The Good Girls

by Sonia Faleiro

  Of course, the victim was a porter’s daughter from a village in Uttar Pradesh. By the time the facts emerged, however, ‘the case was unstoppable.’89

  Nearly two years later, the hanging bodies in Katra forced people to engage with the vulnerability of all children. In 2014, there were around 90,000 reported cases of crimes against children. These included infanticide, rape, murder, voyeurism, stalking, kidnapping and abduction, exposure and abandonment.90 This marked an increase of a shocking 53.6 per cent over the previous year. Despite this, only the Katra case stayed in the news and is still remembered. Even now, all these years later, it is enough to mention Budaun in living rooms in Delhi and faraway Mumbai, and people know. In Uttar Pradesh, the death of the girls was referred to as a kand – a word that means scandal, but which implies something so terrible that it is practically unforgettable.

  The Shakyas were also a poor farming family. They lived not too far from the village in which one of the Delhi bus rape victim’s convicted rapists had been born and where he spent his formative years. And while the victim’s father had made great efforts to educate his child and give her a future that was on a par with the dreams of modern, middle-class India, the Shakya family had taken Padma out of school after the eighth class. The family’s circumstances and behaviour suggested that they were unlikely to interest the media. Indeed, the initial reaction of the reporter Ankur Chaturvedi had shown as much.

  What made the difference, then, was the highly emotive image of the girls hanging in the tree. Urban Indians first saw it on social media, the place where they went to read the news and debate it. They wanted something to latch on to, to vent their personal frustrations over India’s inability to change quickly enough, and the picture was it. Padma and Lalli could have been anyone’s children. They were, obviously, blameless. And the manner of death was especially violent.

  ‘It’s not that people are not compassionate. But that compassion has to be aroused,’ Paul Slovic, President of Decision Research, a non-profit organisation that studies human judgement, decision-making and risk perception, told NPR. ‘Emotion is a critical factor in helping us understand an event, and it is a motivator that impels action as opposed to just abstract thoughts.’91

  The Delhi bus rape was among a handful of crimes against women that had, over the years, created social awareness and led to policy changes. When these changes happened one could, perhaps, find comfort in the fact that at least something positive had come out of something heinous.

  In 1972, a teenager in the western state of Maharashtra had walked into a police station to settle a domestic dispute and was only allowed to leave after the police officers present had sexually assaulted her. Her name was Mathura and she was an orphan who belonged to an indigenous community.

  The assault elicited shock, a researcher on gender, poverty and health said, ‘because it was new for (people) to imagine a security personnel as a perpetrator, as a rapist’.92 The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which acquitted the accused largely on the grounds that Mathura wasn’t visibly injured and didn’t call for help. The transcript read:

  […] no marks of injury were found on the person of the girl after the incident and their absence goes a long way to indicate that the alleged intercourse was a peaceful affair, and that the story of a stiff resistance having been put up by the girl is all false. It is further clear that the averments on the part of the girl that she had been shouting loudly for help are also a tissue of lies.93

  The decision outraged a group of four law professors who wrote a letter of protest to the Chief Justice of India.94 Eventually, this led to the burden of proof being shifted away from the victim. A legal amendment now states, ‘where sexual intercourse by the accused is proved and the question is whether it was without the consent of the woman alleged to have been raped and she states in her evidence before the Court that she did not consent, the Court shall presume that she did not consent.’95 This meant that a woman would be taken at her word. The punishment for custodial rape was increased, and the identity of the rape victim was to be protected.

  This last prohibition drew attention in 2012 after the media resorted to using a variety of lionising pseudonyms for the Delhi bus rape victim. The Hindi adjectives translated into ‘fearless’, ‘lightning’ and ‘treasure’. The trend only changed after her mother publicly called for her daughter’s real name to be used.

  ‘Why should we hide our daughter’s name?’ Asha Devi said. ‘My daughter was not at fault. And, by hiding crimes, we only allow more crimes to take place … We are proud of our daughter. She got immortalised as “Nirbhaya” but we also want the society to know the girl we raised, before she was violated by a few devilish men. Memories are painful but her name will serve as a reminder to the society to never let such things recur … I say this in front of you all that her name was Jyoti Singh. You all must also from now onwards call her Jyoti Singh.’96

  Two decades after the attack on Mathura, in September 1992, a grassroots women’s activist named Bhanwari Devi was raped by a group of Gujjars, the dominant caste in her village, for campaigning against child marriage in Rajasthan, a state that shares a border with Uttar Pradesh. Bhanwari Devi had herself been married off when she was five or six, to a boy of eight or nine. Now, she had tried to prevent the village men from marrying off a baby.

  After her gang rape, instead of staying quiet as women were told to at the time, Bhanwari Devi risked social ostracism by going public with her accusations. She mobilised support from women’s rights activists in cities like Delhi, and they helped her take the case forward. Over the course of the trial, reported the BBC, ‘judges were inexplicably changed five times.’97 Three years later, in November 1995, the accused were acquitted of rape on grounds such as ‘a member of the higher caste cannot rape a lower-caste woman because of reasons of purity.’ The judgment caused outrage and led to protests across the state, but although it was challenged in the Rajasthan High Court only one hearing has ever been held.

  As the rape was a direct outcome of her work, the activists who supported Bhanwari Devi then filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court arguing that freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace was a fundamental right. The outcome of their campaign was a set of rules known as the Vishakha Guidelines. In 2013, these rules became the foundation of a law to prevent sexual harassment of women at the workplace. Bhanwari Devi continues to live in the same village as her attackers. They had married off the baby the day after she intervened.

  Like the attack on Mathura, Bhanwari Devi and the victim of the Delhi bus rape, the case of Padma and Lalli became widely known. It had set off protests that had attracted powerful politicians. The question on many people’s lips, in Katra and beyond, was this – would it inspire change?

  84 In 2012 … nearly 25,000 rapes: ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/crime_in_india_table_additional_table_chapter_reports/Chapter%205_2014.pdf

  85 long trials and low conviction rates: epw.in/engage/article/deep-social-bias-marks-indias-response-rape

  86 79 per cent of women … didn’t tell anyone: rchiips.org/nfhs/NFHS-4Reports/India.pdf

  87 99.1 per cent cases of sexual violence were not reported: livemint.com/Politics/AV3sIKoEBAGZozALMX8THK/99-cases-of-sexual-assaults-go-unreported-govt-data-shows.html

  88 made her story more compelling: cjr.org/analysis/india_rape_journalism.php

  89 ‘the case was unstoppable’: ibid.

  90 These included rape, murder: ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/crime_in_india_table_additional_table_chapter_reports/Chapter%206_2014.pdf

  91 ‘Emotion is a critical factor’: npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/01/13/509650251/study-what-was-the-impact-of-the-iconic-photo-of-the-syrian-boy

  92 ‘imagine security personnel as a perpetrator’: www.livemint.com/Politics/0UV23rXo2Z3zdJdB8qV8IK/Anatomy-of-rape-pr
otests-in-India.html

  93 ‘also a tissue of lies’: indiankanoon.org/doc/1092711/

  94 four law professors … wrote a letter of protest: pldindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Open-Letter-to-CJI-in-the-Mathura-Rape-Case.pdf

  95 ‘the Court shall presume that she did not consent’: indiankanoon.org/doc/1586025/

  96 ‘her name was Jyoti Singh’: theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/16/jyoti-singh-parents-call-for-honorary-museum-nirbhaya-to-use-her-real-name

  97 ‘judges were … changed five times’: bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39265653

  The Zero Tolerance Policy

  All protests ultimately faded away. Everyone agreed the system was rotten, but no one knew how to fix it – not even the people elected to do just that. Instead, politicians attempted to compensate victims for their loss with cash. Raking through government schemes, party funds and even personal accounts, they handed out cash to women who were raped and to others injured in stampedes and riots, floods and fires. Money clotted immediate concerns. Money drew a line under troublesome things.

  The day she met the Shakya family, Mayawati – who was one of India’s richest politicians, with assets worth more than 111 crore98 – gave Lalli’s father Sohan Lal and Padma’s father Jeevan Lal 5 lakh rupees each, in cash. Another party gave them 5.5 lakh rupees each, also in cash. On 1 June, Sohan Lal’s bank balance was zero rupees. By 5 June, it was 10.5 lakh rupees. The family accepted several other sums of money, large and small, from leaders of diverse ideological backgrounds. The politicians conducted the transactions openly; in fact, some waited for the TV cameras to start rolling before they handed over the stacks of notes. Although these vast amounts caused some anguish for people in Katra, most agreed that it was the least the family could expect.

  There was, however, one person the Shakyas refused: Chief Minister of the state, Akhilesh Yadav.

  ‘I will not sell my girls’ honour,’ Siya Devi told television cameras, after refusing 5 lakh rupees that was sent by Akhilesh Yadav through his aides. She sat on the ground of her family home, with her head tipped down to avoid looking directly at the camera, but her face was resolute. ‘We do not want money. We want justice.’99

  By accepting money from others, but refusing Akhilesh, the Shakya family made it clear that they held him responsible for what had happened. He had empowered Yadavs to behave like thugs, they suggested, and the Yadavs had done so.

  The snub wasn’t lost on the chief minister. Helicopters carrying politicians from Delhi now descended regularly into the Katra fields, but Akhilesh, who lived only a few hours away in the same state, didn’t make the drive up.100 He didn’t even mention the bereaved family by name in public statements. All he said was that justice would take its course. In ‘Horror Pradesh’, as an English-language news channel had dubbed the state that Akhilesh governed, these were meaningless words.

  The previous month at a public rally, Akhilesh’s father had protested against capital punishment for rape, saying, ‘Boys will be boys … they make mistakes.’101

  Since Mulayam Singh was the founder of the party, it was natural to assume that his stated position was the party position. ‘You’re safe, right?’ the son said to the most persistent reporters who challenged him on this,102 seeming to suggest that since they hadn’t been raped or killed as yet, the problem couldn’t be all that bad.

  Although the Shakya family had expected as much, for many, the response from Delhi was more disheartening still. The new prime minister tweeted constantly in the days after the hangings. He tweeted about football, Bhutan, organic farming, Vladimir Putin, blood donation and World Environment Day, but he didn’t mention Katra. He finally brought it up in brief, a fortnight later, during a long speech in Parliament about a host of things. ‘These incidents must provoke us to look inwards and seek answers,’103 he said.

  Narendra Modi had made women’s safety a prominent part of his platform for more than one election campaign. He had brought up the Delhi bus rape at the time of the assembly elections in the national capital just a few months earlier. ‘[Delhi] has earned a bad name as a “rape capital”,’ he said. ‘When you vote, do not forget this. Remember [the Delhi bus rape] for a while.’104

  A Gallup poll conducted in the midst of the general elections that took place shortly afterwards showed that only about 4 in 10 women in North India felt safe walking home at night. A majority had no confidence in the police.105

  Modi’s party, the poll noted, had increased its references to women in the 2014 campaign as compared to 2009. Close attention from international media – and the fact that some foreign governments, such as the United Kingdom, had advised women to use caution when travelling in India – had contributed to this shift.

  Within days of becoming prime minister, in May 2014, Modi’s government announced a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards violence against women. The criminal justice system was to be strengthened for ‘effective implementation’.106

  Soon after that, in his first Independence Day speech as prime minister, Modi again raised people’s hopes for change. ‘In every home, parents ask daughters lots of questions as to where she is going, when will she return, and ask her to inform them when she reaches her destination,’ he said. ‘But have you ever asked your son where he is going, why is he going and who are his friends? After all, the person committing the rape is also someone’s son. It’s the responsibility of the parents to stop their sons before they take the wrong path.’107

  Given all this, many people had expected Modi to build on the significant reforms – the new rape laws, the new medical guidelines – that were enacted by his predecessor. But Modi was no reformer. When he did talk about sexual assault, he did so in terms of ‘shame for the country’. He referred to women in patriarchal language, calling them daughters.108 And when the time came for him to demonstrate his ‘zero tolerance’, he sat back.

  Like so many politicians before him, Modi had engaged with the subject of women’s safety to win votes. And like those politicians, as soon as he came to power, it was business as usual.

  98 net worth was estimated at 15.6 million USD: ndtv.com/india-news/mayawatis-assets-worth-111-crores-she-has-380-carats-of-diamonds-471455

  99 ‘We want justice’: mewatch.sg/en/series/undercover-asia-s2/ep7/321996

  100 Akhilesh … didn’t make the drive down: indiatoday.in/india/north/story/Budaun-rape-murder-whats-keeping-akhilesh-away-from-victims-kin-195450-2014-06-02

  101 ‘Boys will be boys’: indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/mulayam-singh-yadav-questions-death-penalty-for-rape-says-boys-make-mistakes/

  102 ‘You’re safe, right?’: youtube.com/watch?v=0XZ7YeLni1c/; ndtv.com/india-news/you-are-safe-arent-you-defiant-akhilesh-on-being-questioned-over-law-order-564718

  103 ‘look inwards and seek answers’: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narendra-Modi-pained-by-Budaun-rape-techie-killing-in-Pune/articleshow/36412050.cms

  104 ‘When you vote, do not forget this’: indiatoday.in/elections/story/delhi-polls-modi-attacks-congress-on-graft-security-of-women-219290-2013-12-01

  105 A majority … had no confidence in the police: news.gallup.com/poll/168956/indian-election-highlights-women-personal-safety-concerns.aspx

  106 strengthened for ‘effective implementation’: indiatoday.in/india/north/story/narendra-modi-government-violence-against-women-criminal-justice-system-bjp-196312-2014-06-09

  107 ‘stop their sons before they take the wrong path’: bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-28799397

  108 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/narendra-modi-hits-out-at-delhi-govt-over-security-of-women-issue/articleshow/26707377.cms?from=mdr

  A Broken System Exposed

  In fact, despite the allegations of bias, the state police were doing the best the
y could. They had by now arrested all the Yadav brothers. Pappu was held by the police on the night of the disappearance itself; his older brothers Avdesh and Urvesh who were staying with family were brought in within the week. Constable Sarvesh and Head Constable Gangwar had been arrested and charged under a section that punishes police officers for penetrative sex with children. They lost their jobs. All five men were accused of gang rape, murder and criminal conspiracy, as well as sexual offences against minors.109

  Sub-Inspector Ram Vilas, who was in charge of the Katra chowki, kept his job, but he was suspended for six months for, as he understood it, having ‘lost control’ of the situation. His subordinates were transferred. The chowki was cleared out and locked. A mulchy carpet of leaves soon filled the courtyard with a decaying smell.

  Many more people were punished for their failure to staunch the tide of negative attention now directed at the state government. A superintendent of police, even a district magistrate, was suspended on direct orders from the chief minister. As many as forty-two police officers from various districts and of various ranks were transferred, presumably as proof that a broken system was being fixed.110

  These obvious efforts to change the narrative didn’t stop some powerful people from continuing to say whatever crossed their mind. Inevitably, these were foolish things.

  Padma was ‘the lone child of her parents’, a top police officer told the media, and ‘her father is one of three brothers with limited resources and if she was not alive, it could benefit others. It could be one of the motives. I am not saying that this is the motive.’111