Exiled to Die

The young woman who suffered the brutal gang rape and assault on her life in the country’s capital city is no more.

She suffered at the hands of the State, repeatedly. In what is increasingly emerging as her exile from the land of her birth, she was virtually banished abroad with great stealth and speed from India after she suffered serious cardiac arrests and brain damage and it was clear that the end was near. This became a law and order worry for the State, which could only panic at the thought of the huge outpouring of grief that would follow for this symbol of courage, her plight representing everything that is wrong with our attitude towards our daughters.

How else does one explain the madness of removing her from the excellent care she was getting in Safdarjung? This was risking her already fragile health with a high altitude journey which triggered a mid-air crisis. "I can't understand the logic behind it, or rather it is unusual to transfer the girl from Delhi to Singapore when the patient has suffered a cardiac arrest, as I have been informed by the media," Samiran Nundy, chairman, department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said. "My suggestion would have been to stabilise her in India and get her out of the crisis; then do her intestinal transplant later. One cannot think about intestinal transplant at this moment. First, the infection spreading in her should be stopped, then one can think about transplant," Nundy said.

Another senior doctor from the trauma centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, requesting anonymity, said: "Maybe it was politically logical to shift the patient. But as a doctor, I would say it is totally insensitive to shift the patient with her infection spreading. Shifting now, that too within a few hours of cardiac arrest, is thoughtless." She died soon after.

Her body was brought back to India in the early hours, received by the Prime Minister and UPA Chairperson, an empty gesture which was evidently aimed at face saving. The funeral itself was a hurried and secret affair, reportedly under heavy police deployment. Or to close down India Gate, Raisina Hill, Rajpath and the Metro so that people do not mourn her passing and demand greater gender justice. For the first time in several decades a woman’s issue became a mass issue. Delhi was shaken out of its customary apathy. And the government responded by denying the right to assemble, protest, express and movement. What was the security risk? Why was the Government afraid? Of what? Was it guilt at having done little to protect her in life and honour her in death?

For, who is responsible for this terrible attack on this brave young woman? It is undoubtedly the State, which failed her repeatedly. First, by not acting on the several complaints made by DTC about the illegal operations of the very bus in which the girl was raped, beaten and tortured. Second, by not stopping the bus with tinted glasses and curtains. Third, by not responding to the complaint of the man robbed by these thugs 15 minutes before they picked up the young couple. I could go on, but basically the point is, she suffered because the people responsible refused to implement the law and do their duty.

Look at the low rate of recording and registering FIRs. Or the even slower pace at which trials are completed. Or the shamefully low conviction rate in those few cases which do reach completion. As if this is not enough, the reports that men in uniform are often themselves perpetrators of the worst sexual crimes against women, in custody and outside, only adds to the sense of impunity with which criminals such as these attack women.

If that was not enough, thanks to the nauseating turf war between the Chief Minister and the Police Commissioner, the seriously injured child had to record her statement three times: before the police, the SDM and the Magistrate!!! No wonder that the PR exercise by the Chief Minister to light a lamp in her memory was revealed for what it was by angry young protestors at Jantar Mantar; a sham, a façade.

This is what they do in such a high profile case. It is no wonder that brave girls and women who seek justice after rape loose heart when the police harass them in the less publicized cases. Like the Dalit girl who committed suicide in Patiala after humiliation by the police who repeatedly asked to describe in embarrassing detail the gang-rape, to simply register the FIR. Or the girl who was gang-raped, and then raped by the investigating officer and the inspector in charge of the police station in UP. Or the girl who attempted suicide because the police officer wanted her to “compromise” and marry her rapist instead of pursuing the case. Or the many women with disability who are raped in institutions and outside, whose vulnerability is incomprehensible to this system of justice and administration.

It is time we the people of India resolve that the State’s cynical and undemocratic response will only increase our identification with this young woman. For what happened to her could happen to any of us, our daughters, our sisters, who have fought for the freedom to live, work and travel on our own in the unsafe villages, cities and towns. Today, we know the fear we feel for all the daughters of India is real. And yet we will fight, fight against the night. So that this young woman’s suffering would not be in vain. We will all brave the night and reclaim our city from these criminals and force the State to make it safe for us. In thousands. Across the city.