Impressing is your job, expressing is mine.

Before we go into details, I reckon you don’t know what Shuddi means. It’s an act of purification done, something to wash away your sins.

If the Deccan Chronicle front page report of today is even anywhere close to the truth, then… I don’t know; complete this sentence for me after you read it.

I guess you all know about the tribal women who were allegedly gang raped by policemen in Vakapalli (August 20)
Forensic tests at APFSL and further ‘investigations’ said no rape had taken place.

However, the government has said (in a written reply to a question on the alleged incident) that it disbursed Rs. 20,000 as Shuddi to the families of the victims apart from utensils, food grains and clothes.

WHAT?!!!!!!!

Now, first place, why would the tribal women cry out ‘rape’ if no rape had taken place? There never is smoke without fire. And in cases like these, even if the point isn’t proved in court, we know, deep inside our hearts what the truth is.

And anyway, if the rape didn’t occur? Why’d the state government give “purifications’?

Now, the point- if the gang rape DID happen, in fact, chuck the ‘if’, we now know it happened, what exactly is the government doing by publishing false reports and giving compensations? Trying to save the image of the police? (yeah, right!), the home department? The ruling party? What?

If things could go on this way, I mean, if someone could rape and then get away by giving rice and dal, dammit!, the state government might as well as start a rape-for-money scheme where you buy a quintal of rice, offer a few thousand rupees and rape women in broad daylight. Revenue for the state, increase in sex tourism and employment for the women.

See? You flinched at that, didn’t you? When I said that last sentence. You now realize that these tribal women too were just ‘women’ – like the others in and around us, those we love and are ready to die for, and you realize that even they are equally vulnerable in this ‘Justice’ system. It pricks on our conscience- because this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. How wrong can things go?

Rape is bad, gang rape?
Gang rape by drunken men in a state of semi-consciousness should beget a death sentence or a lifer, but gang rape by policemen in full consciousness?
Delayed justice for rape victims is bad enough, but compensation in the form of rice and dal and money?
“Here, you got raped, I reckon, keep this money, buy yourself a new sari, and here’s some utensils to cook in. Now shut up about the whole incident.”

Dammit! man, this is civilized society, this shouldn’t be happening even in the reign of absolute monarchs, even a prince would be punished for such crimes. A gang of bloody hawaldars? Why is the state government going so far, or rather dropping so low to save them?

See what role everyone’s playing over here

The cops who raped

Cops are the saviors of the law. They round up people for eve teasing and punish those who commit rapes. What happens when they start raping? What did they think- wearing a uniform gives them a license to commit crime- one as horrendous as rape? Thought they’d get away with it because they wouldn’t book themselves?

And sadly, that IS what happened, isn’t it? They got away with it.

The cops who didn’t rape
What about the rest of cophood? If someone in our family committed such a crime, we’d throw him out of the house, hand him over to the police. I swear I’d shoot him in the head.
Can’t the police stop uplifting its criminal image and at least denounce the ones who were booked? Or at least condemn the incident?

The Justice system
How flawed can you be? How silent can you be? How much demanding of proof can you be when crime’s taking place in front of your eyes. Your daughters are getting raped in front of your eyes and you are turning the pages of the constitution to determine if there’s an alternative explanation? Your daughter’s getting gang raped in your house and you are waiting for your neighbor to come and tell you that yes, this does constitute an act of crime? Go drown yourself. If the 1,00,000 pending cases in your drawers weren’t enough, here’s another fourteen women whose trauma, helplessness, and miserability is just another fourteen files for you.

The State Government
This is democracy- and the government’s king, the government’s god, the government’s the solution to all our problems, the redeemer, the savior, the protector.
Is this your way of protecting? Giving utensils and rice so that these women won’t go hungry in the time it takes them to recover from the physical pain, leave alone the mental agony?
If this sort of government is who I pay taxes to, whom I complain to, whom I trust to take care of me and my family, what sort of life am I living? What will happen to me if a similar crime, god forbid, where to happen to ones I knew- I don’t even dare imagine the ones I love.

The families and the women
I don’t even have the guts or the imagination to get into their shoes. I can’t, and I know, you too certainly can’t put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s been raped in broad daylight- by not one man, but many, grinning and laughing as you screamed, or in the shoes of someone whose wife, or daughter or mother has been raped by men whom you go to when someone commits a crime against you.
Ever had that feeling when you dive deep down underwater and then someone grabs you from inside? You can’t release yourself, you don’t want to breathe in the water, you can’t kick back because the hand that’s grapping you is too strong, and that fresh, free air is just a few feet above your head- you can see it but can’t actually make it to the top.
And you finally give in, and breathe deeply in through the nose, or mouth, for the last time.

The Investigators
What price will you sell for? How mush of money or threat does it take to make you sell your professional ethics? And submerge facts that could have given someone the satisfaction of justice, even if not a renewed life?
How much does it cost to make you write a false report? Would you have sold yourselves if the women who were raped had been your daughters or wives or sisters gang raped on their way back from shopping?

Us
Losers like me will log on to mutiny and write an article and go back to ma friend’s shop for a hookah. Losers like you will read this (if you do) and then say what’s the point?
There is no point.
We thought of taking out a bike trip and carrying hardcore messages- something that would make people turn and look and think. We are too scared for our families and ones around us, and too lonely. That’s why I said losers.

Women in Manipur stripped themselves naked to protest against the rapes by people in uniform, and screamed “Indian Army, Rape us” in front of their children and grandchildren who had no idea of what was going on, who had no idea of what rape is.

They probably got their demands fulfilled, if you know what I mean.

The Armed Forces Special Powers act has still not been revoked, though it goes against all human rights principles.

Most of us have forgotten about the incident, some of us think that happened in China or Burma; None of us are bothered.
Want to do something about it? Let me know.