'Merely'? Not really!

Rape – a four letter, single syllabic word is thrown around ever so often...as crude jokes among friends, as threats to scare women, or even as statistics to showcase the swelling numbers of violent incidents. We may use the word lightly but it changes the life of anyone unfortunate enough to face it. Imagine an exercise of force against you, where you can't move a limb, your body fights and freezes, you're filled with fear, anger, helplessness and pain, as an unwanted, unsolicited, unwelcome outsider barges into you without permission. The trauma of a rape survivor is repeated over and over again as they relive those horrid terrors throughout their life! Lives are destroyed, families are decimated, futures trampled over — a rape can change everything overnight. It has happened to many women in India; it happened to Bilkis Bano too. But for her, it was much worse. She was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped. She also witnessed 14 members of family being murdered, including her three-year-old daughter who was allegedly "smashed" to the ground by one of the accused.

If being gangraped and watching her family killed in the riots wasn't enough torture, Bilkis now has to face her tormentors again. After being in prison for 15 years, 11 people convicted of raping Bilkis walked free on Independence Day through an outdated remission policy. There is political and religious colour, social outrage, and nationwide protests at this travesty of justice. My heart breaks for Bilkis and all women of India who have to see convicts on life sentence walking into freedom on the historic day of our nation's freedom. A "shaken" Bilkis spoke about the "unjust" decision: "How can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice." While appealing to the Gujarat government, Bilkis further urged the government to "undo this harm" and "give me back my right to live without fear and in peace." It's sickening that those criminals were garlanded and welcomed as heroes. You can't help but feel gutted when sexual crimes against women in India has increased by 70.7 per cent in two decades. What message does this send out?

The Supreme Court says that it didn't order for the release of the convicts. Chief Justice NV Ramana said that it would have to be seen if there was application of the mind. "We have to see whether there was an application of mind or not. This court didn't order for their release but only asked the state to consider remission as per the policy," he said. The Supreme Court has now stepped in as the country's conscience keeper and directed the Gujarat Government to file its responses. Interestingly, Justice Ajay Rastogi while hearing a plea against the remission asked, "Merely because the act was horrific, is that sufficient to say remission is wrong?" Yes, Sir. It most certainly should be wrong for monsters, who gang-raped women, murdered people, and heartlessly snuffed out the life of a little child, to spend even a day out of incarceration.

After Bilkis was gang-raped by the men whom she knew from her village, she was left to die. Though it took her hours to regain consciousness and strength to reach safety, she did. She fought the legal fight for years, even when her statement was allegedly truncated, her FIR had crucial details missing, and several times when she felt that the state machinery was against her. But she won her justice then, and I'm sure she will do now as well. But the question is, how much are we prepared to make innocents suffer? How often do we keep expecting strong individuals to keep remaining strong? How long do we hope that they keep fighting? It's not fair.

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views expressed are personal