What Women Should Wear To Avoid Being Killed

Now, khaps blame western attire for honour killings

USHINOR MAJUMDAR

2013-10-24 , Issue 44 Volume 10

Deadly dresses Khaps have banned western wear for women. Photo: Sudeep Chaudhuri

The caste councils in Haryana, known as ‘khaps’, believe that women are to blame for honour killings. They have issuedTaliban-style diktats on what women should wear and even the kind of food they should eat.

Following the gruesome murders on 18 September of a couple in Garnavati village of Rohtak district, 130 km west of New Delhi, several khap meetings were organised in the region where the mood was overwhelmingly in favour of the killings. Narendar Barak alias Billu Pehalwan had killed his daughter Nidhi Barak and beheaded Dharmendra Barak for defying the Jat norm proscribing marriage within the same gotra (clan). As a chilling warning to other youngsters, the bodies of the murdered couple were put on a tractor and paraded across the village.

The Jats consider people from the same gotra to be siblings, so sexual relations between a man and a woman of the same gotra is seen as incestuous.

While Nidhi’s parents, brother and uncle are behind bars and investigations are underway, the khaps have refused to condemn the heinous murders. Instead, they have tried to pin the blame on “westernisation”. Khap leaders argue that if women wear western clothes, young men get attracted towards them, leading to either sexual assault or consensual sexual relations in disregard to social norms, which leads to killings that are “necessary to protect the community’s honour”. So, women should only wear loose-fitting salwar kameezes with dupattas.

It is shocking how a heinous honour killing has given the khaps another ruse to impose a dress code on women. Through word of mouth, their diktat has spread across villages in Rohtak district.

Besides the dress code, the khaps have also decided that women should have saada khana (a simple diet). And use cell phones only under the supervision of male elders from the family.

While khap leaders initially denied that any such diktat was issued, they don’t mince words in defending the warped logic behind it. Take the case of Hardeep Singh Ahrawat, the chief of the Rohtak Chaurasi Khap, an umbrella body of 84 khaps across the district. “Western wear, especially in colleges, leads to sexual attraction,” he says. “And this leads to rape in some cases. In other cases, it leads to incestuous relationships and marriages between boys and girls belonging to the same gotra or the same village, both of which are forbidden in our community.”

Ahrawat insists that while western wear might be okay for school-going girls, it should be banned for women in colleges. “Women must adhere to the Haryanvi way of dressing in salwar kameez to avoid any form of sexual attraction. Women should cover themselves properly. They should not wear jeans and tight clothes. Revealing and figure-hugging dresses incite sexual thoughts in men,” he says.

As for the diktat on cell phones, the khap leaders argue that youngsters use mobiles to carry on forbidden relationships surreptitiously. As these relationships sometimes end up in honour killings, the khaps justify the curbs on the use of cell phones as a preventive measure to ensure that such killings don’t become necessary to protect social norms!

Even more hilarious is the rationalisation of why women must have a “simple diet”. “The simple diet is best because it keeps your mind clear of any vices or evil thoughts,” says a politician from Haryana, who did not wish to be named. “This is our way of life. There is so much violence against women today because we have allowed westernisation to creep in and change our lifestyle.” Last year, too, a khap panchayathad blamed fast food for sexual crimes against women.

So, even as Ahrawat says that khaps should not support honour killings, the onus to prevent them has been put squarely on the shoulders of young women, who must conform to the khaps’ diktats, or else, be prepared to face the consequences. Welcome to the medieval world of khaps, still alive and kicking in the 21st century.

http://www.tehelka.com/what-women-should-wear-to-avoid-being-killed

Sex as trade and tradition

A lower caste community in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where young girls, often in their teens, engage in prostitution with the consent of the community.

By Asit Jolly | India Today 

Baithega kya?" Two kilometres along the four-lane Jaipur Highway outside Bharatpur, these two innocuous words denote an unambiguous, almost lilting, come-on to have sex. Batting eyelashes, imperceptibly meaningful nods help things along for the uninitiated.

"Sex hamara khandaani dhanda hai (Sex is our family business)," says Manju Thakur, 30, who's zealously protective of what to her is a lucrative livelihood. Diminutive but feisty, the sex worker is a Bedia, a lower caste community in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where young girls, often in their teens, engage in prostitution with the consent of the community.

Plying the only trade she knows from the profusely littered roadside near Bharatpur's Malaha village, Manju is a veteran. "I was just about 10 or 11 years old when my father, who is dead now, sent me to a well-off businessman in Dhaulpur," she says, appearing almost nostalgic recalling the Rs 10,000 her family received in exchange for her loss of virginity. "Twenty years ago, it was the maximum any girl was paid for here," she says also proudly informing you how "rich customers from Jaipur" still come by asking for her.

Present day Malaha (also known locally as Pachhi ka Nagla or 'bird village'), has more than a hundred Bedia women engaged in sex work. Often revealingly attired, with heavily made-up faces, accentuated by bright crimson or purple lipstick, they stand about beckoning potential clients. The imposing concrete flyover that bifurcated the Bedia basti in 2005 hasn't affected the trade. This is perhaps the only place in Rajasthan where more motorists forsake the convenience of the flyover, taking the potholed side-roads instead to stop by or simply get a closer look at the daily spectacle.

"Dhanda chokha hai (Business is good)," Manju smiles reapplying her lipstick in anticipation of another temporary suitor. Manju and her sisters Nisha, 25, and Reshma, 24, as well as their 20-year-old bua (aunt) Chandani support a family of 40 including five brothers, their wives, their children and a brood of offspring from the trade. "I tried hard to get them to marry," says Saroj, Manju's 50-year-old mother. But none of the girls would even consider what each one of them saw as a lifetime of domestic drudgery.

The men vehemently protest allegations that their bound-by-tradition women are forced to accept sex work as their only vocation. "Zabardasti ka nahi, raazi ka sauda hai ye (There is no force, this is by consent)," insists Vijender, 37, who thrives on the earnings of six sisters and two aunts. The pot-bellied brother claims that in keeping with the community's tradition, each of his sisters were asked to choose: "Har ek se poochha gaya tha, dhanda karogi ya shaadi (Each one was asked if she wanted marriage or to enter the sex trade)," he says.

Manju and Nisha's 39-year-old brother Lakhan concurs. It's been more than a good living for him: A shining new motorcycle and a Scorpio SUV that he plies as a cab, but only when he chooses to. "Let the government give me a decent job, I'll forbid my sisters from sex work," Lakhan promises. In the background both sisters smirk at the notion.

"Shaadi toh barbadi hai (Marriage leads to ruin)," Nisha quotes a distinctly patriarchal proverb. Bedia wives are usually not part of the dhanda (sex work) and spend their lives cooking, cleaning, washing and serving the needs of the men, the children and their 'working' sisters-in-laws. "Being a housewife is like being a mule," says Nisha who grew up aware of both the independence and seemingly infinite spending power her 'working' aunts enjoyed and the toilsome routine her own mother was condemned to.

Nisha admits, hesitantly, that she started out as a full-time sex worker when she was just 14. Ten years on, she earns between Rs 1,200 and Rs 2,000 from a single day's work-10 to 20 times the government approved wage of Rs 149. This entails sex with six to 10 men. On good days, such as during the festival season or closer to workers' monthly paydays, the take-home could easily double, she adds.

The 'tricks of the trade' are hardly a secret for teenage girls who have watched sisters and aunts engage in furtive, 10-minute sexual encounters behind cursorily strung bedsheets on the roadside. "Squawking loudly to call my brothers when a customer became unruly was my only real sex education. The rest of the stuff came naturally," Manju says.

But not every Bedia sex worker has the going so good. Fifty feet from Manju and Nisha's house washed in terracotta hues, Kaali (name changed) struggles to make ends meet. Diagnosed with hiv two years ago, she continues to solicit customers. "I know no other work and my brothers are too young to support me," explains the 30-year-old, hastily adding that now she "never has sex without a condom."

"The notion of choice in relation to the work of women who are poor is problematic. The distinction between 'forced' and 'voluntarily' sex work where the gamut of choices is non-existent is the reality of most marginalised women," says Jyoti Sanghera, 57, founding member of the Bangkok-based Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW).

Into his second tenure in the district, better known as the location of one of the world's best-kept bird sanctuaries, Bharatpur's 34-year-old Collector Niraj Kumar Pawan has become something of a Robin Hood among the Bedia villagers. The hands-on civil servant is the first government representative to have gained the community's confidence in recognising that "brute police force cannot turn people away from centuries old tradition".

Eight years ago, just months after his predecessors in the district administration tried literally to drive the Bedi's into the ground by setting their basti at Malaha on fire, Pawan got the government to sanction the first and only school for Bedia children. Still only a difficult-to-decipher foundation amidst the dense undergrowth fringing the Bharatpur bird sanctuary, the promise of the school has evidently inspired residents.

"My girl's future will be different," says Riya, a 35-year-old sex worker whose diligent daily duty is to get 11-year-old Archana, her only daughter, to school. The doting mom however has no qualms about her own life: "I must always do the dhanda but my girl will have a real choice," she says.

Pawan believes education will equip Bedia girls with the never-before alternative of "being able to make an informed choice". Amidst objections against pucca constructions within 500 m of the bird sanctuary, the open-air Bedia school is set to enter a Rs 4.5-lakh prefabricated premises that stops short of contravening environmental safeguards. "They will soon have proper schoolrooms," he promises.

The collector's repeated interventions in Malaha and neighbouring Bagdari village, where some Bedias moved following the expansion of the Jaipur Highway in 2005, have persuaded key changes within the community. "Girls below 18 no longer engage in sex work," Pawan claims, amid rumours about fresh bidding for the initiation of two teenagers. Compared to the Rs 10,000 that Manju's family got 20 years ago, the current going price for 'teenage virgins', insiders say, could range between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 2 lakh, which is half the bride price a Bedia girl commands if she chooses to marry instead.

In their 15-bigha settlement outside Bagdari, Bedias face their worst fate: Forced to survive without electricity or water, their children remain segregated in the village school and the upper caste sarpanch refuses to endorse applications for voters' identity or Adhaar cards. "We have been rendered outcasts in our own country," says Ravi Kumar, 29, who struggles on the meagre earnings from a corrugated steel sheet shop at the entrance of the settlement.

Both Kumar and his 60-year-old mother Leelawati acknowledge that the community wouldn't be able to survive but for the lucrative incomes their young women make from sex work. "The (upper caste) villagers wilfully discriminate against our children and yet line up to sleep with our girls and even demand discounts," says the shopkeeper.

One concrete wall of the 20 ft underpass below the Malaha flyover bears a telling advert: "Pyar ka ek anmol taufa'-Freedom 5. Paanch saal tak pregnancy se tension free." The Bedia women are amused. "Children are good," they say. "Girls will earn more money and boys will be their protectors."
http://in.news.yahoo.com/sex-as-trade-and-tradition-073445979.html

Gujarat: Patriarchy Revisited - A Dress Code for Teachers

Vol - XLVIII No. 43, October 26, 2013 | Nandini Manjrekar 

Instead of focusing on the educational infrastructure and cultivating the right educational atmosphere in the state, the Gujarat government, absurdly, is trying to enforce a dress code for women teachers. The move is an attempt to control women’s sexuality, while at the same time it impinges upon the personal freedom to dress according to one’s faith.

Nandini Manjrekar (nandini@tiss.edu) teaches at the School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

A training session held for teachers of municipal corporation schools in Baroda on 11 October, 2013, once again brought to the fore the contentious issue of the dress code for women teachers in Gujarat. Since last year, education administrators in Gujarat's districts have been seeking to outdo each other in attempts to enforce a dress code for teachers, particularly women teachers for whom wearing sarees has been made compulsory. In the tribal district of Dahod, for example, teachers were told to wear white (men could wear trousers and women were expected to wear sarees). Education authorities have threatened to take punitive measures if the teachers do not comply, generating ‒ if one goes by Facebook (yes, government school teachers in most states have pages) ‒ an intense debate on the “pros and cons” of a dress code. It appears that actions on the part of district level officers were based on the government's code of conduct for teachers, issued in August 2012, that explicitly stated that women teachers must wear sarees.

Communal Overtones

At the training session in Baroda last week, ten teachers were pulled up by the newly appointed administrative officer of the school board for not coming to the session in sarees. One of the women chastised by the officer was a salwar-kameez clad Muslim teacher who claimed that she did not possess a saree and was unable to wear one on account of her religious background. The officer then subjected her to a lecture on how just as she believed in Allah for her students too she was like Allah in the classroom. When told that her family would not permit her to wear a saree, the official apparently suggested that a burqa could be worn over it and taken off in school. Apparently all the “errant” teachers were told to go home and return in sarees, which this Muslim teacher could not do and was therefore marked absent for the training session. Anyone familiar with the punitive regulations and surveillance under which government school teachers work, will appreciate the seriousness of this. Since this incident, Muslim teachers have been understandably upset with what they see as humiliation of their community and an infringement of their rights to dress in accordance with their faith. Given the communalised environment of Gujarat, it is not surprising that this particular incident has sparked anger in the Muslim community, which feels that the move to enforce sarees is directed towards Muslim women who usually wear salwar-kameezes. During the course of my interactions with teachers in some of these schools, I saw staffrooms in corporation schools abuzz with discussions on the issue of dress code.

In the Muslim dominated areas of the old city where I have been working over the past week, I have been witness to the ways in which the dress code issue has polarised the teachers. While many Muslim teachers, especially the men who are more vocal, see the incident as yet another attempt by the Sangh Parivar to target and subjugate their community, Hindu teachers are keeping a strategic distance from the debate, at least publicly. Muslim women teachers find themselves torn between the workplace rules and community beliefs. On the one hand as government employees they can be punished for defying the rules and on the other they have to face the ire of their family and community for following these very rules. The day after the incident, women teachers frantically called Muslim leaders with some influence in the school board to check whether the threats of punishment were real. One Muslim male teacher wrote a memorandum which appeared in a Gujarati paper decrying the incident as an assault on Muslims led by the officer who had links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Controlling Vidyasahayaks

However, the problem is a little complex, and is more than just an assault by the Hindutva forces on Gujarat's much-threatened secular public education. At the core of the debate is anxiety over a large number of young, qualified para/teaching assistants or vidyasahayaks ‒working under contract‒ who come to school attired in western clothes, meaning jeans (anathema in most quarters) and short tops (even, to everyone’s horror, sleeveless tops). Many women teachers in Baroda, both Hindu and Muslim, say that the government’s move towards a dress code is directed towards these young vidyasahayaks working in schools wearing indecent clothes. On August 2013, 6,500 vidyasahayaks were handed their appointment letters to which a dress code was appended. This code mandates that women have to wear sarees, and male teachers have to avoid T-shirts or jeans. Along with their other “duties”, the dress code has been included as an enforceable rule. As contract employees of the state, vidyasahayaks in Gujarat, like those in other parts of the country, are subject to greater control and surveillance by authorities. In Gujarat they have been fighting a case in the Supreme Court over their fixed pay of Rs 2,500 per month and temporary status up to five years after which they are supposed to get absorbed as regular teachers. The dress code is one of the many ways to control and threaten these contract teachers. Under the latest rules, the District Education Officer (DEO) and District Primary Education Officer (DPEO) have been authorised to terminate the services of a vidyasahayak who does not comply with any of these rules.

Coercion and control over young contract teachers is a dominant strand in the larger story but one that can be easily manipulated by state authorities to target Muslim women in particular. After all the debate over decent attire is inspired by the image of the ideal saree-clad Bharatiya naari (Indian woman) who is supposed to be a role model for children of the imagined nation and a familiar icon of many RSS moral texts. Two years back, even before the state-wide rule was enforced, a Muslim vidyasahayak in Anand who had requested that she be exempted from wearing sarees to work was refused permission on the ground that the service rules required her to wear a saree. Across the communal divide, however, is a story of a Hindu teacher who has bravely stood up to this government rule. Last week, the Indian Express (10 October, 2013) reported that a teacher in Anand district, Chhaya Upadhyaya, had repeatedly raised objections to the imposition of a dress code for female vidyasahayaks. Upadhyaya, in an open letter to the chief minister, wrote that she had been fighting against this rule for thirteen years, and as far back as 2004, her school was given an adverse report stating that “no teaching was taking place in the school” because some teachers were not in sarees at the time of inspection.

An Unconstitutional Code

The fact is that the salwar-kameez has become the preferred attire of choice for many working women across India. It is especially convenient for teachers working in mofussil and village schools, since they often have to travel distances in the face of inadequate or non-existent public transport facilities, take multiple forms of transport ‒ which are often extremely crowded‒ and cover considerable distances on foot. Additionally, their work with young children also demands mobility and ease of movement. In January 2013, a Baroda-based autonomous women's organisation Sahiyar Stree Sanghathan presented a charter of demands to the state government (following the release of the Justice Verma Commission report) and demanded that the dress code for teachers be scrapped since it was unconstitutional. The whole issue of imposition of a dress code, as one Muslim woman teacher in Baroda pointed out even as the debate was assuming communal colours, was principally a violation of the constitutional freedoms granted to women.

Control over what women teachers wear exists in both public and private schools. Many elite private schools have written and unwritten dress codes; some new international schools even insist on western wear that is fashionable butdecent. In some new private schools one often sees young women teachers in uniform‒ corporate style dress, black trousers and white shirts, or regulation sarees in urban/semi-urban schools. Not much is known about how these regimes operate in private schools, but over the last few years the dress code issue for government school teachers has raised its head in state after state. “Decency” of attire finds a mention in National Council of Teacher Education’s (NCTE) code of professional ethics for teachers. In fact, proponents of a dress code constantly refer to NCTE guidelines and the Right to Education Act (RTE). For instance, after Upadhyaya's spirited letter to Chief Minister Narendra Modi last week threatening legal recourse, Anand district officials after meeting both her as well as the Muslim teacher who opposed the saree code, stated that while amendments may be necessary, these would have to comply with the official position that teachers' attire should be in keeping with “the decorum of the teaching profession”. It is interesting that these new policy frameworks, often associated with a progressive, equitable and social justice-oriented thinking in the education sector, are routinely being cited to justify the dress code as part of some mandated compliance to national policy norms. In Orissa, for example, the government issued a rule enforcing a dress code for teachers ostensibly to curb teacher absenteeism!

The “decorum of the teaching profession” is a convenient ruse to control women who seek employment in the academic domain. While college students have been the focus of dress code regimes for long, the imposition of these codes for teachers is relatively new and linked to anxieties around “loss of decorum” of the teaching profession with the entry of younger women. While the recent imposition of a dress code for teachers in Hindu College in Delhi University met with legitimate outrage, dress code regimes are being enforced in schools all over the country and also, fortunately, been resisted by women. Last year, a woman teaching in a Muslim trust school in Mallapuram, Kerala approached the State Human Rights Commission after she was suspended for wearing a white overcoat over her clothes and not the lime green one mandated by the management (which later clarified that the colour of the coat was not lime green but “asparagus” !)

In 2010, the Calcutta High Court delivered a landmark judgment barring any state-run or state-funded institution from imposing a dress code for teachers. The petition was filed by women teachers of a Singur school, which had enforced a white saree code. The judge rightly pointed out that attention should be paid to developing proper infrastructure and cultivating the right educational atmosphere rather than issuing fatwas on what kind of attire a teacher should wear while attending school.

A Way to Curb Women’s Sexuality

Within educational spaces, issues related to young people’s and especially young women’s sexuality are being debated since the tragic gang-rape of 16 December. Even though conservative and far removed from the Justice Verma report which highlights the need for sexuality education, one hopes against hope that these debates signal the beginning of the end of silence over the subject of women’s sexuality.

Unfortunately within the fractured social spaces of the mohalla, school and administration in Gujarat, the resurgent conservatism regarding issues concerning women's sexuality has taken the debate to another level of absurdity, frustrating attempts at genuine discussion. While interacting with school teachers and officials, I have heard various justifications for the saree rule ‒ that children (especially young male students) are easily distracted in classrooms when the dupatta flutters under the fan or because of the predilection of young women to wear fashionably tight kurtas; and the contrary view from Muslim male teachers who claim that if anything the saree, in which the midriff is exposed, is not a decent garment for a teacher. Members of Gandhian institutions, which typically follow a strict dress code, suggest that a dress code referring to sarees should include a way of draping them as Christian missionaries do, with no exposure of the midriff. This in a state which has seen horrific cases of sexual abuse against students training to be teachers (as in the infamous PTC college, Patan, where successive batches of students were sexually abused by the male faculty), not to mention the horrors perpetrated against women in the 2002 riots carried out under the state's gaze. However tragic and farcical, it is most likely that the younger women holding contract jobs and women belonging to the Muslim faith who will face the brunt of the punitive measures if they fail to comply with the dress code.
http://www.epw.in/web-exclusives/gujarat-patriarchy-revisited-dress-code-teachers.html?ip_login_no_cache=ed9a99a433a133cabad1ba2bc1d41058

No road, no sex, Colombian town's women tell their husbands

INDIA TODAY ONLINE  NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 25, 2013 |

The women of Barbacaos, Colombia, have crossed their legs and plan to keep them that way until the roads to their remote region are not repaved. This is their second sex strike in the last two years.

Called the "Crossed Legs movement", the women have refused to have sex with their husbands until the road to their small, isolated town of Barbacaos is not repaired.

Interestingly enough, according to reports, the ploy has worked and construction has begun on the single road. The road is reported to be in such a condition that it takes up to 14 hours to get to the nearest hospital.{mosimage}

The first time the women went on a "sex strike" was in 2011 to demand the building of a better road to their town. The movement was sparked after a young woman died along with her unborn child enroute to the hospital because the ambulance got stuck on the road and couldn't reach the hospital in time to save the girl and the baby.

The government had relented after three months and 19 days and promised to pay $21million to pave at least half of the 35-mile road. However, two years later with no change in the situation, the women have resumed their strike.

Maybe the women of some towns here in India can learn something from the women all the way across the world in Barbacaos, Colombia.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/colombia-towns-women-strike-sex.-tell-men-to-build-road-first-or-go-dry/1/320174.html

Saudi women inching closer ever to the wheel

By Acil Tabbara

October 24

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Dubai (AFP) - Saudi female activists are gearing up to test a long-standing driving ban, with more defiant women already getting behind the wheel as the authorities seem to be taking a more lenient approach.

Under the slogan "women's driving is a choice," they have called on social networks for a turn-out on Saturday in a campaign in the world's only country that bans women from driving.

"October 26 is a day on which women in Saudi Arabia will say they are serious about driving and that this matter must be resolved," said Manal al-Sharif, who was arrested and held for nine days in May 2011 for posting online a video of herself behind the wheel.

In a protest she led the following month, a number of women were stopped by police and forced to sign a pledge not to drive again.

The 34-year-old computer engineer who now lives in Dubai told AFP women have already begun responding to the call, and "more than 50 videos showing women currently driving" have been posted online during the past two weeks.

With the exception of two women who were briefly stopped by police, authorities have so far not intervened to halt any of the female motorists.

This, combined with what seems to be more social acceptance to the new phenomenon is encouraging more women to get behind the wheel along major roads across the kingdom.

A video posted on social networks this month shows a fully veiled woman driving in Riyadh as male motorists and families give her the "thumbs up" in support.

"There will be a November 26, December 26, a January 26, until authorities issue the first driving permit to a Saudi woman," said Sharif.

To reduce the risk of accidents, only women who have driving licences issued abroad are being invited to participate in the campaign. Obviously, none are issued in Saudi Arabia.

Dangerous for the ovaries?

Woman driver defies Saudi banPlay video."

But conservative religious figures are still opposed to women driving.

A Saudi cleric's warning last month that driving was dangerous to the health of women and of their children sparked an online wave of mockery.

"Physiological science" has found that driving "automatically affects the ovaries and pushes up the pelvis," Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaydan warned in remarks to news website Sabq.org.

"This is why we find that children born to most women who continuously drive suffer from clinical disorders of varying degrees," he said.

One female tweeter retorted: "When idiocy marries dogma in the chapel of medieval traditions, this is their prodigal child."

"What a mentality we have. People went to space and you still ban women from driving. Idiots," said another comment.

Women who have been calling for three decades for the right to drive in the ultra-conservative kingdom have learned that public gatherings can get them in trouble in the absolute monarchy where any protests are officially banned.

In 1990, 47 women were arrested and punished after demonstrating in cars. The minister of interior subsequently banned women from driving but no law was ever promulgated.

This time, "there will be no demonstrations or rallying points," activist Aziza al-Youssef told AFP.

Youssef spoke of "positive indications" from authorities. In particular, she cited the chief of the notorious religious police, Sheikh Abdullatif al-Sheikh, and Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa affirming this year that no religious text bans women from driving.

Even so, Saudi Arabia's appointed advisory Shura Consultative Council rejected on October 10 a move by three female members to put the ban up for discussion.

Woman Driver Defies Saudi Ban in RiyadhPlay video."

Activists argue that driving does not violate Islamic law (sharia) as claimed by conservatives who support the ban.

"Just as wives of the (Muslim) Prophet (Mohammed's) companions travelled on camel and horseback, it is our right to drive using the transportation means available during our modern era," activists said in an online petition linked to Saturday's campaign.

The petition has amassed more than 16,000 signatures since September, despite being blocked only two weeks after its launch.

In another argument, activists point to the kingdom's underdeveloped public transport system and say many families cannot afford to hire drivers.

"My salary is 3,500 riyals (around $941/682 euros) and a driver costs me 1,200 riyals," a divorced mother wrote on the campaign website.

Women's rights have always sparked controversy in the kingdom.

King Abdullah's appointment of 30 women to the 150-member Shura Council in January drew protests from radical clerics in the kingdom.

His predecessor, king Saud, had to dispatch troops to protect the first girls' school in the 1960s.

For Sharif the campaign aims to push women in the kingdom to demand "rights which are even more significant than the right to drive."

Diplomats at a UN review of Saudi Arabia's human rights record on Monday condemned the kingdom's failure to abolish a system requiring women to seek permission from male relatives to do basic things such as leave the country, and criticised the ban on driving.

Saudi women, forced to cover from head to toe, still need permission from a male guardian to travel, work and marry

.http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-women-inching-closer-ever-wheel-184851672.html
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/entertainment/13-Aug-2012/it-s-saudi-women-only-city
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/20-Jan-2013/doors-opening-for-saudi-women

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Why are 18 years not enough to escape your rapists?

By KR Meera | Grist Media – Mon 21 Oct, 2013

In 1996, she was 16. She was raped by 42 men in 40 days. Since then, the attempts of the woman, forever known as ‘the Suryanelli girl’, to live a life with dignity have been derailed by public ridicule and an endless legal battle. Our writer meets the survivor of one of India’s most infamous rape cases and discovers how, nearly 18 years later, her ordeal continues; how we won’t give her justice but remain pruriently obsessed with every detail of her life“I’m scared about which officer is going to take charge at my office. The person who was in charge earlier was a good man. But he retired yesterday. I was shattered by rumours that someone who used to work in the office earlier has asked to be posted here again. He was one of those who tormented me the most…”

She speaks with a faded smile. Her voice has the innocence of a schoolchild. But in her eyes and voice is a detachment. Self-conscious about her body, she shrinks in a chair across the table.

The three inhabitants of that house seem like lifeless objects – the 75-year-old father, the 70-year-old mother, and she, a 33-year-old. Sofas, a TV, chairs around a dining table spread with books and medicines.

Her father’s face is swollen and marked by the pain of sickness. He speaks little, and that softly. Her mother speaks continuously, panting a little. Both have heart ailments. Her father is diabetic, among other things; her mother has bronchitis and uterine problems. Their condition stirs alarm in us, and anxiety about her. But she has few anxieties -- because there’s little that can trouble her beyond the horrors she has experienced already.She was 16, when she became the victim of the first child trafficking case that shook Kerala. A Class 9 student from a village called Suryanelli. Raju, the conductor of the private bus in which she travelled to school, pretended to be in love with her. He morphed a nude body onto the head in a photograph he snatched from her hand and threatened to publicise it.

As an alternative, he promised to marry her and lured her out of school. Than was on January 16, 1996. A woman called Usha sat next to her on the bus, pretending to be a stranger. At Kothamangalam, Raju disappeared. Usha approached the frightened girl, and promised to escort her to a relative’s house in Mundakkayam. Usha took her to Kottayam instead. 

A protest against PJ Kurien and retired HC judge R Basant. Photo credit: Harris Kuttipuram Madhyamam

Advocate Dharmarajan awaited them. He took the child to a lodge, where he raped her. He then took her to Ernakulam, Kumily, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and then back to Kumily, selling her to 42 men over a 40-day period. When she protested, she was drugged and beaten. Then, three women called Usha, Zeenat and Mary, along with autorickshaw driver Jamal, took over ‘responsibility’ for her.  They served her up to many ‘big shots’. 

On 26 February, she showed up at the post office where her father worked, a bloated, half-dead figure. The miseries she had experienced came to light. The list of those who had assaulted her included the name of PJ Kurien, a former professor of physics, at the time a Member of Parliament and Union Minister and today, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. (Kurien belongs to the Congress Party, the leading partner in the alliances that rule both at the State and Central governments.)

She sought justice – but from that moment on, she and her family have been punished for her tragedy. As the case drags from court to court, her exhausted father, unwell mother, and a sister who lives in hiding continue to pay damages.

The woman whom Kerala calls the Suryanelli girl still has the face of a schoolgirl who is unaware of the deceptions practiced by the world. Her body, however, is bloated from her many medications and from being shut up in her house. She suffers intermittent fevers. She has other persistent illnesses, such as migraine, backaches, asthma, depression and fatigue. Every month the three members of the family seem to take turns to be hospitalized. The doctors don’t know who she is, or the wounds that were inflicted on her body, mind and spirit. And so she doesn’t quite receive the treatment she needs. Over the last two months, she and her father have spent two weeks each in hospital.

Last June, her father became very sick, with complications related to the cardiac bypass surgery he underwent in 2004 that included a hernia and continuous vomiting. The mother and daughter struggled to reach him to a hospital in the middle of the night. In the middle of the epidemics of dengue and chikungunya that were plaguing Kerala, no hospital had room. Eventually, they made it to a private hospital in Kottayam. The doctor who examined the patient was clear – the patient needed surgery immediately.

But with no rooms available, the patient would have to be admitted to the general ward. ‘And my daughter and I?’, the mother asked. You can sit in the ward on a chair by the patient’s bed; let your daughter sit outside. The father and mother looked at each other. They couldn’t say ‘This isn’t a daughter we can leave waiting on the verandah.’ Someone was bound to recognize her, as had happened many times in the past. Sometimes, the reaction would stop at ridicule. At others, it escalated to assault.

So they fled to Karnataka, to the hospital where the original surgery was done. Completed the surgery.  Stayed in hospital in the security of anonymity for forty days. Step by step her father returned from the edge of death. He cannot let himself die for if he does, three women will have to fend for themselves – three women who are weapons for some factions, and prey for others.

They have no one to help them. Their relatives gave up on them a long time ago.  When the father’s mother died, they were not told. They were not informed about the deaths of siblings and other relatives either. They are not invited to weddings or naming ceremonies of friends or family members.  There’s not a single house where they are welcome to visit. The mother’s family also keeps them at a distance, annoyed at the way old stories are repeatedly resurrected by the media. One aunt keeps in limited touch; they are ostracized by everyone else. 

To the community, they are a spectacle. Should they wear nice clothes, people are uncomfortable. Should they be heard speaking or laughing, they attract comments of the “What cheek!” variety. Ideally, society wishes to see them miserable and dressed in mourning. It believes that women whose ‘character’ has been compromised and their families have no right to smile. So they don’t smile. Or speak. They have no social life at all. Few people darken their doors, apart from journalists who do so every time there is a new break in the ongoing news saga. 

A protest in Delhi asking for justice for the Suryanelli victim. Photo credit: Fotocorp

She can be attacked at any time -- physically, emotionally or economically. Her experiences are different from those of other trafficking victims. What wrecked her life was that fifteen days after she had managed to escape from the traffickers, she recognized a picture of Kurien (Minister of State for Industries and Minister of State for Non-Conventional Energy in the Union Cabinet at the time) in the newspaper and identified him as one of the men who had sexually abused her. The Congress party, the Church and the Nair Service Society (NSS) backed Kurien. Rumours began to circulate. She and her family were vilified. Character assassinations abounded.

“He is a big shot. Compared to his position, we are all just worms. Why would we need to malign a person of his stature? We had already gone through so much. Suffered the jeers and contempt and derision of the community for eighteen years. What could we possibly gain by lying and falsely accusing him?” asks her father.

What have they gained? They needed to raise funds through a public subscription for his last surgery. If they had kept their various tribulations under wraps, they could have fled somewhere to keep their middle class lives secure. Or they could have auctioned themselves to the highest political bidder and become rich. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they live for what they still believe to be the truth. Despite every blow, they insist on repeating the same truth.  

And for that very reason, she has become a political instrument. A life designed for the UDF (United Democratic Front: an alliance of political parties created by Congress party leader K Karunakaran) to beat up, and for the LDF (Left Democratic Front: a coalition of left-leaning parties) to ‘protect’. Except that the beaters-up and the protectors forget that she is a human being with the right to live with dignity.

“I was a nurse with the Harrison Estate hospital,” says the mother. And the children’s father was a postmaster. “We had a lot of expectations for our two daughters. Since the educational facilities in a remote village like Suryanelli were limited, and we wanted our children to get the best opportunities possible, we sent our children to boarding school. Our older daughter was very bright. She was courageous and intelligent and responsible. But she was sickly as a child. She underwent two major surgeries, at six months and one and a half years. The second one was particularly complicated, and she ceased breathing for a while during the surgery.  We made a vow to the Mother at Velankanni. After that, every year we went to Velankanni. Once we got caught up in the case, we couldn’t keep our vow for six years because we had the police guarding our house. We couldn’t even go to church. Even now, only the children’s father and I go to church. She rarely goes out. Three or four months ago, at Suja Teacher’s insistence, we went to see a play. It was about the sexual harassment faced by young girls. We slipped in without anybody else noticing. And Suja Teacher escorted us home as well.”

“Anyone who happens to spot this young woman can’t keep the information to themselves. They need to immediately inform half a dozen people – did you see who that was? The Suryanelli girl,” says college professor, political activist, and member of the board of the Purogamana Kalasahitya Sangam (a Kottayam-based group of writers and artists), Suja Susan George.  She has been the mainstay of this family for years. Most recently, she was responsible for raising the money for the father’s surgery.

“I’ve felt sorry that not even political activists are able to find in themselves the sympathy that this young woman and her family deserve,” laments Prof George. “This is a middle-class family, like yours or mine. They had dreams – they wanted to give their children an education so they could achieve something and then get them married. But it grieves me to see how poorly they are perceived by the community. I was dismayed when even politicians told me that I should not visit this house. Right now, they accept help only from me. And that is because of the trust we have built in our relationship over many years. I’m always anxious when I have to leave them for a few days.  And I’m always anxious about the father’s health.”

On January 16, 1996, when his daughter went missing, the father registered a complaint at the Munnar police station. But the police were busy searching for an old Jeep that had also gone missing. When he discovered the involvement of bus conductor Raju, the father promptly shared this information with the police. On February 19, the police took Raju into custody. But they let him go because of interventions from ‘above’. At the office of the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Munnar, Raju grinned cheekily at the hapless complainant and walked free. If, instead of letting Raju go, the police had interrogated him, the culprits could have been apprehended right then and the child rescued. Instead, she returned, a living corpse, on February 26.  

The father registered a fresh complaint at the Munnar police station. After a preliminary investigation, the police advised the father to withdraw the complaint. When the father was unwilling to do so, the police warned him that he could expect much shaming and dishonour. The next day, the police asked the child to come to the police station to record her statement. They kept the shattered child and her father waiting on the station’s verandah till one o’clock in the morning. A huge crowd had gathered to witness their misery. They mocked the child and made lewd comments.  

The next day, the police took the child for a medical examination. Since this matter too had been publicized, huge crowds had turned up at the hospital as well. The pain of having to take his daughter for a medical examination in the company of the police and through the crowds still haunts the father.

The gynaecologist at the Adimaali Taluk Government Hospital, Dr VK Bhaskaran, conducted the medical examination at 2.30 pm on February 28, 1996.  His certificate records the following: cuts and bruises all over the body. Bite marks and scars of festering wounds where she had been beaten. The injuries in her private parts had become serious wounds because of bacterial infections. They were so bad that pus and blood spurted from the wounds when they were touched. The severe infections had affected the uterus and she would never be able to bear a child. Bodily fluids had collected to swell her body in many places. Her throat was festering. 

The police released the child and her father at Adimaali. Since they had been with the police, the child’s father had no money with him. The child was unable to walk. In tears, the father walked with his daughter through the gawking crowds. They managed to reach home in an auto arranged by an acquaintance. That night, the child’s health took a turn for the worse and she was hospitalized.  

But the police turned up in the morning, insisting that the child needed to be taken to gather evidence. The police wandered through Adimaali town with the child and her parents. The purpose was to determine whether the girl could identify the places she had mentioned in the complaint against conductor Raju. Unprecedented mobs turned up to see the latest scenes in the drama. The media reported that the town had never seen such crowds. 

By mid-March, the police began gathering evidence in earnest. They put the child, together with 40 of the accused, in a van, in which they travelled from place to place for the purpose. The van came to be known as the ‘Suryanelli vehicle’. The gathering of evidence – this grotesque travelling show – took two and a half years. 

When she was snatched, the child was slim. She was dressed in a mid-length skirt and top. When she returned after a month and a half in captivity, she was swollen and bloated. Her old clothes no longer fit her. “The circumstances were such that we could not buy her new clothes. We had a woollen shawl.  People heard that she was being brought as part of evidence gathering and huge crowds gathered everywhere. Every time we got out of the vehicle, we would wrap her up in the shawl. Everywhere people mocked her, abused her, made obscene jokes. We heard this on all those journeys…”, her mother remembers.

“People simply could not understand that this was a child who had been nurtured and raised lovingly by her parents, when they treated her so cruelly. We insisted on going through the judicial process in spite of the relentless shaming because we didn’t want something like this to ever happen again. But to what end? Children continue to go missing. Trafficking of women continues.”

Meanwhile, some people began to protest the treatment of the child by the police and in particular, the way in which she was being paraded from one place to another on the pretext of gathering evidence. Treating a letter sent by an organization from Thrissur as a writ petition, the courts forbade the police to use the child in the evidence-gathering process.

When I asked her if she had met any of the policemen who had treated her badly later, she smiles with detachment. “All the local policemen have since retired. I once saw the then Sub-Inspector of the Devikulam police station at the collector’s office. He recognized me. He glared at me, and walked past.”

The political overtones of the matter created even more misery for the family. A police guard was stationed at her house. Not one or two, but six police personnel.

“That was torture all over again. The child could not step out of the house. If she stepped out, the police would whistle and jeer and make coarse comments. There were six police personnel, including women, stationed at a time. My quarters were close to the dispensary. When I went to the dispensary, she would shut the door and sit inside. If she happened to step outside, they would recall the forty days she had spent in captivity and make vulgar remarks. One day, she ran into the kitchen, poured kerosene over herself and screamed ‘I don’t want to live anymore, Mummy, I want to end it all here’…”, the mother wipes her tears.

The process of investigation created a ruckus in the Legislative Assembly. The case was transferred to the Crime Branch. On July 6, 1996, the responsibility of investigating the case was handed over to the Inspector-General in charge of Administration, Siby Mathews. The investigations were completed. 41 people were arrested. Only the accused called ‘Baanji’ in the records, alleged to be Kurien and named by the girl, was not apprehended. 18 years on, this accused remains the only one the police have been unable to trace.

The young woman recalls that day as follows:  “He came at dusk on the third or fourth day that I spent in captivity at the Kumily Guest House. By then three people had already assaulted me.  He came into the room when I was in the bathroom. When I emerged from the bathroom, I saw him sitting on the bed. I ran back into the bathroom. He banged on the door. I didn’t open it. Then a man came around the back to the window and abused me. He told me to open the door and said that I would be killed if I didn’t open the door. I was terrified and opened the door. I was exhausted and my body ached all over. He grabbed my arm and twisted it. He stamped hard on my foot. I screamed out loud. He raped me cruelly for half an hour. After he left, another man came in. He grabbed me by the hair and hit me with his fists. He said the punishment was for screaming and not treating the man they called Baanji well.”

After an investigation jointly conducted by Inspector-General Siby Mathews and then Deputy Superintendent of Police KK Joshua, suspects were taken into custody. The case was brought to court.  There were 97 witnesses. Given the seriousness of the case, the government appointed G Janardhana Kurup, senior advocate of the Kerala High Court, Special Prosecutor. After reading the investigation report and the child’s testimony, Kurup tended the legal advice that Kurien needed to be included among the accused in the case. Based on the child’s testimony, the police had arrested 41 persons. The girl was able to identify 38 of them. Kurup asked why the child’s testimony was disbelieved only in the case of Kurien, who could have been produced for an identification parade. If the girl was unable to identify him, the matter could then have been set aside.

Kurup took exception to the police’s stand that Kurien could not have been present that day at Kumily, as they had accepted Kurien’s own evidence at face value as proof for this stand. Some of the witnesses produced by Kurien in his defence have since gone on record on various television channels stating that their testimonies in the Suryanelli case were incorrect. It is amazing that back then, and even today, the 
police have been unable to establish Kurien’s innocence beyond reasonable doubt. 

Former Chief Justice Anand of the Supreme Court had issued certain guidelines to be followed in the context of a rape case that he had heard while he was a judge in the Supreme Court. These guidelines were circulated to all the district courts in the country. One of the guidelines was that rape victims were to be treated with sympathy.

“The trial began on November 15, 1999,” says advocate Anila George, who appeared on behalf of the plaintiff. “On the day the trial began, the judge read out the Supreme Court guidelines in the court. He stated that the trial would take place according to the guidelines. No questions on the rapes or assaults would be allowed. There would be no compromise allowed on the matter of the guidelines. This was how the cross-examination was carried out. To one of the questions, the girl’s reply was rather soft. Immediately, the defence counsel jumped up. He asked rudely, ‘Is this how you speak in court? Speak loudly.’ The girl broke down. The court intervened and said that the defence counsel had no right to speak like that. The girl could speak loudly or softly, as she wished. But the girl was unable to regain her composure and the proceedings were adjourned for the day. Several times during the trial, the girl was traumatized by the cross-questioning related to the forty days that she had spent in captivity. At every point, the court treated her with consideration.”

Meanwhile, on March 15, 1999, the young woman had filed a case before the magistrate in Peerumedu, asking that Kurien should also be made an accused in the case. The court ruled that there was sufficient prima facie evidence to make Kurien a defendant and that he should be subjected to cross-examination. Kurien lodged an appeal in the High Court.

On September 2, 2000, the Special Court delivered its verdict. 35 of the accused, including Dharmarajan, were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment and fines imposed on them. The verdict was delivered by Special Court Judge M. Sasidharan Nambiar. Public prosecutors Suresh Babu Joseph, Anila George, and CS Ajayan appeared on behalf of the plaintiff. The Special Court’s trial and verdict was a milestone in Kerala’s judicial history. Ninety-seven witnesses were cross-examined and charges were filed against 41 persons. Four were acquitted, and 35 convicted. Sentences ranged from 4 years to life, along with fines.

In the interim, the EK Nayanar government had given the young woman a job in the Sales Tax Department in the lowest grade. She began to go to work. 

And then, in 2002, there was another strange development. The CBI team investigating the case in which Sr. Abhaya, a nun, was found dead in the well at St. Pius X Convent, Kottayam, summoned the Suryanelli girl to be questioned. With them was Mary of Kunnath House, Kuravilangad, the 38th accused in the Suryanelli case. The CBI had summoned the Suryanelli girl in the light of Mary’s testimony that the girl had told her that she knew many secrets related to the Abhaya case. When Sr. Abhaya was killed, however, the Suryanelli girl was only 11 years old, years before her 40-day purgatory. And she had never stayed in the convent hostel where the nun had been found dead.

“Apart from the fact that she had read about Sr. Abhaya in the papers, she had no connection with the case.  The aim was to get us entangled in another case and apply pressure on us,” the girl’s mother said. At this point, Kurien’s appeal was still pending before the High Court. The CBI official wanted to subject the young woman to a polygraph test. But the media, the opposition and the courts intervened and prevented this.

“The trial and the verdict gave the girl, her family and us the feeling that we had received justice. And that’s when the High Court’s verdict came like a blow…”, observes Anila George.

In January 20, 2005, Justice Basant and Justice Gafoor delivered the verdict on an appeal filed in the High Court by the 35 persons convicted. The High Court acquitted all but one of the 35 people convicted by the Special Court – Dharmarajan. Dharmarajan’s sentence was reduced to five years imprisonment. But Dharmarajan was convicted not on charges of rape, but on charges of inducing the child to enter the flesh trade.

Among other things this new judgement said, ‘She is thus shown to be a girl of deviant character. She was not a normal innocent girl of that age.’ The judgement also remarked on her tendency to friendliness towards strangers and added that ‘when such a girl had gone out of the custody of her parents for about 40 days and had been with several other persons, it cannot be said that her evidence regarding her unwillingness for sexual intercourse should be believed as such without insisting on satisfactory materials for assurance.’ 

The High Court came to the conclusion that the victim had opportunities to escape but did not use them. Instead, she seemed to have wandered the length and breadth of Kerala with the accused. The court believed that the girl had had consensual sexual relations with the accused. That there was no evidence that she had resisted or sought anyone’s help to escape. Moreover, the girl was 16 years old, past the legal age for consensual sex.  The judgment said ‘there is no convincing evidence to show that she was not an unwilling partner for the sexual intercourse.’ The judgment further stated that ‘many of the accused went to her only assuming that she is a prostitute.’ 

The court came to the conclusion that the prosecution had been unable to provide evidence related to abduction, rape or conspiracy. The High Court acquitted all the accused except for Dharmarajan, who was found guilty only of selling a minor for prostitution. His sentence was reduced to five years, and the fine reduced from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 5,000. 

The Kerala government was reluctant to appeal against the High Court’s verdict. Eventually, under pressure from women’s organisations and the media, an appeal was filed in the Supreme Court, which admitted the special leave petitions (SLPs) filed by the Kerala government and others challenging the acquittal of all except Dharmarajan, the prime accused, on November 11, 2005.  

Meanwhile, the parents had retired from service. In keeping with their middle class desires, they built a house in Suryanelli and named it ‘Snehatheeram’ – the shores of love.  But with the High Court verdict, they were again dragged into the limelight. “Back then, tourist guides would bring people who visited local tourist spots to our house and say – ‘Look, that’s the house of the Suryanelli girl.’ Immediately, people would get out of their vehicles, and we became a mini tourist centre.  So we thought we would move from there and build another house. We invited my colleagues and friends to the housewarming ceremony, but no one turned up. So it was just the four of us at the housewarming. Finally, we sold the house at whatever price we could get,” said the victim’s father.

In 2006, the young woman and her family moved from Suryanelli to Kottayam district.  They bought an isolated house in a village.  The house did not have the comforts of the dream house they had built and they suffered a financial loss. But eager to escape public attention, they grabbed the first refuge they could find. Since there were no houses nearby, they managed to live there peacefully for a while.

In the matter of the appeal filed by Kurien in the High Court, after more litigation in the Supreme Court and the Additional Sessions Court, Thodupuzha, High Court judge KR Udayabhanu acquitted him on April 4, 2007 citing the earlier verdict that 34 of the earlier defendants had also been acquitted. The case was decided ex parte, with the victim not being served notice regarding the hearing of the case.

Later that year, on November 16, 2007, the VS Achuthanandan government appealed to the Supreme Court. Appearing for Kurien was one of the highest-paid lawyers in the country – Arun Jaitley, then a BJP MP. The then Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan summoned the case to his bench and quashed it. Along with Justice RV Raveendran, he delivered a single-line judgment that read, “The Special Leave Petition is dismissed”, with no explanation regarding the merits of the petition.  Because it was heard by the Chief Justice, there was no chance for it to be sent to any other bench.

Meanwhile, the young woman was transferred to the Sales Tax Office in Changanassery. The office was notorious for its involvement in sales tax-related scams. In 2011, her sister, who was then working in Calcutta, received a phone call. Lakhs of rupees had gone missing from the office. Until it was traced, she would not be allowed to leave the office. Her sister called her parents. Her father and mother rushed to the office where they found her, shivering in fear.  

The allegation was that a deposit receipt was missing. She was accused of not depositing a sum of Rs 2,26,006. Her superior officer pretended to be helpful and asked her to sign a confession and repay the money if she wanted to keep her job. Based on his advice, she signed a false confession. The family had some limited savings in the form of the parents’ retirement benefits and some gold. They sold the gold and paid the money. A departmental inquiry was held and three staff members were given punishment transfers. The family thought that the matter had ended there.

However, on February 6, 2012, while she was waiting for a bus, the Crime Branch arrived and dramatically arrested her from the bus stop. With that, the anonymity that the family had enjoyed came to an end.  The parents went to the police station with a lawyer, but the young woman had already been remanded by then. Many technical reasons were cited to deny the girl bail more than once. She was released only after a week. By then, because she had been jailed, she was suspended from her job as well.

Of all the horrors after the forty day captivity, this episode was the one that destroyed the family. She was broken by the allegation that she was a thief. One of her colleagues pretended to be her friend and made her take a housing loan on her behalf. She borrowed two lakh rupees from her, and then refused to repay.  She was forced to repay the loan from her salary.

“Her experiences in the Changanassery office completely shattered the young woman. She continues to be an innocent.  She is still unable to figure it out when someone is only pretending friendship. Whatever little happiness she was capable of was destroyed by this repeated experience of betrayed friendship. Now she is detached about everything…” Suja George observes.
 
Meanwhile, after five years, the Supreme Court considered the appeal in the original case. On January 15 this year, a bench comprising Justice AK Patnaik and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra ordered the High Court to hear the appeal afresh and expressed shock at the acquittal of the accused. It criticized the High Court’s observation that sexual relations had occurred with the consent of the girl. That the girl might have had consensual sex with one person was understandable, but the bench observed that the High Court’s stand that she had had consensual sexual relations with 42 persons was shocking. The Court also ruled that a verdict should be delivered within six months, and laterextended this deadline to December 31 of this year.  

The Dharmarajan trial has been underway for over three months now. Dharmarajan, who was released on bail and went into hiding, gave an interview in February to a TV news channel in which heconfirmed that PJ Kurien had indeed assaulted the child and that he had himself escorted Kurien to the Kumily guesthouse. Within days, Dharmarajan was apprehended by the Kerala police. The victim filed a petition in the Thodupuzha sessions court, asking it to direct the Peerumedu court to order a probe against Kurien. The Sessions Court served notice to Kurien, Dharmarajan, Unnikrishnan Nair, Jamal and the Government of Kerala. Dharmarajan retracted his statement in court, saying that he had made it while under the influence of alcohol. The Sessions Court rejected her petition. 

The victim approached the High Court yet again on October 5, to get a case registered charging Kurien, Dharmarajan, Jamal and Unni. The court reserved orders in the case.

Meanwhile, Justice Basant was caught on camera by a TV channel, expressing his opinion that the girl was a child prostitute and that she had not been raped; an opinion that went public.  His views rocked the media and the community. Once again, she became the focus of media attention. I asked advocate Suresh Babu Thomas, one of Kerala’s most distinguished criminal lawyers who was familiar with the Suryanelli girl and her family, what he thought of their lives.  

“In a word, tragedy. I have never seen a greater tragedy in my life. When I see the trials that she and her family have suffered over the years, I feel a helpless rage. The father and mother are invalids. Her bright older sister has been unable to get a good job or get married. She has been in hiding for several years. It was when they had achieved some measure of anonymity and peace that she was arrested again. And that was the end. You wouldn’t wish this fate even on an enemy.”

Anila George adds, “When the Special Court passed its verdict, they thought they had received justice. That was when the adverse High Court verdict came about. Close on its heels came the embezzlement case and the arrest. The tragedy is multiplied by their sense that they have not received justice. The family has no hope left.”

She lives like an automaton now. She waits till the morning commuters’ rush subsides to set out to work so she can find a comparatively empty bus in which to travel. Someone is bound to recognize her on a crowded bus, she fears. She gets onto a similarly uncrowded bus on her way back from work. Watching her walk home from the bus stop is a painful sight. She covers her body with a dupatta and walks slowly, like a blameworthy person. Her constant illnesses make her appear exhausted and older than she is.

“When I think of her parents, I am very apprehensive. How will she manage without them? Even now she lacks the courage to take decisions or act on them. She is unable to distinguish between people she can trust and people who will betray her. Her sister received some marriage proposals. But the moment the boy’s side finds out she is the older sister of the Suryanelli girl, they abuse the family. And in any case, how can we get these girls married to anybody in good faith? What if the experiences that await them after the wedding are worse than they have experienced so far? What if the men who come forward to marry them have been hired [by vested political interests]? It’s a terrible situation,” says Prof George.

When the case came to trial, her parents had reasonable savings. Now, these have been wiped out.
“After all the deductions, I have a take-home salary of Rs 8000. Of this, Rs 5000 goes towards LIC payments. In effect, my salary is Rs 3000. Because my parents receive pensions, we can run the household. My sister got a job very recently. She earns Rs 10,000. If anyone falls ill, all our careful balancing acts fall apart,” she says.

“Although the colleagues I work with now don’t say anything, they don’t see me as one among them. Nobody speaks to me.  I am not close to anyone. I had to take a month’s leave because of my father’s illness. My colleagues deducted a thousand rupees from my salary as my contribution towards a party they held when I was on leave. My father’s treatment was paid for by a public subscription. When I asked for the money deducted for a party in which I did not even participate, they didn’t like it. Angrily, they refunded five hundred rupees,” she weeps. Even now, she is terrified if anyone speaks harshly. She sobs. She shrinks, unable to speak up for herself.

She also wrote letters to the Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, asking to be acquitted in the financial irregularity case in which she had been tricked into giving a false confession, and a second requesting investigation into Kurien’s involvement, and this matter was also raised in the Legislative Assembly in Kerala. While the Chief Minister replied neutrally in the first matter, saying that the matter was still under investigation by the Crime Branch and the investigations needed to be completed, he was more categorical about the latter request. His response was that while many cases had been filed, Kurien had been acquitted by all the courts, and so another investigation was impossible.

“Now we are terrified of the media. Our relatives say that we publicize everything through the media, and that is the reason they give for abandoning us. They ask us what we have gained by speaking to the media. They are right, we have gained nothing. In order to make society more secure, we thought it was important to talk about what had happened to our child. And we have been jailed by the community for 18 years for that very reason. People hate us. But as more and more incidents of this kind happen in the community, we wonder if we have endured all this for no purpose at all. This was a waste…”

Her mother’s words remind us that rehabilitation does not take place when survivors of sexual harassment are given jobs or married off. What needs to be rehabilitated is the survivor’s lost dignity and will to live. But 18 years on, we continue to destroy these. Meanwhile, the Suryanelli girl and her family try to stand up for themselves, again and yet again.

KR Meera is an independent journalist and one of the most widely read Malayalam authors of her generation. She has published four short story collections, four novels, a novella collection and two novels for children in Malayalam. She has won, among others, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. Her latest short story collection Yellow is the Color of Longing (2011) was published in English by Penguin.
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