Grammy winner Late Pandit Ravi Shankar’s daughter Anoushka Shankar, a celebrated Sitar player herself, has revealed that she was sexually abused as a child. The revelation comes just after Pandit Ravi Shankar died and has shocked the entertainment industry globally. Anoushka disclosed in mid February 2013 that she had been abused over several years by a trusted friend of the family. Anoushka made the disclosure in a video tribute to Jyoti Singh, the Indian student who died after gang-rape in December 2012. Anoushka has supported the ‘One Billion Rising’ campaign to highlight violence against women on Valentine's Day 2013. She does not believe she will ever recover from the abuse she had suffered.

She also says that growing up like other women she suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things that she didn’t know how to deal with. She admits to frequently living in fear, afraid to walk along at night, afraid to answer a man who asks for the time, afraid of being judged or treated in ways based on the way she might choose to dress or the make-up she might choose to wear, and.. enough is enough. She says she is ‘rising for women like Jyoti, for women like her, with the amazing women of India. Anoushka continued saying she is rising also for the child in her who will perhaps never fully recover from what happened to her. She supports the campaign that invited one billion women around the world to dance and protest against rape and violence against women on St Valentine's Day.