The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressing students at IIT Bombay, declared violence against women a “big cancer” and called for an “emergency plan” to tackle it in every country. “Things are getting worse, not better,” he said, adding that no society can reach its full potential without “equal rights and freedoms for women, men, girls and boys.” His concerns were matched by the National Crime Records Bureau reports. In 2021 alone, 31,677 cases of rape were recorded, making it the fourth most common crime in India; with an estimated 71% going unreported.
On August 15, our Prime Minister declared, from the ramparts of the Red Fort his vision of “nari shakti”. He called on all citizens not to demean women; and asked “Can we not pledge to get rid of every such behaviour and culture that humiliates and demeans women in our daily life?” This concern turned out to be hollow double speak. Surely, he was aware that even as he spoke, his own MHA had, within days of a Gujarat government request, directed the remission and release of 11 men sentenced to life imprisonment. What were these criminals convicted of? The rape of a 21-year-old who was five months pregnant; the rape of her mother and two sisters in front of her; and sinking into the depths of depravity, the smashing of her three-year-old daughter’s head with a stone. A total of 14 members of Bilkis Bano’s family were killed that tragic day on March 3, 2002; enough to turn any human beings blood run cold.
What was the remission based on? After a lot of evasive waffling, the devious truth emerged. The Gujarat government applied for remission based on the “unanimous recommendations” of the 8-member Jail Advisory Committee; two of these were BJP MLAs, the third a current and the fourth, a past BJP office bearer. The justification was their “good conduct” during their 14 years in jail, and their “sanskari”, high caste. Bear in mind that the SC saw fit to transfer the trial from Gujarat to Maharashtra to ensure a safe and fair trial and award Rs 50 lakhs compensation to Bilkis during her determined and protracted 17-year struggle for justice. The Gujarat government had to admit in an affidavit to the SC that the Superintendent of Police, CBI, Special Crime Branch, Mumbai, and Special Civil Judge (CBI), City Civil and Sessions Court, Greater Bombay had all opposed the remission in March 2022. The law requires that the judge who passed the sentence must be consulted. Justice UD Salvi was not even aware that a remission had been proposed. Neither was the victim ever consulted; a procedural requirement. In granting remission, the MHA simply ignored judicial reality. The 1992 remission policy was invalidated by the SC in 2012, and new guidelines adopted in 2014. In June this year, as part of the “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” such heinous crimes were specifically placed in the category of exceptions for remission. It was conducted in a clandestine manner for impact on forthcoming elections.
The 11 convicts were welcomed as heroes, garlanded, felicitated and sweets distributed as if they had won the world cup. One of the members of the committee even had the audacity to question the SC judgment stating that they were of such high caste they could never have committed such a crime. Even during their supposed 14 years “in jail”, each of them spent an average of 1,176 days out of jail; on leave, furlough, parole and temporary bail.
It is not as though society ignored this affront to the dignity of its women. The remission has been challenged in the SC and its hearing in October was adjourned to November 29 because the “counter affidavit filed by the state of Gujarat was very bulky and voluminous” and required time.
Meanwhile the demeaning of women goes on. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of the Dera Sacha Sauda is serving a 20-year jail sentence for separate counts of rape and murder. In February he was granted three weeks furlough, in time for the Punjab elections. In June he was given a month-long parole ahead of elections to 46 municipalities in Haryana. On October 14, he was given a 40-day parole in time for the Adampur assembly by-poll and the panchayat elections. Whilst on parole he has been conducting ashram sessions attended by the Haryana Assembly Deputy Speaker, the Karnal mayor (who addresses him as “pitaji”) and Himachal Minister, Bikram Thakur. Is this how we honour the dignity of the two women disciples he was convicted of raping at the Dera headquarters? Or for that matter the conviction for the murder of a journalist who exposed the rapes, and the conspiracy to murder Ranjit Singh, a former Dera manager. Has justice sunk to such levels that our prime ministers’ declarations from the Red Fort are reduced to mockery?
Compare these events with the treatment meted out to 84-year-old Stan Swamy who died in jail, denied even a straw to drink fluids because he was unable to hold a cup due to his Parkinson tremor. Or for that matter the acquittal of Professor Saibaba by the Bombay HC. A state sponsored stay on the acquittal was declined by SC Justice Chandrachud. The CJI, in a rare urgent listing on a non-working day overruled this and granted the stay. He was locked up again. The professor is wheelchair bound with 90% disability due to paralysis of his limbs.
Notwithstanding grandiose statements from the ramparts of the Red Fort; with the governments step-motherly treatment, will we ever “get rid of every such behaviour and culture that humiliates and demeans women in our daily life”? Let us hope better judicial sense prevails on November 29.
(The writer is a founder member of VHAG)
