In the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case, many called for sentences for rapists to be made more stringent. Even after she died, she was not given the respect of her body.” (The Hathras victim was treated in Aligarh hospital in Uttar Pradesh she was transferred to the same hospital Nirbhaya was treated at in Delhi one day before she died.) But in the case of Hathras, she was admitted to a local hospital.
“In the case of Nirbhaya, the state tried its best to make her survive. “The Hathras offense was very similar to Nirbhaya,” says Munusamy. The victim, named “Nirbhaya” (fearless) by the Indian media due to laws against identifying rape victims, died in a hospital in Singapore two weeks later, after being flown there by the Indian government.ĭalit rights activists say that while both cases were terrible crimes, the difference in the state’s treatment of the two victims reveals something about caste. India’s rape problem gained international attention in 2012 when a woman was violently gang-raped and murdered on a bus in Delhi. “But the Hathras case is something tangible.” India’s rape problem “People don’t really accept when you say that Dalits are discriminated on a day to day basis because of caste,” says Munusamy. The behavior of the police and state government, activists say, is a clear example of systemic discrimination. A PR firm working for the Uttar Pradesh state government pushed the line to the media, calling the case a “conspiracy to push the state into caste turmoil,” according to Indian media reports. 29 police cited a forensic report, later discredited by doctors, that said the girl was not raped. 22, after she made what’s known in India as a “dying declaration,” identifying the four men she said had assaulted her. But her allegations of rape were only recorded by police eight days later on Sept.
14, shortly after the attack, according to videos taken shortly after at the scene of the crime, seen by the BBC. The victim first told police she was raped on Sept. The Hathras victim was reportedly from the Valmiki community, a caste which is considered “lowest in hierarchy” even among Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, according to Suryakant Waghmore, author of Civility Against Caste. There are 200 million Dalits in India, and although caste discrimination was legally outlawed in India’s 1950 constitution, systemic discrimination against them remains widespread. Once known by the outdated term “untouchables,” Dalit is a broad term for the communities at the very bottom of the Hindu caste system. The Hathras case sparked protests across the country, including in Delhi. “And for that reason, many families are afraid to go even to the police station.” “The upper caste groups use sexual violence as a tool, to reinforce their caste hegemony, and their caste supremacy,” Munusamy says. But the real number is likely far higher, says Kiruba Munusamy, a Dalit lawyer who works on caste discrimination and gender violence cases. More than 3,500 were raped in India in 2019, an increase of 18.6% compared to 2018.
The problem is even more pronounced for Dalits. In 2019, there were an average of 87 reported rape cases per day, according to official statistics. But India is still the most dangerous country in the world to be a woman, according to a 2018 survey of experts by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, citing sexual violence, cultural traditions and human trafficking as the main reasons for the ranking. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power with a pledge of “zero tolerance” toward violence against women, after the gang rape and murder of a 23 year-old woman in Delhi in 2012 shocked the nation. Read More: ‘ Nothing Has Changed.’ 7 Years After a Gang Rape That Shocked a Nation, Brutal Attacks Against Women Continue When the family refused, saying they wanted time to say goodbye, police locked them in their home and took her to a field where they burned her body using gasoline, the family said. But instead of handing her over to her mourning family, the family has said the police insisted she be cremated there and then. The night of her death, police returned to the family’s village with her body.
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