parliament. 

In what will be considered by most as an outrageous development in a country that is considered by many as an emerging super-power, Scarlett was proclaimed dead as a result of drowning in one of the many beaches coating the state. And the blame was conveniently sifted onto the weary shoulders of the bewildered and fatigued mother of nine. 

What the report of her first autopsy forgot to mention were the ubiquitous marks of struggle covering most of her body and the fact that she was in fact, raped and subsequently murdered. None of this would’ve come to light had Fiona not badgered the Indian authorities for a second autopsy (Scarlett's body was riddled with a lethal cocktail of drugs; coccaine, ecstacy, crystal meth, cannabis, bacardi breezer, beer and tequila shots; there were bruises all over her body and evidence of rape) . 

Although there’s some speculation as to the identity of the culprits, new evidence in the form of another Brit national who was present at the scene of the crime, now sheds innovative light on what is clearly a bungled attempt on part of the establishment to suppress the voice of justice. 

I hang my head in shame when I read of the state government’s endeavor to cancel Fiona’s visa in an attempt to proscribe her entry into the country. Their attempt at branding her a careless mother while still threatening her with calamitous circumstances should she continue her tirade against them smacks of fascism and does little for the government’s credibility. 

It’s an ignominy to note that in a nation that is considered by many as the cradle of democracy, women, regardless of their nationality, are treated with appalling indignity and subjected to humiliations never mind their standing or vocation. It can’t be easy for a foreigner to be subjected to such mortification by the very people who are considered the keepers of justice.

Whatever be her style of parenting, Scarlett has as much right to a fair investigation as any other in this country. The fact that she was intoxicated and doped up seems like ludicrous justification for what followed.

This isn’t the first time that a 15 year old girl has been reported as being a statistic of substance abuse. The cultural differences between the United Kingdom and India are vast especially when it comes to the younger demography. Children overseas mature faster – in every sense of the word. They’re expected to support themselves by the time they commence their teenage years and are treated as young adolescents capable of knowing right from wrong and responsible for the choices they make. 

The omnipresent availability of drugs and other chemicals contributing to substance abuse in Goa is just one of its many lures for the tourism industry. The easy availability of narcotics coupled with a robust network of human trafficking involving either gender regardless of demography have ensured lawlessness of a status not enjoyed elsewhere in the country. 

It then seems preposterous for the state officials to focus their attention and channel their vigor towards illuminating the alleged travesty of parenthood as supposedly exhibited by Fiona. 

The lack of empathy and the inherent duplicitous nature of the Indian government and those that abuse it successfully color me a shade of scarlet. It reminds me of the hopelessness of this predicament and many others like it in the past. 

A spate of assaults on women of foreign nationality in virtually every part of the country is an indication of the ever growing gender-insensitivity that women in the country have been berating about since time immemorial. Not only are these travelers vulnerable to the cultural nuances of a foreign land, they’re often mistaken as being game for any extracurricular activity the average Indian Joe would undeniably want to indulge in and are often, rendered defenseless. 

The lack of infrastructure can sometimes be made up for by the zeal of the host nation to secure the lives of those visiting it. The naivety of the foreigner has been taken advantage of several times in the past. This cannot be an isolated instance of rape; but most cases would normally go unreported due to the powerful nexus that exists between the perpetrators and those who uphold the law. 

Being the party capital of the nation doesn’t help. In the face of random sex, drugs and rock and roll, instances of rape and murder don’t quite illicit the same response as if it had occurred in another city – people are inured to such isolated cases and in more instances than one, feel that the victim was asking for trouble, provocative dressing forming a largish part of this deranged argument. 

But none of the above exonerates the Indian police from doing what they should’ve in the first place. When the chief minister of the state embodies a cavalier attitude and mentions callously that the mother is responsible for what’s happening because of bad parenting, it’s time to re-think your travel plans to what truly is the sin city of this country.

I shan’t be surprised if this unpleasant incident strains relations between an already émigré sensitive Britain and the tiresomely roguish state of India. 

You know what they say: As you sow, so shall you reap...