Hisar: Away from the rule of law, away from thoughts of justice and fairness, away from a society of abundance, away from a society where relations between men and women are governed by a sense of equality and mutual regard is a world close by and yet far removed. It's a world that we don't want to think about and talk about, for these are thoughts so abhorrent that when they get into the mind, they don't want to get out easily. Yet, it is a reality that exists, is close by, and threatens to one day engulf us in its flames.
If you are reading this, you are primarily reading this online. You know English, you have access to a computing device and a broadband connection, and you are the privileged few percentage points of India who tend to be the ones most easily misled by thoughts of a surging nation, a resurgent great culture and an emerging super power. And yet most of India is far removed from these utopian fantasies.
But how long can one stay passive and composed? Here is a story of a 17-year-old girl from Ramnagar in Hisar. On March 25, as she cut wood outside her poor home, a youth she named Krishan came by, put his hands on her mouth, made her inhale something and took her away to a place nearby where three more were waiting. They forced her to drink some intoxicant which made her head ache. She also felt dizzy. While she was in the haze, the four raped her. When they were done, they showed her a knife and told her she would be killed if she said a word about what had happened. The girl remembered the names of two, but the faces of all four.
What thoughts might have raced through her mind as she stumbled back to her shanty through the dusty dry trails of Hisar. The thought of having been forced upon, perhaps the abuses and vulgar language that are commonplace in Haryana, the fear of being killed, the shame, the questions, and then anxiety over what she would tell her parents and what they and society would make of it. The powerlessness of her life, her poverty that made her a lesser citizen, the corruption and power nexus in the so called "justice" system that chooses who it wants to work for. For her those thoughts must have become her. They mattered the most to her, more than anything else, while the world went on. Oblivious. Distant.
She told her poor parents. Yes they are poor. And being poor in India makes you someone less. Yes, it does. Shocked, bewildered and confused they must have wondered what to do. Maybe someone advised them that if they don't take action their daughter would be forced upon again and again by the youth who would be emboldened by their silence.
Haryana today is full of desperate youth. The chickens are coming home to roost. A society that has been killing girls today is bereft of girls for many boys. Almost one third of Haryana's men will not find a woman to marry. There aren't any for them. The killings had begun a generation back and now the results are out. Angry at joblessness, frustrated at being landless, furious at not seeing a future and desperate for not finding a girl to be with, surging hormones are making these youth a dangerous force in Haryana. A force that rapes, kills, loots and participates in riots and protests without knowing what the issues really are. A force that goes unchecked by a lackadaisical police system. And what really can the police do when the problem is much bigger than a mere law and order issue?
A First Information Report was registered by the Hisar police under section 376 of the IPC for Rape and section 506 of the IPC for criminal intimidation. And that was it. The FIR was registered. Nothing happened after that. The culprits continued to put pressure on the girl and her family.
The "justice" system listens to the poor, but only when they make a lot of noise. They did, and the girl's statement was recorded in the presence of a magistrate where she again named two of the men who had raped her and said she could recognize the other two. Despite this, the police continued to harass the girl, calling her time and again to the SP's office, to police stations and having male police officers question her. The lawyer who took up her case says as per Supreme Court guidelines she should have been interacting only with women police officers and they should have gone to where she was staying, rather than summoning her. The guidelines say so, but reality did not say so. The girl was harassed. She was being victimized once again. This time, by the "justice" system.
One of the culprits was arrested soon after. However, the shoddy investigation did not reveal the names of the other three despite the girl naming one and saying she would recognize the others. As April passed by, the girl was getting frustrated and depressed at having to visit police stations and courts with her parents, to no avail.
We saw her saying so in one of the videos that came to us.
We knew it, but that did not lessen the jolt of the final video. On Wednesday the girl hanged herself. She is dead. Watching the video was unbearable. Her mother and relatives wailed and fell unconscious seeing her slumped on her knees in their poor home, a sheet of cloth pulling her neck up towards the ceiling. Where was the "justice" she waited more than two months for?
Anything can be said and anything is said. Trying to reduce the jolt in their minds or maybe being insensitive people would say, "maybe she had an affair with one of the boys, maybe she was easygoing, maybe she was not that innocent after all, maybe it was something else….."
Maybe. But, let's keep it simple.
Here was a girl who complained to the police. She said she was raped. She gave information. Did the system act? Did it care for her? Did it help her, counsel her, make her feel that the world's biggest democracy is there to comfort her?
No it did not. And in the end, the poor girl lived out her short life, died in her poor home, perhaps disappointed, humiliated, confused and directionless. But then, who cares? Get her out of the mind fast and move on. She is far from our reality. Another tragedy waits, somewhere.
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