“NIRBHAYA” MEANS “THE FEARLESS ONE.” IT IS ALSO THE PSEUDONYM THAT WAS GIVEN TO A YOUNG GIRL IN NEW DELHI DUE TO AN INDIAN LAW THAT STATES THAT VICTIMS CANNOT BE NAMED IN CERTAIN CRIMES. HOWEVER, IN THE DOCUMENTARY INDIA’S DAUGHTER WE LEARN THAT HER NAME WAS JYOTI SINGH. IN THIS 2015 DOCUMENTARY, HER PARENTS SAY THAT THEY WERE MORE THAN WILLING TO SHARE HER NAME WITH THE WORLD. BECAUSE HER PARENTS ARE OK WITH HER NAME BEING SHARED AND THEY ARE WILLING TO SHARE HER STORY WITH THE DOCUMENTARY, WE’LL USE HER REAL NAME AS WELL.
JYOTI WAS RAPED AND MURDERED IN 2012, BUT HER DEATH BROUGHT OUT THE RAGE IN MANY PEOPLE. NOT ONLY WAS HER DEATH HORRIFIC AND PAINFUL, BUT IT ALSO SHONE A LIGHT ON THE DISTURBING WAY WOMEN ARE SEEN AND TREATED IN INDIA.
Jyoti Singh’s Life
Jyoti Singh had always wanted to grow up to become a doctor. When her parents told her that they weren’t sure they would be able to make her dream happen due to their financial situation, Jyoti said they should use the money they had saved for her wedding to educate her. Her parents were very supportive of Jyoti and her dreams. They got her a tutor and sold their ancestral land to pay for Jyoti’s schooling. Her uncles, her father’s brothers, were upset about this. They couldn’t understand why they would sell their ancestral land for a girl! But while Jyoti’s parents were traditional, they were modern thinking (according to Jyoti’s tutor), and they wanted to give their daughter every opportunity they could.
Even though it was very much the norm for couples to celebrate the birth of a boy far more than the birth of a girl, Jyoti’s parents were just as happy to have a girl as they would have been for a boy. Her mom explained that they picked the name Jyoti because it means “light.” In the documentary, Jyoti’s friend told the story of a time Jyoti was at the market. He said that Jyoti was there shopping when a boy about 10-11 years old snatched her purse. The police caught him and started beating him. Jyoti stopped the police, telling them that the boy wasn’t going to learn anything from that. The friend said that Jyoti asked the boy why he had done that. He said that he wanted new clothes, too and he wanted shoes and a hamburger. So, Jyoti bought the boy all the things he wanted and made him promise her he would never do it again.
The Suspects Recap and Background
After Jyoti died, a newspaper printed the headline, “Wake Up, India. She’s Dead!”
34-year-old, Ram Singh and his literal partners in crime: Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh (Ram’s brother), and an unnamed 17-year-old were all arrested for the assault, rape and murder of a 23-year-old, medical student known only as Nirbhaya at the time, but has since been identified as Jyoti Singh.
Describing his cohorts when interviewed for India’s Daughter, Mukesh Singh said:
- Ram was always breaking limits.
- Vinay was a fighter. So much so that he once beat a man so badly the man had internal injuries and got injections to give him “power.”
- Pawan was also a fighter and used to hangout on the bus.
- Akshay was a helper on the bus. He used to clean the bus, bring them drinks, and wake up Ram. Akshay was unlike the other men because he had a wife and child.
- The juvenile was also a helper on the bus. Mukesh said that he was very “sharp at tricking people.”
Mukesh and Ram’s father, Mange Lal, said in the documentary that Akshay and the juvenile were truly to blame. He was very obviously in denial about his sons’ participation saying, “It’s the fault of the 4,” not his sons. Their mother, Kalyani, on the other hand is more realistic. She points out that neither she nor her husband were there at the time so they can’t know what really happened. She even swats at her husband a little when he continues to push that it wasn’t their sons.
The juvenile’s mother was found for the documentary, and she explained that her son had been gone for 3 years when the police came to tell her he’d been arrested. She thought he was dead already. Akshay’s father was told that he needed to surrender Akshay or their family would be destroyed. He surrendered Akshay to the police, but Akshay’s wife, Puneeta Devi, is adamant that her husband wouldn’t do what he was being accused of.
These men were all very poor and grew up seeing abuse, prostitution, rape, etc. in their homes and all around them. The 17-year-old had left his home at age 11 to work in a hotel washing dishes so he could provide for his family. Mukesh said that he rarely went to school and would just wander instead, but his older brother was not having this. His brother, an electrician, would shock Mukesh when he found out that he wasn’t in school in order to make him do the right thing.
India’s Reaction
Protestors had flooded the streets of the capital starting the day after her rape, bringing it to a halt. This included Metro stations that were closed. Police brought out water cannons and tear gas shells to tame the angry crowd. These demonstrations went on in the capital, but also other cities for weeks. They started out peacefully, but within 20 minutes, they got out of hand. The police began pushing back at the protestors and were locking up people. Protestors were destroying police cars and setting fires. It was described as a “war zone.”
Indian officials tried to appease the angry public by increasing the amount of police on patrol at night, checks on bus drivers and other workers on the bus, and banning dark windows and curtains on busses. Protests were everywhere; Delhi, Bombay, Mumbai, etc.
Convictions
The 17-year-old was sentenced to 3 years in a juvenile facility (the maximum sentence for a juvenile) and was subsequently released in 2015. Jyoti’s parents were upset at this sentence. Her mom believes that if the law thinks that her daughter is old enough to marry at 12 or 13, then a boy of 15 or 16 should be able to be punished the the fullest extent for raping or harming a girl.
On August 31, 2013, the men aged 19-29 (not Ram Singh) were convicted and on September 10, 2013, sentenced to death. Ram Singh, however, was never officially convicted because on March 11, 2013, at around 5:45 am he was found dead in his cell. His family thinks he was murdered, but the official cause of death was suicide.
Akshay’s wife is upset about his conviction. Her thinking is that the man is there to protect her, but if he’s in prison or dead, who will protect her? Where will she live? Who will provide for them? She said that she’d strangle her son to death because, “what else can I do?”
One of the defense lawyers, AP Singh, responded to the verdict with, “If my daughter or sister engaged in premarital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight.”
What Followed
This case quickly became about so much more than Jyoti, and she became a symbol for women across India. In response to crimes like this one, India implemented sensitization programs in order to help level out the gender inequality. They were started in schools as a way to teach young boys how to respect women. However, these programs are not consistently utilized and we don’t know yet how effective they are since these boys have to grow up and become men before we’ll know how they treat women.
The 3 of the 4 men who weren’t dead or juvenile appealed their cases to the Indian Supreme Court. Then men attempted to lessen their sentences to life, but they were all denied. They made mercy pleas to the Indian President, Ram Nath Kovind just hours before their executions. Hoping to get a last minute reprieve that would commute their sentences to life…Denied!
On Friday, March 20, 2020, all four men were hanged in an Indian prison.
Jyoti’s mother hugged a picture of her daughter and told her that they had gotten justice for her.
Jyoti’s father said that their “faith in the judiciary had been restored.”
Outside of the prison, there were serious security measures in place. Police and paramilitary personnel were tasked with keeping the peace because of the celebratory vibe among the crowd that was gathered. People were outside with signs they’d made to thank the judiciary. Others were chanting things like, “Death to rapists.”
The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi took to Twitter to praise the justice system for getting the justice Jyoti deserved saying, “justice has prevailed” and “build a nation where the focus is on women’s empowerment.” Unfortunately, though justice was served in this case, this is not the norm nor has it made India a safer place for women. Indian women have taken their safety into their own hands, but at the cost of their own freedoms.
Geeta Pandey, the journalist who wrote one of the BBC articles used for this episode, wrote that Indian women dress modestly when they go out, they don’t go out or stay out late, they are always alert and looking over their shoulders, and they drive with their doors locked and windows rolled up. Then she wrote: “And sometimes, safety comes at a cost too. Like when two years back I had a flat tyre while driving home at night, I didn’t stop until I reached my regular petrol station where I knew the mechanics. By then, my tyre had been shredded to pieces. Next day, I had to pay for a new tyre, but I think I got away cheaply.”
The woman who created the documentary, India’s Daughter, interviewed the lawyers who defended some of the men who attacked Jyoti.
One lawyer, ML Sharma said, “In our society, we never allow our girls to come out from the house after 6:30 or 7:30 or 8:30 in the evening with any unknown person…You are talking about man and woman as friends. Sorry, that doesn’t have any place in our society. We have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman.”
Jyoti’s mom Asha points out that people always blame the girls. They shouldn’t do whatever it is they did. She says they blame these girls instead of asking WHY the boys do it. The mindset of many men in India can be seen clearly in something that attorney ML Sharma said in India’s Daughter. Sharma said that women are more precious than gems or diamonds and it’s up to you how you are going to treat your diamond. If you put it on the street, a dog is going to take it. He says that women put sex in the man’s eyes.
Basically these men think: women exist and it’s their fault for existing. If she didn’t want to be raped, she wouldn’t have existed. She shouldn’t have been in public if she didn’t WANT to be raped. The man’s hands are tied.
Jyoti’s father Badrinath said:
“In death she has lit such a torch that not only this country but the whole world got lit up. But at the same time she posed a question: ‘what is the meaning of a woman? How is she looked upon today by society?’ And I wish that whatever darkness there is in this world should be dispelled by this light.”
