Disposed at the bottom of India’s gender and caste hierarchies, the Dalit women are subjected to eat human defecation, parading them naked, gang rapes, to name a few. Not even a month has passed; the country looks on in horror at the second similar incident in Uttar Pradesh following the barbaric incident which took place in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras where a Dalit girl was gang-raped and criminally assaulted. Near her home in Boolagarhi village in Hathras. An eighteen-year-old girl who also belonged to the Dalit community from Satrikh area of Barabanki district was found dead in the fields near her house.
As per her autopsy, it is revealed that she was raped and murdered. Sadistically, the instances mentioned herein, would be questioned as it had always been -for it is a tradition to question these things and we, the people of India, follow the rituals adamantly. This ‘new normal’ needs to be banished and quelled, especially in the cases where a person is sexually assaulted and brutally raped. The nonsensical blames, comments and questions thrown upon the victim or the victim’s family not only gives aid to the hideous effete spineless creatures but also raises a ludicrous doctrinal following society. I really am unsure as to how long will it take to make those devilish people lucid enough that consent is what really matters and that too, ‘free and fair’? Counting on faults as to how the government works amid other baseless questions is not what basically should be at the limelight.
How does a statutory authority work, the measures they take comes with a debate as what did the past government/s do and did not do? Amidst which, without a doubt, the significance of the case gets drowned with shame.
I recall the case when a child of merely 8-year-old from Rasana, Jammu and Kashmir, was not only kidnapped and murdered but raped as well. The nation which was shook did not breathe a sigh of relief yet got flooded with the news headlines, of rape cases bearing the names of ruminants or the women section of the society.
Age? Whose (age) are you asking about? The victims’ or the hungry-crying out atrocious venoms? Cases like these have a lesser probability of getting justice. The rape and sexual assault cases which are never heard of and often are enveloped, either by victim bearing some reasons or whomsoever involved needs to open up and speak up.
Recently, Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, declared the emergency at State House in Freetown after having the testimony of an Ebola survivor who had repeatedly been raped. “With immediate effect, sexual penetration of minors is punishable by life imprisonment”, he said, visibly moved by the survivor’s account.
He also announced the formation of a dedicated police division to investigate reports of sexual violence, as well as a special magistrates’ court that would fast-track cases. Until the verdict comes out, accused are ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty’, it is a Latin maxim ‘Ei Incumbit Probatio, Qui Dicit, Non-Qui Negat.’ In most of the cases, the victims actually do not raise their voice or oh! If they do or the apprehension that they could raise their voice are being killed, just like in the barbaric Hathras incident where the Dalit girl’s tongue was protruding from her mouth. Questions are many and so might be the answers to it which may exceed the number of questions. But for the same, one needs to raise the voice.
The lack of law enforcement and the loopholes existing in the system needs to be addressed authentically. An immediate action concerning the increasing barbaric crimes against Dalit community needs to be taken.