Badaun: Nirbhaya Redux

It is turning out to be Nirbhaya redux with Bharatiya characteristics. When Nirbhaya happened in Delhi there were some who said rape was a city phenomenon, it had to do with displacement of population, loose morals, short skirts and even Chinese food and rural India was an idyll insulated from such crimes. For them the verdant fields, cow dung plastered houses were repositories of all that was good with Bharatiya sanskriti (culture) and it blinded them from all the atrocities happening there. But the recent grisly footages of two Dalit women hung to a mango tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district comes as a chilling reminder.

Most parts of rural India are no strangers to these kinds of ghastly crimes against women, done more out of sense of entitlement or to show someone their place than to satisfy lust. But the exploiter-exploited caste matrix seems to have changed. Earlier the oppressors used to be Thakurs and other upper castes, but now it is increasingly Yadavs, who figure among OBCs, thanks to the upward mobility and political clout acquired over the years. With it has come a sense of entitlement to oppress those in the lower rungs of caste hierarchy.

The flippant patriarchal mindset among our politicians which was on display during Nirbhaya tragedy is very much intact. In post-Nirbhaya days when laws on eve teasing were being tightened, Sharad Yadav wondered how will youths indulge in 'mohabattein'. Recently Mulayam Singh Yadav said boys make 'mistakes' and should not be hanged for crime like rape.

For Akhilesh Yadav under whom the state's crime graph has docked into an orbit unheard of even by UP standards, this is time for cheap retorts, with no room for remorse or sensitivity. His snide remark to a scribe asking whether she faced any danger was reminiscent of 'painted and dented' remarks by Pranab Mukherjee's son and Sanjay Nirupam's 'thumka' remark against Smriti Irani. But being a Chief Minister and responsible for the state's law and order this remark scores much higher in terms of crassness quotient.

For opposition parties, with next election in their minds, Badaun has now become a new 'rape tourism' destination. Long motorcades of red beacon Ambassadors and high-end SUVs on dusty roads, hurriedly constructed helipads and hordes of TV crew, it is indeed a mela time for all except for the bereaved girls' family.

One positive fallout of this incident is that the issue of toilets and sanitation have come to the fore with an added dimension of women's safety, as open defecation leaves them vulnerable to attacks. The issue had somehow tapered off after former minister Jairam Ramesh had triggered a national debate over it.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Four Walls Do Not a Toilet Make

I had an unusual mail in my inbox a couple of days back. It was from UNICEF stating that it was organising a photo contest for observing World Toilet Day (which falls on November 19). It said, "All you need to do is take a picture of yourself or your family and friends with your toilet, upload it (in their site), and show how happy and proud you are of using your toilet."
 
The UNICEF was in fact promoting the World Toilet Organization, an initiative taken up by a Singaporean businessman Jack Sim in 2001, to highlight lack of sanitation in developing countries.
 
Quite predictably, the mail had some depressing statistics regarding the world in general and India in particular. Though we are aware of the seriousness of the problem, the actual numbers will still make us wince in disgust - 600 million of our countrymen still defecate in the open. That is close to 60% of the population.
 
Apart from the government's monumental failure, which is very apparent; it has also to do with skewed priorities of our citizens. According to census 2011, the country has more cell phones than toilets!! Clean sanitation somehow is never considered a priority. The residents will keep their houses clean, also take care of personal hygiene, but defecate in open without any hesitation. No wonder diseases such as diarrhea, dysentry are so rampant.
 
The problem may seem very in your face as you approach any major city by train, as areas near railway tracks have become the unofficial open-air restroom of the country. However, its origins lie in villages, where these practices evoke not even a shrug. Maybe because they have the luxury of sparsely populated areas and  secluded spaces.

These very villagers often migrate to cities to escape poverty and other adversities and end up in slums. They bring along their sanitation habits too. The general congestion in cities and high real estate prices leaves them with little choice.
 
The problem has been a long standing one and despite Mahatma Gandhi's valiant efforts - he had in fact declared that 'sanitation was more important than independence', the hideous practice outlived him.

There are in fact many jokes connected with this. A very popular one is set in Jawaharlal Nehru era. The then US President John F Kennedy visited India and felt  disgusted by the sight of rampant open defecation and complained to Nehru. A hurt Nehru decided to pay back in same coin. During his visit to US he went around looking for persons relieving in the open, but tough luck. Finally, much to his delight, he did manage to find one. But he turned out to be an Indian embassy staff!
 
When V S Naipaul came to India and wrote about this eyesore of a practice in An Area of Darkness and India a Wounded Civilization, it did raise the hackles of many in the country. But instead of working towards eradicating this social evil, they just banned his latter book. Sanitation was always considered a dirty word a taboo topic, a low caste activity. Due to such primitive sanitation methods the practice of carrying nightsoil is still prevalent in many parts of the country.
 
In independent India, with the sole exception of Sulabh movement, no social or political organisation tried to squarely face the issue until Jairam Ramesh came along. At least he brought the issue back to spotlight and made it a talking point, notwithstanding the controversy over his remark that the country had more temples than toilets. I hope it does not die down after the recently concluded Nirmal Bharat Yatra. Some recent incidents of newly-wed women refusing to stay in husband's house due to lack of toilet is indeed holds out some hope.


Also Read: Bangalore Beat