(This piece has been republished after a special court convicted Prajwal Revanna in a rape case on 1 August, 2025. It was originally published on The Quint on 7 May, 2024.)
The scale of the crimes of the accused – Prajwal Revanna – its suppression, the variety of targets including employees, farm-hands, domestic workers, government functionaries, party women, constituents, the range of crimes like threats, fear-mongering, kidnapping, coercion, rape, the social complexity of a highly feudal, dominant caste-supremacist and patriarchal culture, the brazen abuse of political power and flaunting of the law, his sense of entitlement, the trauma of the survivors splashed and regurgitated across the internet, and vested political interests on all sides, leave citizenry in a stunned stupor.
The sheer multi-dimensional nature of this case is a confluence of political power, wealth, caste, feudalism, family name, gender, institutional atrophy, an electoral alliance, individual political rivalry, dominant-caste vote banks and more, which makes it extremely complex for the common mind grasp, leave alone, unravel a path through the maze to justice.
However, what rages on is not only the ruling-party-endorsed candidate and sitting MP Prajwal Revanna's case but also sitting MP Brij Bhushan Singh's case, where he is being investigated for allegedly sexually harassing numerous female wrestlers after protracted protests.