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RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat created a flutter when he said rape is mainly prevalent in urban India due to western influence and that such crimes against women do not happen in rural areas of the country.
The remark that came against the backdrop of the Delhi gangrape incident was slammed by the Congress, CPI (M) and womens bodies while the BJP and RSS defended it saying the comment should be taken in proper perspective.
Mr. Bhagwat claimed that the incidents of rape were the result of adoption of western culture in society as a whole and that erosion of traditional Indian values were more pronounced in urban areas.
Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes wont 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, he said at a meeting in Silchar in Assam recently.
Where Bharat becomes India with the influence of western culture, these type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as mother, he added.
Demanding that the government take appropriate action to stop rape incidents, he said RSS will support any government initiative to change existing laws.
Womens group disagree with Bhagwat
Bhagwat neither understands India nor Bharat, CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat said.
Ms. Karat said government statistics of atrocities on women and sexual assault showed that the maximum number of victims belong to the poor, Dalit and tribal communities.
National Commission of Women (NCW) Chief Mamta Sharma said Mr. Bhagwat should stop differentiating in terms of geography.
We are all Indians. We are all citizens of India...Go to grassroots level and see what is the condition of the women there, he said.
Read it in proper perspective: RSS
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said the RSS chiefs statement should be taken in proper perspective.
He has condemned the heinous crime of assaulting women, rape against women and he said it is an utterly wrong thing and that people who indulge in such things must be punished, he added.
BJP said the statement should be seen in the proper context and he was referring to Indias culture, tradition and value system.
The present controversy relating to certain comments of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is totally uncalled for and unnecessary. His comments are required to be seen and understood in entirety. He was referring to Indias sanskar, tradition and value system where respect for women occupies a pride of place, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The Hindu : News / National : Rapes prevalent in India, not in Bharat: RSS Chief
The Reuters TrustLaw group named India one of the worst countries in the world for women this year, in part because domestic violence there is often seen as deserved. A 2012 report by UNICEF found that 57 per cent of Indian boys and 53 per cent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 think wife-beating is justified. A recent national family-health survey also reported that a sizable percentage of women blame themselves for beatings by their husbands.
“When a boy grows up seeing his father assault his mother, he starts to accept such a behavior and repeats it,” Anuradha Gupta, mission director for India’s National Rural Health Mission, was quoted as saying.
5. A Lack of Public Safety
Women generally aren’t protected outside their homes. The gang rape occurred on a bus, and even Indian authorities say that the country’s public places can be unsafe for women. Many streets are poorly lit, and there’s a lack of women’s toilets, a Women and Child Development Ministry report said recently.
Women who drink, smoke or go to pubs are widely seen in Indian society as morally loose, and village clan councils have blamed a rise in women talking on cellphones and going to the bazaar for an increase in the incidence of rape.
6. Stigmatizing the Victim
When verbal harassment or groping do occur in public areas, bystanders frequently look the other way rather than intervene, both to avoid a conflict and because they — on some level — blame the victim, observers say. Male politicians contribute to the problem, making statements that make light of rape or vilify rape victims’ supporters.
One regional policymaker, Anisur Rahman, recently asked a female minister what “her fee” would be for getting raped. The son of India’s president also recently apologized after calling those protesting against the Delhi gang rape “highly dented and painted” women, who go “from discos to demonstrations,” the Associated Press reported.
7. Encouraging Rape Victims to Compromise
In a recent separate rape case, a 17-year-old Indian girl who was allegedly gang-raped killed herself after police pressured her to drop the case and marry one of her attackers.
Rape victims are often encouraged by village elders and clan councils to “compromise” with the family of accused and drop charges — or even to marry the attacker. Such compromises are aimed at keeping the peace between families or clan groups. What’s more, a girl’s eventual prospects of marriage are thought to be more important than bringing a rapist to justice.
8. A Sluggish Court System
India’s court system is painfully slow, in part because of a shortage of judges. The country has about 15 judges for every 1 million people, while China has 159. A Delhi high court judge once estimated it would take 466 years to get through the backlog in the capital alone.
9. Few Convictions
For rapes that do get reported, India’s conviction rate is no more than 26 per cent. There is also no law on the books covering routine daily sexual harassment, which is euphemistically called “Eve-teasing.” The passing of a proposed new sexual assault law has been delayed for seven years.
10. Low Status of Women
Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is women’s overall lower status in Indian society. For poor families, the need to pay a marriage dowry can make daughters a burden. India has one of the lowest female-to-male population ratios in the world because of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide. Throughout their lives, sons are fed better than their sisters, are more likely to be sent to school and have brighter career prospects.
In recent days, Indian politicians have put forward a slew of potential remedies for India’s sexual violence problem. But it’s worth noting that it will be hard to end discrimination against women at police stations when it starts in the crib.
The anonymous womans story has ignited a storm, but there are thousands of women and their families who are quietly fighting for justice in small towns, away from the bright lights and media attention of the capital, New Delhi. They are fighting authority; they are fighting staggering poverty. They are also fighting the caste system.
This story is of two such women.
One killed herself, the other is fighting for justice.
On a hot, hazy afternoon in August, a 21-year-old woman is picked up from her college in Jalandhar, a city in northern India, by her boyfriend. They have big plans to go for ice cream and later, a movie.
But the car barely travels a kilometre when their lives unravel.
At a traffic check, a policewoman, accompanied by local news photographers, asks the girl why she is with a boy. She is told to step out of the car. As she does, photographers shoot pictures despite her protests and the cop continues to humiliate her.
The boyfriend, meanwhile, is made to do sit-ups.
The woman is hysterical when the couple leaves a half-hour later.
A few days later, some 270 kilometres away in a village near the northern Indian town of Hisar, a 16-year-old girl gets into an auto-rickshaw to travel 12 kilometres to her grandmothers house.
As she nears Hisar, an SUV forces the auto-rickshaw off the road. A group of men then force the teen into the car and speed away. She is taken to a secluded spot and raped by at least seven men for more than two hours. While she screams and begs for help, the alleged rapists film it on their cellphones.
The girl is from a lower caste; the alleged rapists are upper-caste men.
When it is over, they tell her if she breathes a word to anyone, she and her family will be killed.
One of the girls is dead; the other is fighting.
India has an appalling record of crimes against women. Newspapers are filled with such stories every day: of female fetuses being aborted, of women being assaulted, of women being burned for inadequate dowry.
But for the past two weeks, New Delhi has exploded in anger.
The beleaguered government has tried to halt the fury by announcing measures to make the capital safer for women, including more police patrols at night, checks on bus drivers and bans on buses with tinted windows.
The government has also announced it will post photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on an official website, something like a sex offenders registry. And it has said it will fast-track court cases for sexual assault.
Analysts blame violence against women on a patriarchal society where the age-old belief that men and women are unequal still persists, even though India has made economic progress and women have stepped out of the house and away from traditional roles.
Shyama Anand of All India Democratic Womens Association says until men are educated and until they comprehend that the two sexes are equal, constant crimes against women will continue.
It doesnt matter that some women make it right to the top, she said. Thousands of others will continue to fight off men.
Reshma is not her real name: it is the one journalists have given the 16-year-old. But she is getting used to it now.
She is in Hisar, sitting on the terrace of her grandmothers home in a neighbourhood where the lanes are too narrow for cars to pass, sewage drains lie open and cows sit in the streets.
Sept. 9 was a Sunday and Reshma, in a soft voice that does not crack, says it was like any other. She had a late breakfast, did some school work, helped her mother with lunch and then decided to go to her grandmothers house.
She had been in an auto-rickshaw for fewer than 15 minutes when the SUV forced it off the road and dragged her out. There were eight men and they took her to nearby fields, ripped off her salwar-kameez, a traditional Indian garment, and raped her for two hours. Every time she screamed for help, she was slapped and kicked in the stomach. Reshma remembers someone pushing a pill down her throat and then she lost consciousness.
But not before she recognized three of the men they were from her village.
When she woke up, it was dark, and she was bloodied and bruised. The men were still there and told her that if she said anything to anyone, they would not only kill her but her entire family. Then they left, joking as they walked away.
Reshma says she slowly put herself together and walked for about 15 minutes until she got to a road. A motorist took her home.
Reshma quietly went into her room, changed her clothes, cleaned up and started preparing for dinner.
I was in shock . . . I didnt know what to do, she says. I didnt say anything because I was scared. Those men were from my village and . . . they are upper-caste and I am a dalit (lower caste). They could do anything. All I wanted was to die somehow.
Reshma went to school for a couple of days and then fell ill. She asked her parents if she could stay at her grandmothers place, where she felt safe and secure.
On Sept. 18, her father was puttering around the garden where he worked when a security guard showed him a cellphone video. It showed his daughter being gang-raped.
Her parents asked her why she didnt tell them. They werent angry with me; they were very angry with what had happened to me, she says. Reshma told them she was scared, for them and for herself.
That night, her father drank a bottle of pesticide.
There is a framed photo of Shivali Kangotra in her house in Jalandhar, a prosperous city in the state of Punjab. She is wearing a pink and blue salwar-kameez, colourful bangles and she is smiling.
Shivali was laughing the last time her mother, Veena Devi, saw her. It was a few minutes past 7 a.m. She was wearing jeans and a beige jacket and she was late for class.
I was in my bed when she was leaving for college that day, says Devi. I knew she was late and her father was waiting to give her a ride . . . I called out for her, she went out laughing and told me not to worry.
Devi is sitting in her bedroom in a middle-class neighbourhood. Their two-storey house is like most on the street with a tall gate, a big front yard and peeling paint. Where the Kangotras live was once an affluent village but is now just a decaying suburb of Jalandhar.
Shivali, the third of four adult children, was in her second year at a local college, studying commerce. She was fun-loving, at the forefront of cultural events at college and had many friends, but always found time to help her diabetic mother with housework, says her older sister, Rupali.
Our mother doesnt keep well, so the housework is mostly my responsibility but Shivali always helped out, says Rupali, 25. We were a team and we were friends.
According to witnesses and reports in local newspapers, Shivali was hysterical as the police officer berated her and the photographers snapped away. She begged them to leave her alone. She was shaking and crying. She asked to call her father, who would vouch for the boyfriend. Witnesses said she was ignored.
And she was ignored when she threatened to kill herself if the harassment did not stop.
Finally, when the couple was let go, Shivali went off in a different direction.
Half an hour later, she jumped in front of a train.
After her father killed himself, Reshma took two extraordinary and courageous steps: she told her family she wanted justice for herself and her father, and she decided to go back to school.
Officially, the caste system was abolished in 1947 when India gained independence from British rule. In reality, caste remains rigid and is still practised, especially in rural India.
Dalits, such as Reshma and her family, are lower-caste, the untouchables. Typically, they take jobs no one else will cleaning streets, scavenging and collecting waste from dry latrines. Dalits and the upper caste dont mingle.
Despite that, Reshma says, she knew she had to go to the police. I was not frightened, not at all, not then, she says. My father was dead . . . because of what they did to me. What else could they have done? Dont you think they should be punished?
At first, local police registered the case but made no arrests. Reshma, her family and dozens of others from the village kept her fathers body in front of the local hospital, refusing to cremate him until arrests were made. For two tense days, says Reshma, people from the village mostly dalits refused to budge.
But then a half-dozen men were arrested, including two from Reshmas village. They are in prison awaiting trial.
In the meantime, Reshma says at least three families of those charged have approached her mother, asking the family to not press charges in return for huge amounts of money as much as $400,000, which is a lot in a country where the annual per capita income is about $1,600.
Reshmas family has refused.
Reshma has received death threats and a plainclothes police officer is constantly with her; while she goes to school, while she is at home, while she sleeps.
As Reshma talks, her brother Gaurav, 18, stands a few feet away and her grandmother slices vegetables for dinner. They dont say anything, just keep an eye on her. They are with her every step, and that, says Reshma, is enough.
I could not have done this without them, she says. No one (in the family) has blamed me or said I have brought shame.
Gaurav has not gone back to college since his father died. He does not know if he can ever return. I dont want to leave her (Reshma) alone, he says.
School is Reshmas refuge now. She started at a new high school a few days ago where no one knows her or her story except the principal and a few teachers.
Economics and history are her favourite subjects but Reshma now wants to study to become a police officer.
I hope my case is over before that, way before, she says, a grim smile on her face
Shivalis death made news in Jalandhar but did not make national headlines. Her parents and family have mourned quietly; her friends organized a candlelight vigil days after her suicide, demanding action against the policewoman who publicly humiliated her.
A high-ranking police officer conducted an inquiry and recommended that Balwinder Kaur, the female officer, be booked for abetting suicide. Shivalis family says Kaur has been suspended but not arrested or charged.
Punjab Police have refused to comment.
Shivalis older brother Karan knows that much has been said and written about Shivalis death and many, that including neighbours, have said public embarrassment isnt that big a deal. But Karan, who has spoken to many witnesses, says he knows how his sister must have felt.
She was a girl, a girl who was called awful names in the presence of dozens of people, he says. She was scared what her father, her family would think even though she had done no wrong. I know she should not have (killed herself) but I get it.
Reshma has heard Shivalis story. She understands the pain and trauma Shivali must have suffered for that one hour. I, too, thought of killing myself many times, she admits.
But she didnt, and wishes Shivali hadnt, either.
She should have fought . . . . What happened to her was not her fault so why did she punish herself? asks Reshma. We have to fight back to make this a better place for women.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1309826--in-india-stories-about-rape-and-humiliation-abound-away-from-the-spotlight
The remark that came against the backdrop of the Delhi gangrape incident was slammed by the Congress, CPI (M) and womens bodies while the BJP and RSS defended it saying the comment should be taken in proper perspective.
Mr. Bhagwat claimed that the incidents of rape were the result of adoption of western culture in society as a whole and that erosion of traditional Indian values were more pronounced in urban areas.
Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes wont 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, he said at a meeting in Silchar in Assam recently.
Where Bharat becomes India with the influence of western culture, these type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as mother, he added.
Demanding that the government take appropriate action to stop rape incidents, he said RSS will support any government initiative to change existing laws.
Womens group disagree with Bhagwat
Bhagwat neither understands India nor Bharat, CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat said.
Ms. Karat said government statistics of atrocities on women and sexual assault showed that the maximum number of victims belong to the poor, Dalit and tribal communities.
National Commission of Women (NCW) Chief Mamta Sharma said Mr. Bhagwat should stop differentiating in terms of geography.
We are all Indians. We are all citizens of India...Go to grassroots level and see what is the condition of the women there, he said.
Read it in proper perspective: RSS
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said the RSS chiefs statement should be taken in proper perspective.
He has condemned the heinous crime of assaulting women, rape against women and he said it is an utterly wrong thing and that people who indulge in such things must be punished, he added.
BJP said the statement should be seen in the proper context and he was referring to Indias culture, tradition and value system.
The present controversy relating to certain comments of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is totally uncalled for and unnecessary. His comments are required to be seen and understood in entirety. He was referring to Indias sanskar, tradition and value system where respect for women occupies a pride of place, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The Hindu : News / National : Rapes prevalent in India, not in Bharat: RSS Chief
The Reuters TrustLaw group named India one of the worst countries in the world for women this year, in part because domestic violence there is often seen as deserved. A 2012 report by UNICEF found that 57 per cent of Indian boys and 53 per cent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 think wife-beating is justified. A recent national family-health survey also reported that a sizable percentage of women blame themselves for beatings by their husbands.
“When a boy grows up seeing his father assault his mother, he starts to accept such a behavior and repeats it,” Anuradha Gupta, mission director for India’s National Rural Health Mission, was quoted as saying.
5. A Lack of Public Safety
Women generally aren’t protected outside their homes. The gang rape occurred on a bus, and even Indian authorities say that the country’s public places can be unsafe for women. Many streets are poorly lit, and there’s a lack of women’s toilets, a Women and Child Development Ministry report said recently.
Women who drink, smoke or go to pubs are widely seen in Indian society as morally loose, and village clan councils have blamed a rise in women talking on cellphones and going to the bazaar for an increase in the incidence of rape.
6. Stigmatizing the Victim
When verbal harassment or groping do occur in public areas, bystanders frequently look the other way rather than intervene, both to avoid a conflict and because they — on some level — blame the victim, observers say. Male politicians contribute to the problem, making statements that make light of rape or vilify rape victims’ supporters.
One regional policymaker, Anisur Rahman, recently asked a female minister what “her fee” would be for getting raped. The son of India’s president also recently apologized after calling those protesting against the Delhi gang rape “highly dented and painted” women, who go “from discos to demonstrations,” the Associated Press reported.
7. Encouraging Rape Victims to Compromise
In a recent separate rape case, a 17-year-old Indian girl who was allegedly gang-raped killed herself after police pressured her to drop the case and marry one of her attackers.
Rape victims are often encouraged by village elders and clan councils to “compromise” with the family of accused and drop charges — or even to marry the attacker. Such compromises are aimed at keeping the peace between families or clan groups. What’s more, a girl’s eventual prospects of marriage are thought to be more important than bringing a rapist to justice.
8. A Sluggish Court System
India’s court system is painfully slow, in part because of a shortage of judges. The country has about 15 judges for every 1 million people, while China has 159. A Delhi high court judge once estimated it would take 466 years to get through the backlog in the capital alone.
9. Few Convictions
For rapes that do get reported, India’s conviction rate is no more than 26 per cent. There is also no law on the books covering routine daily sexual harassment, which is euphemistically called “Eve-teasing.” The passing of a proposed new sexual assault law has been delayed for seven years.
10. Low Status of Women
Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is women’s overall lower status in Indian society. For poor families, the need to pay a marriage dowry can make daughters a burden. India has one of the lowest female-to-male population ratios in the world because of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide. Throughout their lives, sons are fed better than their sisters, are more likely to be sent to school and have brighter career prospects.
In recent days, Indian politicians have put forward a slew of potential remedies for India’s sexual violence problem. But it’s worth noting that it will be hard to end discrimination against women at police stations when it starts in the crib.
The anonymous womans story has ignited a storm, but there are thousands of women and their families who are quietly fighting for justice in small towns, away from the bright lights and media attention of the capital, New Delhi. They are fighting authority; they are fighting staggering poverty. They are also fighting the caste system.
This story is of two such women.
One killed herself, the other is fighting for justice.
On a hot, hazy afternoon in August, a 21-year-old woman is picked up from her college in Jalandhar, a city in northern India, by her boyfriend. They have big plans to go for ice cream and later, a movie.
But the car barely travels a kilometre when their lives unravel.
At a traffic check, a policewoman, accompanied by local news photographers, asks the girl why she is with a boy. She is told to step out of the car. As she does, photographers shoot pictures despite her protests and the cop continues to humiliate her.
The boyfriend, meanwhile, is made to do sit-ups.
The woman is hysterical when the couple leaves a half-hour later.
A few days later, some 270 kilometres away in a village near the northern Indian town of Hisar, a 16-year-old girl gets into an auto-rickshaw to travel 12 kilometres to her grandmothers house.
As she nears Hisar, an SUV forces the auto-rickshaw off the road. A group of men then force the teen into the car and speed away. She is taken to a secluded spot and raped by at least seven men for more than two hours. While she screams and begs for help, the alleged rapists film it on their cellphones.
The girl is from a lower caste; the alleged rapists are upper-caste men.
When it is over, they tell her if she breathes a word to anyone, she and her family will be killed.
One of the girls is dead; the other is fighting.
India has an appalling record of crimes against women. Newspapers are filled with such stories every day: of female fetuses being aborted, of women being assaulted, of women being burned for inadequate dowry.
But for the past two weeks, New Delhi has exploded in anger.
The beleaguered government has tried to halt the fury by announcing measures to make the capital safer for women, including more police patrols at night, checks on bus drivers and bans on buses with tinted windows.
The government has also announced it will post photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on an official website, something like a sex offenders registry. And it has said it will fast-track court cases for sexual assault.
Analysts blame violence against women on a patriarchal society where the age-old belief that men and women are unequal still persists, even though India has made economic progress and women have stepped out of the house and away from traditional roles.
Shyama Anand of All India Democratic Womens Association says until men are educated and until they comprehend that the two sexes are equal, constant crimes against women will continue.
It doesnt matter that some women make it right to the top, she said. Thousands of others will continue to fight off men.
Reshma is not her real name: it is the one journalists have given the 16-year-old. But she is getting used to it now.
She is in Hisar, sitting on the terrace of her grandmothers home in a neighbourhood where the lanes are too narrow for cars to pass, sewage drains lie open and cows sit in the streets.
Sept. 9 was a Sunday and Reshma, in a soft voice that does not crack, says it was like any other. She had a late breakfast, did some school work, helped her mother with lunch and then decided to go to her grandmothers house.
She had been in an auto-rickshaw for fewer than 15 minutes when the SUV forced it off the road and dragged her out. There were eight men and they took her to nearby fields, ripped off her salwar-kameez, a traditional Indian garment, and raped her for two hours. Every time she screamed for help, she was slapped and kicked in the stomach. Reshma remembers someone pushing a pill down her throat and then she lost consciousness.
But not before she recognized three of the men they were from her village.
When she woke up, it was dark, and she was bloodied and bruised. The men were still there and told her that if she said anything to anyone, they would not only kill her but her entire family. Then they left, joking as they walked away.
Reshma says she slowly put herself together and walked for about 15 minutes until she got to a road. A motorist took her home.
Reshma quietly went into her room, changed her clothes, cleaned up and started preparing for dinner.
I was in shock . . . I didnt know what to do, she says. I didnt say anything because I was scared. Those men were from my village and . . . they are upper-caste and I am a dalit (lower caste). They could do anything. All I wanted was to die somehow.
Reshma went to school for a couple of days and then fell ill. She asked her parents if she could stay at her grandmothers place, where she felt safe and secure.
On Sept. 18, her father was puttering around the garden where he worked when a security guard showed him a cellphone video. It showed his daughter being gang-raped.
Her parents asked her why she didnt tell them. They werent angry with me; they were very angry with what had happened to me, she says. Reshma told them she was scared, for them and for herself.
That night, her father drank a bottle of pesticide.
There is a framed photo of Shivali Kangotra in her house in Jalandhar, a prosperous city in the state of Punjab. She is wearing a pink and blue salwar-kameez, colourful bangles and she is smiling.
Shivali was laughing the last time her mother, Veena Devi, saw her. It was a few minutes past 7 a.m. She was wearing jeans and a beige jacket and she was late for class.
I was in my bed when she was leaving for college that day, says Devi. I knew she was late and her father was waiting to give her a ride . . . I called out for her, she went out laughing and told me not to worry.
Devi is sitting in her bedroom in a middle-class neighbourhood. Their two-storey house is like most on the street with a tall gate, a big front yard and peeling paint. Where the Kangotras live was once an affluent village but is now just a decaying suburb of Jalandhar.
Shivali, the third of four adult children, was in her second year at a local college, studying commerce. She was fun-loving, at the forefront of cultural events at college and had many friends, but always found time to help her diabetic mother with housework, says her older sister, Rupali.
Our mother doesnt keep well, so the housework is mostly my responsibility but Shivali always helped out, says Rupali, 25. We were a team and we were friends.
According to witnesses and reports in local newspapers, Shivali was hysterical as the police officer berated her and the photographers snapped away. She begged them to leave her alone. She was shaking and crying. She asked to call her father, who would vouch for the boyfriend. Witnesses said she was ignored.
And she was ignored when she threatened to kill herself if the harassment did not stop.
Finally, when the couple was let go, Shivali went off in a different direction.
Half an hour later, she jumped in front of a train.
After her father killed himself, Reshma took two extraordinary and courageous steps: she told her family she wanted justice for herself and her father, and she decided to go back to school.
Officially, the caste system was abolished in 1947 when India gained independence from British rule. In reality, caste remains rigid and is still practised, especially in rural India.
Dalits, such as Reshma and her family, are lower-caste, the untouchables. Typically, they take jobs no one else will cleaning streets, scavenging and collecting waste from dry latrines. Dalits and the upper caste dont mingle.
Despite that, Reshma says, she knew she had to go to the police. I was not frightened, not at all, not then, she says. My father was dead . . . because of what they did to me. What else could they have done? Dont you think they should be punished?
At first, local police registered the case but made no arrests. Reshma, her family and dozens of others from the village kept her fathers body in front of the local hospital, refusing to cremate him until arrests were made. For two tense days, says Reshma, people from the village mostly dalits refused to budge.
But then a half-dozen men were arrested, including two from Reshmas village. They are in prison awaiting trial.
In the meantime, Reshma says at least three families of those charged have approached her mother, asking the family to not press charges in return for huge amounts of money as much as $400,000, which is a lot in a country where the annual per capita income is about $1,600.
Reshmas family has refused.
Reshma has received death threats and a plainclothes police officer is constantly with her; while she goes to school, while she is at home, while she sleeps.
As Reshma talks, her brother Gaurav, 18, stands a few feet away and her grandmother slices vegetables for dinner. They dont say anything, just keep an eye on her. They are with her every step, and that, says Reshma, is enough.
I could not have done this without them, she says. No one (in the family) has blamed me or said I have brought shame.
Gaurav has not gone back to college since his father died. He does not know if he can ever return. I dont want to leave her (Reshma) alone, he says.
School is Reshmas refuge now. She started at a new high school a few days ago where no one knows her or her story except the principal and a few teachers.
Economics and history are her favourite subjects but Reshma now wants to study to become a police officer.
I hope my case is over before that, way before, she says, a grim smile on her face
Shivalis death made news in Jalandhar but did not make national headlines. Her parents and family have mourned quietly; her friends organized a candlelight vigil days after her suicide, demanding action against the policewoman who publicly humiliated her.
A high-ranking police officer conducted an inquiry and recommended that Balwinder Kaur, the female officer, be booked for abetting suicide. Shivalis family says Kaur has been suspended but not arrested or charged.
Punjab Police have refused to comment.
Shivalis older brother Karan knows that much has been said and written about Shivalis death and many, that including neighbours, have said public embarrassment isnt that big a deal. But Karan, who has spoken to many witnesses, says he knows how his sister must have felt.
She was a girl, a girl who was called awful names in the presence of dozens of people, he says. She was scared what her father, her family would think even though she had done no wrong. I know she should not have (killed herself) but I get it.
Reshma has heard Shivalis story. She understands the pain and trauma Shivali must have suffered for that one hour. I, too, thought of killing myself many times, she admits.
But she didnt, and wishes Shivali hadnt, either.
She should have fought . . . . What happened to her was not her fault so why did she punish herself? asks Reshma. We have to fight back to make this a better place for women.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1309826--in-india-stories-about-rape-and-humiliation-abound-away-from-the-spotlight
