the critical issue . Bilkis Bano brings us hope

On a warm afternoon in Delhi, Bilkis Bano, a survivor of the 2002 Gujarat violence, addressed a room full of journalists, activists and lawyers. People pressed together, unmindful of the heat, hanging on to her every word.

Bano was calm, confident and thoughtful. The last 17 years have turned her into a fighter, and, despite the odds, she has won her battle. Not only have the accused been convicted but the courts have also recognised that she had been wronged, thereby granting her compensation along with the offer of a job and accommodation of her choice. In its verdict, passed on April 23, a Supreme Court (SC) Bench ordered the Gujarat government to pay Bano ₹50 lakh within two weeks.

The recognition of state responsibility for wrong done to its citizens, or the award of compensation to a survivor of sexual and communal violence — these are important first steps in our country, and will now help open doors that have so far remained resolutely closed to many like Bano.

At the press conference, with her husband and child by her side, Bano spoke of what she had learned: How the police, an institution set up to protect citizens, can turn against its own principles, file erroneous reports, protect criminals and act in collusion with a partisan state. But Bano held on to the hope of justice. For her, that hope came from the Constitution, a document that commanded respect, and the system of law, as well as institutions — increasingly rare today — that act on behalf of citizens. There was a time, she said, when our institutions meant something, and their officers were people of principle.

At a time when the integrity of our institutions are being questioned, when the SC itself is grappling with allegations of sexual misconduct against its highest officer, Bano’s reiteration of faith in such bodies and their ability to deliver justice is a moving testimony of hope.

Listening to Bano, I was reminded of another press conference three years ago, in Srinagar, when the rape survivors of Kashmir’s Kunan and Poshpora villages came together to launch a book ( Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? ) that recorded their struggle for justice.

That time, too, the room was bursting at the seams. Then, too, the survivors had come together after a long time — the Kunan-Poshpora incident goes back to 1991. But the hope for justice still drove them.

In many ways, hope is the one thing that keeps people going, in the midst of sorrow, grief, hopelessness, corruption and an inefficient, unfriendly and broken system — one that is, by and large, at war with its citizens.

At Bano’s press conference were a number of women activists who had stood by her through the years of struggle. It was a significant moment for them as well. Ever since the Bhanwari Devi case in 1992, many women have fought long and hard for recognition of the idea of command responsibility — the culpability of the chain of command that protects and enables perpetrators of violence, especially sexual violence, to get away. Here, for the first time, there were signs that this idea was beginning to be recognised.

So the compensation awarded to Bano marked another milestone, not just for her and her family, but also for the women’s movement in India.

The press conference, however, was not only about the compensation: Money is important, but it cannot erase the past or take away grief and loss. Apart from being gang-raped, Bano witnessed the killings of relatives, friends and her first-born Saleha.

Perhaps the biggest grief for her and Yakub Rasool, her husband, is the fact that they couldn’t find Saleha’s body to give her a burial. “My child is lost, her spirit is somewhere, roaming about, restless,” she said at the press meet in Delhi. The closure that Bano and Rasool are still seeking may come from the stand the Supreme Court has taken.

With closure comes the next step. For Bano, as for many women who have fought such battles and who have understood that the victory is never only personal, the future holds many possibilities.

Bano says she will educate her daughter, Hajra, so that she can become the lawyer she wants to be. She will help women in their battles for justice. She will uphold her rights and those of others.

Her victory has come at a cost, but it is a victory nonetheless.

Urvashi Butalia

Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan; Email: blink@thehindu.co.in

COMMENT NOW