Bravehearts or habitual male haters?

When the quickly changing story of two “braveheart” Haryana sisters, who thrashed three young men on a bus because they had “molested them” gets the tag of “ andhi sarkar bikau media ” (blind government, paid media), you have to sit up and take note. Not that the government and the media aren’t themselves being continuously trashed on various social media platforms with such tags, the “paid media” tag being the most common.

The story so far. Last week, two sisters from Haryana’s Rohtak district — 22-year-old Aarti and 19-year-old Pooja Kumar — were feted by everybody and hailed for their courage in thrashing three young men who, the girls claimed, had molested them in the State transport bus in which they were travelling.

Apparently another female passenger on the bus shot a video on her mobile phone of the two sisters beating up the boys, with their hands, legs and even a belt. The other passengers in the bus remained mute witnesses and the police arrested the three youth following a complaint filed by the girls.

After all the TV channels and newspapers had highlighted the girls’ bravery and held them up as examples for other young women to follow, and the Haryana government had announced the two girls would be “honoured” on Republic Day, suddenly we started getting different reports. This time, a video clip surfaced, said to be distributed by the parents of one of the youths, which showed the two sisters thrashing another man in a park.

Reports started surfacing, mostly on social media, that these two girls were “habitual male haters” and had enacted the whole drama for personal glorification.

Hindi newspapers offered much more detailed coverage. On December 3, Dainik Bhakar carried a lengthy article quoting several men and women, some who had apparently been passengers on the bus, denying that the three youth had misbehaved with the girls. The report said the long-distance bus in which the sisters were travelling had broken down and all the passengers were accommodated in another bus. It carried an interview, with a picture of Bimla Devi, a woman from another village, who said she was shocked to see “such false news and the video” clip playing on various TV channels, and felt compelled to come forward to tell the “truth”.

She said one of the three men had helped her get her bus ticket and corroborated the version that had the two sisters insisting that another old woman and one of the youths vacate their seats, as those had been their seats in the other bus. When one of the young men protested, the entire drama commenced. Another report said the panchayat had met and declared all three youths innocent. Many other women from the town came forward to say that the girls’ statement could not be relied on.

Janmat , another Hindi publication and other local media too carried stories supporting the young men’s version. The State government has rightly stayed its decision to felicitate the girls pending an “inquiry”.

But there are several reasons why everybody was so eager to take at face value the first version of this incident. It cannot be denied that there is rampant eve-teasing and molestation of women in packed buses, educational institutions, shopping areas and crowded streets. Most of the time, women suffer in silence. Hence when the Aarti and Pooja case was publicised as an incident of rare courage when two young women didn’t need anybody’s help to beat up the eve-teasers, the media was only too eager to highlight the story and hail the girls as “bravehearts”.

Over the next two days the girls were seen studio hopping for TV interviews where they were patted by the anchors for their act of courage, and homilies were given to other women to follow their lead.

Unfortunately, it has become common for the media to conduct its own trials and pronounce judgments, often in sanctimonious and booming tones, and this was done in this case too.

From the interviews given by their fathers to the regional media, it appears that all three youths come from poor families; two had been selected for army postings. Even if the charges against them are totally false, as seems probable from evidence available in the public domain, this incident has nevertheless damaged their reputation. Even if the charges are dropped and their careers are not hurt, which will hopefully happen if they are proved innocent, a lot of harm has already been done. If the sisters have indeed made false charges , FIRs should be filed against them and the law should take its course. The voices raised in the media for equitable gender rights should be equally forceful, shrill if necessary, when women falsely or maliciously use eve-teasing or sexual harassment as a ploy to further their own ends. If the women have indulged in foul play and histrionics for their personal glorification, they have to be punished.

Let a forceful media campaign be carried out to ensure that the authorities get to the bottom of this matter and unveil the truth.

If this is not done in all earnestness, the stupid voices of the “dented and painted” variety and lectures on how often women bring upon themselves sexual harassment and even rape by the way they dress, by staying out late at night, by consuming alcohol and the rest of the related rubbish, will only garner more support in the coming days.

The Rohtak sisters might not be “habitual male haters” — wonder what that actually means — but they broke all moral and legal boundaries if they made false charges against these three men and physically assaulted them. This offence should not be taken lightly, and appropriate punishment should be meted out to them if found guilty. But if they are telling the truth, go ahead and fete them.

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