A girl from a poor family is gang-raped in Haryana by five men. That was the year 2013. Happens all the time. We don't need to panic or do anything as it did not happen in Delhi or Mumbai. It happened in Bhiwani. Why bother?
Circa 2016. The same men, again gang rape the same girl. No one is shocked. The glib, English-speaking middle class is not interested. No one wants to discuss a girl from a poor background who despite being a victim of a heinous crime, was trying to rebuild her life by shifting to Rohtak and studying for her masters.
Nops, no one gives a damn, especially the police. Since society never expected them to do anything, remember the riots in Rohtak for reservation a few months ago? And by living up to its expectations, the police never did anything. You really can't police the will of the people, especially if that will is deep rooted in lawlessness. We saw it during the reservation stir when police allowed a free for all rioting for every frustrated fellow in Haryana.
If anything, this story is not about the shame of our society where we endorse such incidents on daily basis. It is about the courage of a woman who was trying to beat our deeply patriarchal and narrow-minded society. Yet, she failed, like many others before her, and like many will fail after her.
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