India's Shame! Gang-Rape of Dalit Sisters Sparks Global Outrage

by Sonal Bhadoria

Sadly, it requires a level of shocking antics for a horrific crime as rape to register into the national consciousness, numbed by everyday stories for anybody to notice or care. After months of election coverage, this brutal gang-rape in lawless UP has not only enraged the nation, but also forced the international community to take notice of India’s shocking culture of rape, that hasn’t gone anywhere.

On Wednesday morning, the small village of Katra, in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district woke up to a chilling sight. Two teenage girls were found hanging from a mango tree in an orchid. The two girls, who were cousins and aged 14 and 15 years, had gone missing from their house on Tuesday night.

The post-mortem report confirmed rape of the two girls ,the autopsy also confirmed that they were strangled. Their families allege that they were first brutally gang-raped by four men of the village and then hanged. They also alleged that for many hours after the girls went missing the local police refused to register a first information report.

It was only when angry villagers sat under the tree and prevented authorities from taking them down until the suspects were arrested, that the police was forced to swing into action mode. Till that time, TV crews had already captured the grisly visuals of the girls’ dead bodies swaying in the wind and the media took up the story thereafter.

The case has managed to send shock waves across for various reasons:

Firstly, even though police apathy has entered our common lexicon, here two policemen are actually accused of taking part in the assault of the girls. The father of one of the girls has alleged that head of the local police station ignored his pleas and refused to register a FIR many hours after the girls went missing. "Had the cops responded immediately and left in search of the girls when the family approached them, the girls could have been recovered safe and sound," Mansingh Chauhan, Superintendent of Police, City, Badaun told NDTV.

Secondly, the case has again revealed the ugly underbelly of India’s age old caste system, which is sadly existing and thriving in full flow, particularly in rural areas. The family belongs to the Dalit community and the perpetrators of the heinous crime belonged to the higher Yadav caste. For centuries, dalits have been at the receiving end of discrimination in India, wherein a upper caste born would feel free to harass, rape and even murder lower castes with impunity and such cases show that things haven’t changed much, particularly for the dalit women, who are harassed, taunted and raped at will-many times just for their crime of belonging to the low caste.Uttar Pradesh is still strongly divided by caste and religion, a fact expertly exploited by politicians for their political gains.

Here, all the main accused are from the influential Yadav upper caste. Brothers Pappu and Awadhesh Yadav –the alleged rapists and Awadhesh Yadav have been arrested, whereas constables Chhatrapal Yadav and Sarvesh Yadav have been terminated. Four others Urvesh Yadav (brother of Pappu and Awadhesh), policeman Chhatrapal Yadav and two unidentified persons are still at large. The father has alleged that when he went to the local police station and asked that Yadav's house be searched, the constables "took the side of the culprits."They abused and misbehaved with us." the father said. Had they acted on time, the girls could have been saved.

Thirdly, this case has managed to highlight an often neglected issue of sanitation in India’s villages.

Around half of India’s billion plus population does not have access to a toilet and this problem becomes more pronounced for rural women, who have to use the fields around the villages before sunrise and after sunsets to relieve themselves, thus making them more vulnerable to assaults. The fathers of the girls said they began looking for them soon after they had stepped out of their home to go to the bathroom, as there were no toilets in their home.

Fourthly, it has brought the R word back into the national consciousness. The December 2012 gang-rape case may have shook us, battered our conscience to wake up, gave India’s rape culture a global audience and perhaps shamed some into becoming more civilised when it came to talking about women’s rights and safety issues. But even after the landmark judgment and change in our country’s laws, daily stories of abuse and rape continue to trickle in on a daily basis, only less highlighted in the media due to the lack of any shock factor. Records show a rape is committed every 22 minutes in India. But statistics and official records are never able to reveal the full picture, because many more cases go unreported, mainly due to the widespread culture of tolerance for sexual violence in India. Rape, harassment, sexual assault, eve-teasing, mistreatment & disrespect of women are denounced, still accepted, because it has become part of our day-to-day lives. Stares, inappropriate touching and cheap comments are often ignored, for the fear of one’s safety and the general apathy of people around us. The social stigma that greets a victim is saddening enough for them to wish they hadn’t reported it in the first place. Women are pressurized by family and even police to keep quiet about sexual assaults, and those who do report, are often ostracized and ridiculed publicly. And lastly, it has again highlighted the state of utter lawlessness and chaos that Uttar Pradesh has descended into. From power shortages, to communal riots and caste violence, the 2 year old Akhilesh Yadav government has haughtily brushed aside accusations without offering any solutions or results. Even the recent thrashing they received by BJP in the Lok Sabha polls seems to have fallen short in waking them up to the reality of their sheer incompetence in running their administration.

Akhilesh Yadav has termed the gang rape as "unfortunate and ordered the police to arrest all the accused immediately adding that a fast-track court should be constituted to ensure that they were duly punished. The CM also sanctioned financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the victims. But all this, after 3 days of the crime, in which the state’s police is also the guilty party. But what about their attitude. On being asked about the lawlessness in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav told journalists,' you are safe, so why do you worry'. And we are to be blamed to expect more from the son of a man who opposed to the law calling for gang rapists to be executed by saying 'Boys will be boys. They make mistakes.'

Is any rapist suppose to fear the law or the administration, when such statements are let loose by their elected netas?The MP from Badaun is Dharmendra Yadav, Mulayam Singh's nephew. They all will order inquiries, fire constables, transfer babus , do everything but take responsibility. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and their clan will now wait for this issue to die down and then go back to their default mode of incompetence. They still have 3 more years of power in Uttar Pradesh.

This ‘mistake’ has again put India into the global spotlight, for the wrong reasons. This news has been covered by every major news agency and paper of repute. A report in CNN highlighted the social media’s reaction to the incident, highlighting one main question "When is India going to change?"The Guardian mentioned the December 2012 gang-rape and its after-effects in India. The New York Times lamented about India’s deeply entrenched caste system.

We see, we absorb, we debate and then we wait. For the change that hopefully will come.