The safety of women and respect and justice for harassment towards women in many parts of the world have made much progress. Cases of victim-blaming have been rife for many years but have slowly become more aware as the new generation is born.
That does not mean, however, that the entire world has shown considerable progress towards justice for women and their safety, as many places continue to punish and diminish women’s struggles and the harm they go through.
The recent boom in a case regarding a woman from Bihar has picked up a surge in relevance as a video has circulated across the nation, which highlights the way women are punished and shamed for something that was out of their control.
We shall talk about it in depth here.
What happened?
On the 2nd and 4th of June, a 30-year-old woman from a small village in Bihar, who is married with kids, stated that she had been raped twice on the corresponding days by her neighbour, while her husband was out due to his work as a labourer in the state of Tamil Nadu.
It was said that the accused neighbour had been caught by the villagers while trying to flee through a window by breaking it. Later, they held a village panchayat to humiliate both the attacker and the victim in front of those present as punishment, as they claimed that the woman was trying to have an illicit relationship with the accused, rather than questioning the accused himself.
She was then ridiculed and forced to hold her ears and kneel, and was also forced to lick her own spit, while the panchayat, as well as the gathering, declared it was her fault it even happened in the first place. The accused was also subjected to similar treatment, but it was not clarified as to who the neighbour was.
Her husband, who was working in Tamil Nadu at the time, was informed of what happened on a call over the phone soon after it had occurred, stating that she had initially chosen to remain silent but eventually chose to tell him about it.
The Video
Soon after, a video recording of the same incident circulated online on the 6th of June. The video showed the previously mentioned happenings, with the woman being forced to kneel down on the ground, as others were gathered around her, fully visible in the video.
The video then went on to gain notable traction and became extremely viral, with many responding with outrage from everywhere across the nation online.
Not to mention, the entire case had been out of public view when it happened. It only gained traction and notable concerns once the video had gone viral across social media.
After the notable surge in uproar, only then was an officially registered FIR statement filed on the 31st of July, following the start of the investigation.
The woman had stated that she and her husband had originally tried to file an FIR registration after she mustered up the courage to do so, only for it to be refused by the police when she went to them, saying that the complaint was only lodged after the video had gained much traction.
Investigation and Arrest
The Begusarai Police Department had begun the investigation on the 31st of July following the FIR. The officials had stated that they were attempting to verify the genuineness of the video before going further with any kind of action. If the video had been proven to be true, then legal action would have been taken against the ones who were involved in the incident.
Upon further investigation, it was found that the woman’s in-laws were also in the same neighbourhood, as well as that the woman was familiar with the accused and was also a distant relative of the woman.
The woman was also able to identify several individuals who were present during the panchayat meeting and said public humiliation.
Upon contacting the department and officials during the investigation, they stated that one person had been arrested. The said person was the son of the ward councillor, who was present in the video and the one the woman had to kneel for in the video, as well as according to her statement.
The investigation is still going on, as further searches are being done to find the accused as well as to trace back the video to the real events that transpired.
Ties to another case
If people had a problem with how the woman was treated during the ordeal, they would be even more furious to know a similar situation happened at a different point in time in the district of Khagaria.
A similar case had happened in the past where a woman was raped in Bihar. Following the rape, the woman went on to complain to the rapist’s father regarding what he did to her.
Instead of taking notable action or understanding the victim’s perspective, the woman was punished. She was forced to lick spit and drink urine in humiliation and shame in front of everyone.
There have been many other cases with similar rounds of punishment and humiliation as well. This and the case we had been discussing in this article all have the same modes of punishment, and a very gnarly and concerning pattern seems to take place as well.
There is a pattern here that not many are willing to address. A main takeaway from this whole ordeal is that women are still blamed for actions they had no control over. The humiliation and punishment two women had to face for the violent actions of another shows how victim-blaming is still a very problematic aspect of many parts of the world, including our nation.
The other takeaway was that even when a complaint was made by the woman initially alongside her husband, it fell on deaf ears, as the police refused to comply. It was only when the video of the incident went viral that the situation was taken seriously and the investigation finally took place.
There could be a statement as to how many cases fall on deaf ears every day due to the negligence and indifference of the law and departments who are meant to hear the people’s voices. Once the situation gets traction, where they cannot keep ignoring it any longer due to possible outrage, only then would they take this sort of situation seriously.
This cycle of ignorance and belittlement is very much apparent in many other cases as well, as even though we have since grown up from old ways, many continue to repeat the same setbacks as before.
It makes you wonder when justice can truly be taken when cases like these get ignored every day. The more aware we become about these kinds of instances, the more we can call them out for what they really are. Until then, we can only ever keep fighting against the deeply ingrained patterns we can see today.
References:
- https://www.thehindu.com
- https://www.news18.com
- https://www.ndtv.com
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
- https://www.indiatoday.in
- https://newsable.asianetnews.com