On 26th January, 2022, when the whole of India was celebrating Republic day at around 12 noon a dead body of a young girl was found near Oodlabari Railway Station, Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal. The body was split into multiple pieces and was discovered in mutilated condition with intestines spilling out and crushed several bones suggesting that the body had been run over by a train. A day prior to discovery of the body, at a nearby tea garden of Manabari, a 17 year old Ginni Biswakarma who was attending a local wedding had gone missing. Nobody knew her whereabouts except her friend Puja (name changed) who had accompanied her to the wedding. She later revealed that Ginni had left the wedding to meet with an eighteen year old boy, Rahul Roy who lives in Manabari Tea garden. After that seventeen year old Ginni Biswakarma went missing. The family and villagers had alleged that she was gang-raped and murdered by her assailants after which he body was dumped in the railway tracks. On 26th January the found mutilated body was identified to be Ginni Biswakarma's and An FIR to the effect was lodged against Rahul Roy and unknown persons after which Rahul Roy has been arrested by the Railway Police. Rahul and Ginni were both students of the tenth standard at the nearby schools and were both residents of Manabari tea garden. Meanwhile the family is waiting for post mortem reports and have demanded that the culprits be found and dealt with appropriately with strict punishments which may include death penalty.
Where is the investigation headed ?
Why is the government's response so slothlike against such heinous crimes ?
Why isn't the case being transferred away from GRP to a more responsive and expert special investigative teams ?
How many more deaths and rapes will it take before the government realises that a sensible and swift action must be taken on the government's part ?
Rape, victim blaming and Patriarchy
After the gang rape case of Dec 16 2012, incidents of simultaneous rape and murder have further accelerated in different parts of India. In most of the cases, media trials have been normalised and justified. A recent example of such media trial could be traced in the Tarun Tejpal judgement of 2021. This judgement was a perfect example of how media plays with 'concocted and constructed truth' and ended up making the victim as the accused. The survivors (if there is one) are hit with interrogations aimed at blaming their own actions or behaviour, queries such as
Whether the girl was drunk or not,
What the girl was wearing during the time of the incident,
If the survivor/ victim had any relationship with the culprits involved,
Why the survivor/ victim was outside her house for so long (time restriction),
And so on.
We must all understand that the focus should shift from such preconceived victim blaming judgements to a more needed understanding of social consciousness driven by patriarchy which is embedded deep into our psyche and behaviour. Not one human has the right to rape another and utter these misogynistic clarifications. If the question was about the nature of relationship that the survivor/ victim had with the rapist then why are there regular instances of marital rape within the closed bedroom doors happening in our society? If the question was about the time and place then why does instances of rape and molestation happen inside our own families where one thinks we are the most 'safest ' ? In keeping with the widely held belief among women’s rights activists in India that sexual violence is grossly under-reported, social scientist Aashish Gupta with the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics compared National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics on officially reported cases of violence against women with data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which asked women respondents whether they had faced any sexual or physical violence. Since the most recent round of the NFHS was conducted in 2005, Mr. Gupta compared the NCRB statistics for that year with the extent of violence that women had admitted to in the NFHS survey. Mr. Gupta found that while 157 per 1,00,000 women reported to NFHS surveyors that they had experienced rape by men other than their husbands in the past 12 months, 6,590 said their husbands had physically forced them to have sexual intercourse against their will. This meant that just 2.3 per cent of all rapes experienced by women were by men other than their husbands. Comparing the NCRB and NFHS data in 2005, just 5.8 per cent of rapes by men other than the woman’s husband were reported to the police, and just 0.6 per cent of rapes by the husband. Since marital rape was not recognised as a crime in India, it was probably reported as “cruelty,” Mr. Gupta found. The point being, gender justice is a serious issue and it needs to seriously dealt with. Judicial justice must be unbiased and make swift and transparent investigations so that justice is served. Only then people will speak out against such systematic violence otherwise gender violence will triumph, gender justice shadowed and the truth silenced.
The State, Rape culture And Communalism.
Rape has been tool of subjugation and suppression of dissent. It has also been used upon as tool of punishment for many expressions of alternative sexualities and to control the sexuality of women in general. During the Gorkhaland agitation of 1986 a lot of rape and molestation cases are orally narrated by the ones who survived the agitation. Women especially have been victims of such state sponsored violence. In the 90s when the area of South Chhattisgarh was ravaged by the Salwa Judum, a total of hundred documented rape cases were produced before the Supreme Court to emphasise upon the extent of violence in the area. It is because of such state sponsored terrorism that thousands of cases of gender based violence has been documented in these areas of ' distress and social conflicts' like many North eastern States and Jammu and Kashmir and there are few instance of justice whatsoever.On 15 July 2004, 12 women had disrobed in front of the historic Kangla Fort in the heart of Imphal — then the headquarters of the Assam Rifles — carrying banners with messages painted in red. “Indian Army Rape Us”, read one. “Indian Army Take Our Flesh”, said another. The women were protesting against the brutal killing of Manorama Thangjam, a 32-year-old woman who had been picked up by Assam Rifles personnel in suspicious circumstances four days prior. Manorama’s bullet-riddled body — with gunshot wounds to her private parts and thighs — was found near a paddy field hours after she was taken away from her home. On 17th December, 2016, a 15 year old girl named Akrity Tamang from Ambootia tea garden of Darjeeling had been found dead after missing for 32 days at a nearby hill spring. She had been raped and murdered and disposed there. On 10th November 2017 all the three arrested were out on bail from Kolkata high court. Justice delayed is justice denied and we should not allow the same injustice happen to Ginni Biswakarma. Just like Akrity Tamang or Manorama Thangjam and hundred other such injustified voices, Ginni Biswakarma and her family should not be deprived of the justice they need.
In case of Ginni Biswakarma, the sole arrested Rahul Roy belongs to Bengali community. A communal divide has been instigated and propagated by fundamentalist and opportunistic forces. Many forces are trying to give it a Bengali vs Gorkha colour. This can give rise to further added enmity between the two communities and is hence destructive in nature. The terrain of Dooars is a heterogeneous mix of different cultures, languages and ethnicity comprising of Gorkhas, Bengali, Biharis, Marwaris and more than 100 ethnic tribes, Just because one rapist belongs to a particular community or a tribe we must understand that not everyone from said community or tribe are rapists. Rape culture must be thoroughly resisted irrespective of caste, class, creed, race, gender etc and the fight should be focused through the gaze of communalism. Blaming the entire community and creating a communal divide is the game of rulers and oppressors to divert and divide the oppressed.
We all live in a patriarchal society where women are subjugated as secondary or subordinated citizens, seen as mere objects of sexual pleasure and reproduction, seen as tools of revenge and commodification and are regarded as private property and source of unpaid / cheap labour. Patriarchy surrounds us everywhere from our homes to our work place, from our schools to higher institutions of learning. This sense of patriarchy gives one the power and the supposed ' moral right ' to molest, rape and even kill others. When questions are raised against such heinous crimes the survivor/ victim is blamed further for. Regarding the developments around the rape murder of Ginni Biswakarma, some statements are already floating from political leaders and the general civil society where patriarchy can be seen and heard almost transparently. For example on February 2nd, 2022 there was a small token protest program at Kalimpong town where a local leader was heard saying that 'women should enter their homes early so that their safety is prioritised'. Some people questioned why Ginni Biswakarma went with Rahul Roy in the first place. Victim blaming is the most common form of further diluting voices that dare to speak against such practises of hierarchy and discrimination. This too is a reflection of how patriarchal our society is.
No one asks for being raped. The rapist does it because they have the audacity and power given to them by this hierarchal and patriarchal system to conduct brutal crimes as such. It is the rapist who is at fault here, not the one who has been raped. This case must be handed over to Special Investigative Team and a fast and fair investigation must be carried out. The culprits must be published. While there are simultaneous protests programs going on in different places of Hills and Dooars, we must all realise that the fight against such culture of rape and patriarchy must go on continuously. It should not be just limited to online campaigning. A relentless continuous battle must be waged which interrelates and intersects itself with class, caste, sexuality, race, gender, nationality etc;. The enemy is patriarchy and patriarchy is embedded upon each one of us. The solution lies in the necessity to deconstruct such patriarchal attitudes and come together to fight for a fair and equalitarian society where justice is not denied. Meanwhile, the fight to ensure justice for Ginni Biswakarma must not cease to exist because justice denied is justice delayed.
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