Bharat, the ancient Hindi word for this
land, is traditional India. Part myth,
part place, it exists in the spirit of the
fields and villages of rural India.
It is, Mahatma Gandhi once said,
where the soul of the nation resides.
India is the modern, Western-
influenced, nation state. It lives in the
bright lights of the developing cities,
underwritten in the "emerging
superpower" appellation the country
aspires to.
Advertisement
The conflict between these two places
which have co-existed uneasily for
decades has been thrown into stark
relief by the recent Delhi gang-rape
case, and the introspection forced
upon India in the outrage that has
followed it.
"Crimes against women happening in
urban India are shameful. It is a
dangerous trend. But such crimes
won't happen in Bharat or the rural
areas of the country. You go to villages
and forests of the country and there
will be no such incidents of gang rape
or sex crimes. Where Bharat becomes
India with the influence of Western
culture, these type of incidents
happen." So said Mohan Bhagwat,
head of the Hindu nationalist
organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh.
This is, for a start, entirely untrue.
Rapes and sexual assaults do occur in
rural India. They are, in fact, the
majority of them.
Court data show 75 per cent of India's
rape convictions were for a crime
committed in a rural area, a figure that
broadly reflects India's urban-rural
divide. (The statistics were collated by
Mrinal Satish, associate professor of
law at Delhi's National Law University;
India's National Crime Records
Bureau does not break down offences
by place size).
This state, Madhya Pradesh, is
overwhelmingly rural, nearly three-
quarters of its population lives outside
a city. But every year for two decades
it has led the country for the highest
number of rapes. In 2011 (the most
recent complete figures available)
there were 3,406 reported cases of
rape in Madhya Pradesh: nine women
raped every day.
But Bhagwat's comments broadcast a
belief widely held in India, particularly
outside of its cities: that this country's
problem with sexual violence is not
endemic, but imported.
India's galloping urbanisation and the
drift away from village life, the
consolidation of farms and the
breakdown of the caste system, the
rise of mobile phones and women's
education: all are held up as factors
contributing to India's chronic sexual
violence.
Bharat versus India, and at the
juncture, sits India's next generation.
Preeti Jat is from Bharat, traditional
India, but she is also of the new India.
Confident, clever and ambitious, Preeti
is 18, and set to ace her 12th class
exams. She intends to begin college
this year, studying engineering like her
older brother.
From Bairagarh, she is aware of the
Delhi gang-rape case.
"It is the same. These things happen
here," she says in flawless English.
"Women are safe in their house, in
their village, where everybody knows
them. But they cannot leave to go
somewhere, to go take a job, or for
studies. Then there are problems."
In the aftermath of the Delhi gang
rape, the capital's English-language
media has insisted that all of India is
in turmoil, reflecting on its very soul.
But here, the case has barely raised a
mention, and it has changed life not at
all.
Among the women in this village,
Preeti says, most are only vaguely
aware of the case at all. "They might
know that something happened, but
they don't know the details. Their lives
are in the village, not there." Women
here don't read newspapers, she says,
and they prefer serials to the TV news.
In this deeply patriarchal society, such
things are for men to worry about.
Preeti's grandfathers, Hajarilal Jat and
Madiram Jat, are immensely proud of
their granddaughter, especially her
perfect English, which they don't
speak.
But the men insist, in contradiction to
Preeti, that assaults on women are an
urban phenomenon.
"In the villages, because the
communities are small, everyone
knows everyone, if there is a woman
in the street, people know who she is,
whose wife she is, whose sister she
is," Hajarilal says in Hindi. "That is not
the same in the cities. Men in the
cities feel they can attack because no
one knows who she is. She doesn't
belong to anyone." He says village
women are not attacked because men
"fear the elders", and the punishments
they might mete out: offenders and
their families can be ostracised, their
betrothals cut off, even cast out.
Hajarilal and Madiram worry about
women who leave Bairagarh for
India's cities and megapolises.
"If someone is moving to a city, we
ensure they live with a relative, or
someone else from the village, a
guardian who can look after them,
because they are not safe there. In the
village, family is strong, community is
strong."
Bucolic though they may be painted,
even a visit to an Indian village is
indicative of the lives lived within.
They certainly feel peaceful. In the
sunshine women are on the streets,
walking alone or in groups, in far
greater numbers than they are seen
outdoors in Delhi. In green fields, they
work alongside men.
But in Bairagarh and other farming
hamlets in the district, we are met by
men, every time, and told, rather than
allowed to find out, that women are
safe in rural India.
"The women here are contented," we
are told, without being allowed to
speak to one.
The women we do ask to speak to,
through an intermediary, politely
decline. They, we are informed, feel
more comfortable having men speak
for them, particularly to a foreign man.
The message we are told, over and
over again, is that village life is safe.
Other men, later and off the record,
concede that sexual assaults do occur
in villages, but that they are rare and
are kept quiet. Legal experts believe
reporting rates of sex assaults are
much lower in rural areas, often
because of pressure from parents not
to bring shame on the family. Caste
inequalities allow men to attack lower-
caste women with impunity.
Many times, the solution presented is
for rape victims to marry their
attackers, thereby somehow expunging
the crime. "If it happens, it is kept
very quiet," one man says. "The family
does not want people to know this
thing happened. If someone outside
the family finds out, soon everyone
will know, and that girl will be shamed,
so it is kept very quiet."