In May 2014, two teenage girls (who were also cousins) were found hanging from a mango tree in Katra Shahadatganj, about 2 hours away from Badaun.
Months later, a web of lies and political intrigue had turned what seemed like an open and shut case into a classic mystery. Everyone was a suspect—the accusers and the accused. All theories of how the girls had died were as possible or impossible as the other, until the CBI settled for suicide.
Almost a year later, Badaun has been struck by another gang rape. Although eerily similar to the first one, this time around the victims have survived, and also identified their assaulters.
This will not be another unsolved whodunit where the girls are denied justice. Or so you think, until whispers on ground echo familiar strains—of a forbidden love affair that has earned the wrath of the village when discovered. It would seem, Badaun and along with it, the rest of the country, has gotten caught in an infinite loop that belts out the same narrative over and over again.
We got to know Badaun a little better when we spent some time there to film an investigative documentary on the double hangings. Of course, by the time our team reached Badaun, five months after the incident, everyone was fatigued and fed up of this blot on their reputation.
As the Village Head told us, “In a radius of 50 kms around this village, there are no high schools or colleges. There is no source of employment – no industry, no factories. We were anyway backward; this incident has not just created a permanent social stigma, but taken us further back in time. Why can’t someone adopt our village and make us a part of the ‘ideal village’ campaign with better infrastructure, education, sanitation, roads and security for women?”
At the end of our shoot, we filmed a focus group discussion with about 50 men at a village close to Badaun. It was like a chowpal, but the voices we captured on camera were disturbing.
A middle-aged man proclaimed, “Mobile phones corrupt girls who use them to slyly court and confuse boys. Poor boys, what can they do”. Another young chap grinned and said, “A dog can only be tempted with a bone. It’s hardly the fault of the boys as you cannot clap with one hand. The girls and their parents must also be punished”.
But the most chilling voice came from someone who everyone called the ‘Kejriwal of Badaun’ for always calling a spade a spade. He said he would “carry out a shootout and kill his daughters if they brought shame and dishonour to the family”. Many in the group agreed with him. This is deep-rooted misogyny that may take generations to wipe out.
Tragically, whichever way this new case spins, it is obvious that the girls will be denied justice all over again. Be it a case of sexual abuse or a consensual relationship, the misogynists do not believe it to be the girl’s right to either exercise sexual agency or choose not to.
The fact that they were denied this choice clearly lays bare some of the most disturbing mindsets and social norms that perpetrate gender violence in India today.
(Mayurica Biswas is the Director of ‘Voices Under the Mango Tree’, an investigative documentary on the Badaun double hangings that premiered on Channel NewsAsia in February 2015. Produced by Storyteller Films for the series Undercover Asia, this film has won the Best Documentary Feature at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood, Spring 2015)
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