Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 11:53:58 -0800
From: soumitra-AT-ix.netcom.com (Soumitra Bose )
Subject: Re: Bandit Queen


You wrote: 
>
>I found this news item, and wondered how films like the Bandit Queen 
>connects with this. 
>
>Shashwati
>
>
>#10  Rural Indian women protest rape verdict
>
>By JENNIFER MORROW
>   JAIPUR, India, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Outraged rural women and social
>activists Friday marched through Jaipur, the capital of India's desert
>state of Rajasthan, to protest a court verdict that ruled five upper 
caste
>men were unlikely to have raped a lower caste woman.
>   More than 3,000 protesters demanded a retrial of the five, who were
>cleared of all charges in connection with the gang rape of Bhanwari 
Devi,
>43, a low caste woman who was campaigning against the traditional 
practice
>of child marriage.
>   "Bhanwari, fight on!" the demonstrators chanted in Hindi as they 
marched
>through the streets. "We will fight with you!"
>   Bhanwari, from the Rajasthani village of Bhateri, was assaulted in
>September 1992, after she protested the plans of an influential man in 
her
>village to marry off his 1-year-old daughter.
>   Bhanwari, who herself was married when she was just 3 years old,
>identified her attackers as five upper caste men, including the father 
of
>the little girl. Two of the men raped her, she said, while the others
>restrained her husband.
>   But during the trial, defense lawyers argued that upper caste men 
would
>not have engaged in any intercourse with Bhanwari because she was from 
a
>lower caste.
>   Last month, judges at the Rajasthan Sessions Court acquitted the 
five
>men, saying it was unlikely that "respectable community elders" would 
rape.
>   Most social activists say the verdict implicitly endorses the 
defense
>assertion that good, upper caste Hindu men would not rape a lower 
caste
>woman. The activists say this finding is ludicrous and denies the 
violence
>used to terrorize rural Indian women, especially those who challenge 
the
>established order.
>   "The verdict is so appalling and so poorly written that all I can 
think
>is the judge was trying to help us build a better case for an appeal," 
said
>Madhu Mehra, a Delhi-based attorney.
>   Renuka Pramacha, of the Rajasthan University Women's Association, 
said
>the case has become a focal point for women's groups across the 
country.
>   "We are here to validate every woman's experience of violence since 
the
>court will not," Pramacha said.
>   Thousands of women are raped every year in India and some 
statistics
>estimate that at least one woman is raped every hour.
>   However, few dare to take their cases to trial either because of 
the
>stigma attached to rape victims or out of fear of retribution from 
their
>assailants.
>   Bhanwari, who attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in 
Beijing
>in September, told United Press International she continues to be
>ostracized and harassed by members of the dominant caste of her 
village.
>   Several weeks ago, she said, some relatives of the accused tried to
>strangle her and warned her of future attacks.
>   "My heart beats faster anytime I go back to my village, but I know 
they
>are the ones who have done wrong, not me," Bhanwari said.
>
>
Shaswati , that is what I wanted to point out , the hegemony of 
institution-approved knowledge and modulating the whole society not in 
terms of social-justice but in terms of legal-justice which is a 
written art of knowledge manipulation .This is how the society is 
cocconing itself under the garb of knowledge-based justice-system.
It happens in both ways .One determined by knowledgable people by 
knowledgable means of precedence,law and methods .two by the 
"knowledge" that "respectable people of the community can or cannot do 
certain things.... if the "knowledge " would have been disseminated and 
in vogue would have been that only repectable people usually are 
expected to do these then the verdict would have to be differently 
written and the convictions could have been done ,well this is the 
hegemony of knowledge which is power actually.