Book Excerpt: 'No Nation For Women' By Priyanka Dubey

Author’s Note

The names of all victims—alive or dead—have been changed in this book to protect their identities. Also, names of immediate relatives and family members of the victims have been changed for the same reason. In compliance with Indian law, the exact locations of the victims’ residences have also been altered. This is a work of nonfiction entirely based on the author’s first hand reporting experience of more than six years across India—except for some of the southern states—which could not be covered due to monetary and time constraints.

Chapter 4: Rapes in Small Towns and Rural India

'I am only waiting for justice.'

There are many remarkable things about the extraordinary story of 23-year-old rape survivor Neelam. But the one thing that has been etched in my memory is her voice. I first met her in June 2013 in her native village situated in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. She was a little older than 18 then. I still remember her voice and her subdued manner of speaking. She would make me sit close to her in her one-room mud hut, roll her eyes and look around to check on the eavesdropping security guard standing outside her house. And then speak in a low pitch voice as if sharing a secret with me.

Though the broader details of her ‘story’ have been published in local as well as national media, but newspaper spaces were always too cramped to house the entire story of a wounded soul. She had so much more to say, which she told me bit by bit during our hours’ long conversation. Holding my hand at times and asking existentialist questions in between.

During December 2010, Neelam was raped by Indian politician Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi, who was then a sitting MLA (member of legislative assembly) of the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) from the Narani town of Banda district. Neelam was a minor then who grew up in a scheduled caste family in a Bundelkhand village. She was the daughter of a long time local BSP worker and being a sitting local MLA from the same party, Dwivedi was ‘worshipped’ by her father. After brutally raping her, Dwivedi also got her beaten up gruesomely by his goons and then used his political influence to put a false case of theft against Neelam in the local police station.

After raping her, he also managed to get her imprisoned in Banda jail for one month under fake theft charges. She was released only after her story hit national headlines, when things started to slip out of the local political control zone of Dwivedi. After a five year long legal battle, and two years after I met her for this interview, Dwivedi was found guilty of raping her and was convicted by a Lucknow-based special CBI court. He has since been sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.

But the story of what happened between these years and her memory of the crime has not only changed the course of Neelam’s life but has altered her thought process at a deeper, psychological level.

My journey of reaching Neelam started with contacting a few local stringers based in the Banda district of Bundelkhand where she lives. Most men in Banda I spoke to for putting me in touch with Neelam, would first mock her as a ‘temperamental woman’, who has been ‘speaking too much’ about the crime that happened to her. Some would break into laughter, brimming with satire and dismiss her as an ‘attention seeking woman’. Cutting through the obvious patriarchy of local media and residents, I contacted Neelam and she agreed to meet me in her native village.

There are several laws to protect the identity of survivors in case of sexual violence in India. But Neelam’s case is one of those rare cases which are known by the victim’s name. Though we are not using her real name in this story she doesn’t mind her name and other identifying details being used while writing about her elsewhere. Memories of a horrible crime and a bitter lonely legal battle pitched against a powerful elected local politician happening in Bundelkhand—one of India’s most backward regions—has turned her into a person of many contradictions. She is very strong and brave. But she is also tired of being strong and brave.

I met her in the summer of 2013. She lives roughly 50 kilometres away from Banda railway station, in a village situated deep inside the agricultural fields of Naraini block.

On reaching her village I started looking for her house and got the same answer from everyone I asked. ‘The hut which has five policemen standing outside is her residence.’ It was not difficult to find her residence but I could already imagine the stress she would be feeling with a police troop guarding her house all the time. Police protection leads to a catch-22 situation for most rape survivors. In high profile cases where battles are pitched against men of power and influence, threats often follow and hence police protection becomes crucial for the safety of the survivor and her family. On the other hand, presence of a security troop alongside makes the survivor family easily identifiable and adds to the already mountainous challenges of facing the social stigma associated with rape.

As I entered her house, she was folding freshly washed clothes and listening to old Bollywood songs on her mobile phone. Dressed in a black tracksuit with her hair tied in a bun, she presented a contrasting portrait to the usual veiled women of rural Bundelkhand. She lives in a single room hut, a few metres away from her maternal house where her family—father and brothers—live together. There was a small fridge in her room, a small steel wardrobe and a wooden bed. There were utensils and clothes lying all around covering almost every inch of her one room hut. Her small verandah was painted by mud, a common practice in rural India. There was a small cot lying in the verandah which was used by the police protection team, including a woman constable, to sit on while on duty, guarding her house.

She started the conversation by complaining of headaches. ‘That’s why I am listening to music. It helps me in diverting my mind and reducing tension,’ she said, switching off the music on her phone.

Neelam’s mother passed away when she was a toddler. As a motherless child, she grew up extremely introverted, hopping between her father’s village and her maternal grandmother’s village situated nearby. She could not finish her school and remained an alienated child—curling into herself as she describes it—for most part of her adolescence years. She mentions that it has taken a lot of effort for her to make that journey from a shy girl to the outspoken warrior that she is today.

‘I was never like this. As a child I was in the habit of hiding inside my house. I would not speak one word with any stranger. But what happened with me was so bad and torturous, that I had to change myself. I changed because that was the only way out for me. I had to speak up if I wanted to survive,’ she said.

Neelam was 17 years and two months old when the crime happened. She recounts, ‘My father was actively involved with the BSP for the past 17 years, which means almost since I was born. He used to manage the party affairs at the local panchayat level here in our village. As you know, Dwivedi was also an MLA from Naraini. Once he came to our village and paid us a visit. I was inside the house when my father asked me to bring a glass of water for the MLA. I went out and quietly gave him the glass of water. He took the glass from my hand and kept looking at me. He was actually staring at me and checking me out from top to toe. Then he started asking me random questions like where do I study, in which class, etc. I said I don’t know as I did not wish to interact with him further. Then he turned to my father and said, “Your daughter is so beautiful and she does not speak much. Send her to me. We’ll educate her, train her and get her married.” My father agreed and said, “Aap hi ki beti hai sahib (She is just like your daughter).” In good will, my father even took me to his house once after that. But I refused to stay there. And since that day he was after my life.’

After Neelam refused to live at Dwivedi’s residence, her father sent her back to her maternal grandmother’s house. The family was struggling to make ends meet and poverty would often push Neelam’s father to drop her at her maternal grandparents’ house in a nearby village. But with her, poverty also only changed houses. It never actually left the family.

It was on one such December night in 2010, that she was kidnapped from her maternal grandmother’s village. She recalls, ‘I was asleep in front of my grandmother’s hut when I was picked up. I remember they had tied my hands, my feet and my mouth with ropes and rags of cloth. The names of the men are Rajju Patel and Rajiv—both of them were MLA Dwivedi’s men. They first took me to a nearby mahui jungle and held me captive there for three days. They kept me hungry and would torture me by thrusting my face in cold river water at night. While pushing me into the water they would say things like how dare I turn down the MLA’s offer? After I was kidnapped, my father first lodged a complaint with the local Naraini police station. He also went to Attara police station which is near my grandmother’s village. But his pleas to the cops went unheard. Nobody would listen, no one would pay any heed to his requests as he made the rounds of police stations; weeping and pleading in front of police officers to find his missing daughter. When he saw no hope from any end, he turned to the MLA for help. Then the MLA started working on his plan. He said, “Ladki to ham chudhwa denge par shart ye hai ki wo hamaare paas rahegi. (I would get the girl rescued but there is one condition—she will live in my house after she’s found).” He also told my father to not worry about me as he will get me trained in livelihood earning skills and then would get me married also. My father saw no option but to agree to what the MLA was telling him. Soon after he said yes, the kidnappers themselves brought me to the MLA’s house. It was 8 December 2010 when I was brought back to my father. By now I was very sick, weak and was constantly crying.’

Neelam breaks down into tears at this point. I give her a glass of water which she drinks immediately. After a couple of minutes she gathers herself and starts by expressing anger on how Dwivedi first got her kidnapped and then made her father agree to his demand of her living at the MLA’s residence. She adds, ‘In front of my father he said, no more crying now. Cook food here, work for us. We will train you in household work, find a groom for you and get you married soon. Then you will work for him as well as for us.’ At that point of time, neither father nor daughter understood what Dwivedi meant by his ‘work for him as well as for us’ remark. They assumed that Neelam would have to clean and cook at the MLA’s house and soon she would be married off. Her father was an old time ground worker for the BSP. He trusted Dwivedi’s words and believed him.

In the intervening night of 9 and 10 December, Dwivedi walked into the room where Neelam was sleeping. ‘I was tired after a long day’s work and so I went to sleep. Suddenly he came in and removed the sheet I had wrapped around myself. Then he asked me if I remembered what he had told me the previous day. I stood frozen. He reminded me and said again that if I get married to the man he chooses for me, I will do “service” both for him and my husband. Then he shouted, “Didn’t you understand what I’d said?” and asked me to remove my clothes. I started crying. I begged him and said, “Sahib, beat me as much as you want to beat me. Give me your shit to eat and I will eat it but please don’t do this to me, sahib. I am your daughter,”’ Neelam recalled.

Suddenly her voice dipped. She kept her hand on my hand lightly and went on, fighting back tears. ‘My resistance enraged him. He turned away to fish for a blade as I kept crying. Then he slashed and tore all my clothes with the blade he had found. Then he began biting and scratching me like a beast. There were cuts on my face and my whole body was swollen. My feet were bloodied. He kept abusing me and then raped me. Also, he was continuously threatening me to stay quiet about this. He said he will shoot me point blank if I opened my mouth in front of anyone.’

The memories of the crime never left Neelam. Her body did not stop bleeding for several days. ‘I cannot tell you didi, how much it pained when he raped me. He treated me worse than animals. I was so wounded that I thought I would die. No girl in my position would have been able to tolerate what I have survived. I was in so much pain that I was bed-ridden for weeks. I kept crying the whole of the next day but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. There was no one I could have asked for help. I found a mobile phone and contacted my father. I told him to immediately take me away. He said he will come the next morning. But there was one more night for me to face before the sun would have come up again.

(Excerpted with permission from Simon & Schuster from 'No Nation for Women' by Priyanka Dubey)