Observations from a protest against police apathy towards the rape of a minor girl in Delhi, 8th Feb, 2014
At
around one thirty in the afternoon I read it off my facebook wall: a
14 year old Manipuri girl had been raped by her landlord’s son in
the locality I live in, Munirka Village, and that the police had
refused to file the FIR. The post called on people to gather at the
nearby Vasant Vihar police station. I left in a bit; all of nelson
mandela marg between the ring road and jnu was closed off to traffic
by youth that had blocked the road outside the police station. The
incident had happened the previous evening, following which the
family of the victim had approached the police. While the police
immediately began the medical procedures, it
was not until 3pm the next day that the first reports (unattested) of
their having filed an FIR came out.
That was what sparked the protest since morning.
When
I reached, the protestors already amounted to about a hundred people,
blocking both sides of the road. Many were at the gates of the police
station, with shouts of ‘dilli police
sharm karo,’ (“Delhi police, have
some shame”) ‘FIR ki copy deni
hogi,’ (“You will have to give us a
copy of the FIR”). Apart from just the state and the police,
included as a target in these rants was the posterboy of political change Mr.
Kejriwal, and his associate Somnath Bharti, whose recent stint with
racism-stoking (among other allegations of being authoritarian,
sexism, encouraging Khaps) has exposed the maggots in his
progressive-image. Only a week ago the death of Nido Taniam had come
to the front pages, and that had also shed light on other cases of
violations on women from North-Eastern India. This was insult to
injury, and that was evident all around. Among the protestors
were a large number of youth from the North East settled in Delhi.
Some studying in JNU (which is close-by), some residing in Munirka
Village who work in Delhi. Other students, and student organizations,
from JNU were present too. There is a fair amount of to-and-fro that
happens between JNU and Munirka Village, a road apart from each
other, since many students and ex-students, apart from friends of
students, from many different parts of the country, rent in
inexpensive rooms out there. The protestors had managed to draw a
sizeable number of bystanders and passers-by. The press was all over
the place, but none of the big names that clamour to keep the nation
informed (of what?) each evening.
Between the police
station’s gates and the protestors were a few of the constabulary
and some sub-inspectors, armed with sticks and wearing riot-gear.
Soon enough, the protestors were large enough to push their way,
break open the gates and reach the courtyard of the police station,
where they entered into fray with a larger number of policemen.
Slogans continued even when the police were scuffling with the
marching protestors. Soon the police marked the limits with a rope,
and the youth occupied the courtyard between the rope and the gate,
and continued their demonstration inside the Vasant Vihar police
thana. Many still continued the blockade outside. Meanwhile,
representatives of the North Eastern community and student
organizations were talking with the police officials.
A
word about the people gathered at the protest. It is often the
contention of the government and the police, and is only furthered by
the media, that people who show up at demonstrations are hooligans
who do not have any respect for the law, and that they’d do much
well behaving as ‘law-abiding citizens’ and going about their
daily lives. This idea tries to discredit protest by putting the
burden of proof upon those who have actually come out to seek
answers, as well as washes the state of all blame by refusing to
acknowledge their questions. People who had gathered at the protest
were not just high seditionists or edgy hooligans; some had newly
enrolled for courses in JNU the last semester; many had come hearing
about the incident from other friends of theirs; some of them were
simply passing by, carrying on their lives as citizens as it were,
and got curious about what was happening. One such, an elderly lady
who seemed to have been returning from work, was disturbed – but
not surprised – to hear of the rape. She said, “These people (the
police) won’t do anything. They are hand in glove with the
landlords of Munirka. They are like dogs – upon seeing morsels,
they do as are told.” Another woman, her friend, remarked how this
keeps happening despite all the hue and cry that was raised last time
during the 16th
December protests. “One should throw stones there (she pointed to
the police station); maybe then they will realize the pain one
suffers by such acts.” I was filled with joy talking to them; as I
said earlier, they weren’t ideologues or professional rioters
(which is actually a profession that enjoys the state’s immunity
somehow), just people going about their lives. There was one called
Nilakantu who was studying history. He was trying to get a message
across by entering the police station (everyone’s right as a
citizen) when he got smacked hard on the sides of his abdomen and had
to move back outside the crowd of protestors. He was about five feet
tall, wore specs, and had freckles on his cheeks. Later on he showed
me how the police attacked him, which was strangely funny to both of
us, maybe also because by now he wasn’t in as much pain.
Meanwhile, the
barrage of slogans continued inside. In sometime, representatives
came out saying that the police had assured them that an FIR would be
lodged, and that they had told them the sections of the penal code
under which the accused would be booked (they however failed to tell
us what sections those would be). By this time, a lot of riot police
had gathered with sticks, shields and riot gear, which this time also
included motorcycle and cricket helmets. They almost equalled the
protestors in number. Since the police was also requesting us to
halt the protest and return, we surmised that this was just a ruse,
and continued sloganeering, and tried to march further across the
rope. This led to further scuffle. This time, I got punched (as
amusingly feebly as Nilakantu got smacked) by a police inspector
(three stars on his shoulder) who was also muttering “behenchod
(sisterfucker)”. One gentle constable, seeing that women at the
forefront were also being pushed in the scuffle, requested them to
leave the crowd and come on the side of the police. But others
weren’t as clement; during the scuffle, a girl tripped on the rope
and fell back, and another fell on her, both due to being pushed by
the police. Three of us tried to shield their side from the police by
holding the rope firm so that they could get up, but it took a while,
with the police uncompromisingly pushing. Meanwhile, a girl who had
crossed the rope was now being pushed by male policemen with all
impunity; that was clearly a violation, and it went on till about
fifty seconds, in which time we shouted violently that this was
illegal. A woman constable was rushed to the spot, but by this time,
the representatives (“leaders”) came and said enough pressure had
been put, and that we could continue demonstrating without trying to
march further inside. The police seemed satisfied with this. Many of
the protestors thought this was a sell-out, and continued in same
vigour for another minute; but meanwhile others kept persuading them
that this could lead to a lathi-charge, and would dissipate the
protest.
Meanwhile,
I came out to find another scuffle on the other side of the road. A
person on a motorcycle allegedly rode into a group of protestors,
hoping that this would give him way (a common trick among bikers in
Delhi); nobody was pleased, and he would have had it, if not for
interventions by others protesting who called against this kind of
diversive violence. The biker made matters worse by saying he was
also from JNU, which rightfully invigorated the mood against him.
Anyhow, his pleaders managed to save him. It later turned out that
not only was he a student in JNU, but also a realty agent in Munirka.
I realized that among the crowds were also other landlords of
Munirka, who gathered and began discussing what had happened. It was
from them that I overheard where exactly the act was committed, who
committed it, and so on. Apparently, the news had spread by word of
mouth, since little had as yet come in the media. I was approached by
another passer-by who asked what this was all about. I told him. He asked if
the girl was a nepalan
(Nepali; many immigrants from Nepal reside in Munirka). I told him
no, a Manipuri, and asked how does it matter. He replied saying that
most immigrants in Munirka Village run dhandha
(“business”; a euphemistic way of sleazily referring to
prostitution). I told him he was talking nonsense, and he repeated
his nonsense with full conviction and left.
All prejudice and
violence in our political spectrum gets cloaked in seemingly moral
excuses: police and state violence is overlooked as ‘service to law
and order.’ Similarly, we target Africans and North-Eastern people
with covert excuses, like blaming them for sex and drug rackets,
rather than airing openly our racist prejudices (and here ‘openly’
means strictly within the political class, who doubtlessly knows that
there exist tendencies called racism, casteism, communalism, etc., but just refuse to call their spade a spade;
how far the residents' welfare associations this political class
represents is aware of these tendencies I don’t know). We express
our dislike for the poor and working class by judging them filthy,
unmannered, and violent, despite leeching off them as much as
possible. In fact, here I would suggest that race is also a question
of class in our society, as most of these incidents of targeted
racial violence involve people who are from the working class. On the
one hand, the police doesn’t file a complaint coming from somebody
without many resources; it makes them ‘compromise’ with the
accused, especially when the accused happens to be from ‘respectable
society’. This came out in the open with Nido Taniam’s death, but
happens all the time. On the other hand, respectable society tries
evening out all differences by criminalizing the culture of the working class. I’ll end with an interesting thing I noticed at
today’s protest: one of the protestors had come with a baseball bat
quietly held in his hands, which were folded around his back. He
stayed for the entire protest just holding on to it, as if making a
symbolic point. I was scared he might actually use it (strangely, I
wasn’t as scared about the much more violent potential that Delhi
Police had at that time); but he didn’t. It was just to… Now
wouldn’t we like to ignore all that riot gear, all that tear gas
and say to the guy with the baseball bat, ‘Laddie, don’t go about rioting, don’t go about
breaking the law’?