Many months ago, across India, people gathered and lit candles for the rape victims. It was a show of solidarity by civil society who felt that not enough was being done to protect the women of the country. On Saturday in Delhi, there was another candle-lit march as protesters condemned the murder of the Unnao rape victim. It turned violent, and the police had to use water cannons to disperse the agitators. The reason for dispersing the march, police said, was as no permission was sought for it, and that the protesters had lit a marshal and brandished it in front of the cops. Was there time to seek permission for the march? If only the police could have been more serious when dealing with horrific crimes, would there be need of such marches?
The Unnao victim has been battling for justice for months and then in the last few days she battled for her life. In the end she lost both battles. The Uttar Pradesh government was unable to deliver justice to her. The Uttar Pradesh government was unable to give her security from her rapists. She was attacked days after the men accused of raping her were released on bail. She was burnt and fought for her life in hospital, but then the fight went out of her and she breathed her last. India was not able to save this beti.
Candles were lit again, after her death. Sadly, her family will light her pyre. As the smoke from the funeral pyre dissipates into the air, the crime against her and her fight for justice will also fade from people’s memory. If for two years since she was gangraped the government was not able to give her security and justice, will there be any justice now? In the hospital, she pleaded to be kept alive. ‘Save me, I want to live,’ is what has been reported as she having said to the doctors. But the burn injuries afflicted on her by her rapists and murderers were too serious and there was little that could be done for her at that stage.
After her death, politicians across parties, including ministers of the State government, visited the family. Where were they when she was alive and pleading for justice? There is now little that the Uttar Pradesh government can to do redeem itself in the eyes of the nation. This is indeed a sad state of affairs in the country, where rape victims are left at the mercy of those who are accused of the crime. It brings to mind the other rape from Unnao, wherein a politician was involved and which case is still dragging in court.
A day after the country woke up to learn that four rape accused had been shot in an encounter with the police in Hyderabad, it hears that a rape victim elsewhere has been killed by those she accused of rape. Law and order, justice, women’s safety are going to be talking points over the next few days. We are coming up to the seventh anniversary of the Nirbhaya rape case, and nothing has changed. No lessons, it appears, have been learnt. The only thing that has happened, is that we are discussing rape in the open, and public anger is reported in the media.
This is not enough. Attitudes to gender-based violence have just not changed in the country, and until that happens, rapes and violence against women will not end. A survey last year had named India among the top ten countries in the world unsafe for women. The country is doing nothing to change that. In fact the latest crimes are reason to hang our heads in shame.
