‘We have to laugh while suppressing pain’: Nirbhaya’s mother

After Kolkata rape-murder, another victim's mother speaks on family's enduring trauma

In December 2012, the gang rape and murder of 23-year-old Nirbhaya in Delhi brought India to a standstill. There was widespread outrage and protests after the fatal assault where the victim was beaten by rods and raped in a moving bus by six men including a minor.

The furore led to stricter laws being imposed and fast-track courts put in place, many thought this was a turning point. The rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata earlier this month however shows not much has changed.

She was assaulted in the early hours of the morning as she rested in the hospital’s seminar room during a 36-hour duty. The incident has revived painful memories for Nirbhaya’s mother who shares with Gulf News’ Jyotsna Mohan the trauma of a rape victim’s family when a case becomes high-profile, but grief remains personal.

My question will take you back to the tragic December of 2012 but when such heinous crimes like the rape-murder in Kolkata take place, what goes through your mind?

Such incidents bring back the pain. Moreover, it is also frustrating because why should this still happen after 12 years? Why hasn’t anything changed? If we speak of women’s safety, then I feel we are still in the past. At that time people came out on the streets and the incident made international headlines, we felt there would not be a repeat of crimes like Nirbhaya’s rape. Unfortunately, nothing changed. Even animals have boundaries, but humans have no limit on how low they fall and what they do to our girls.

After the 2012 Nirbhaya case, many people came to the streets and took out protest marches. The reaction is similar this time. Do you think there will be a change?

No. I don’t think anything will change, at least in my lifetime. It was in 2020 that Nirbhaya’s culprits were punished. Before and after the crime many incidents of rape occurred but no one was punished. Someone is in jail; someone is on bail. If thousands of laws are made but only on paper and we make a court and lock these laws in, then how will anything change?

Even after Nirbhaya’s death many incidents of crimes against women made headlines like Hathras, Kathua, Manipur and now Kolkata. In your opinion, what needs to be done for women’s safety in the country?

Make stricter laws and more importantly, implement them. It is only when such incidents take place that we speak up. After some time, we will return to our houses and the government will go back to its own. How long will women be sacrificed like this? Even Nirbhaya was brutally raped, but we haven’t learnt anything from her death. If the law is not made strict and timely action isn’t taken against criminals, there will be no fear in the minds of perpetrators which is what is happening today.

From 2012 to now, are the lives of your family somewhat back on track?

We are coming on track because if you want to live, you have to work. At the moment one child is working while the other is studying. We have to move ahead because Nirbhaya never leaves the mind. Those thoughts don’t go away, nor can we forget but something has to be done to survive.

How can anyone do this to a child? What was her fault? Despite not having much money we had educated the children. After completing her studies Nirbhaya had been home in Delhi for barely two weeks, and this happened. I thought that if such people are not punished how will we live? How will we answer ourselves? What is the message that will go to society?

Back in 2012 when did you lose all hope?

Once a rape takes place it does not end there, the greatest misfortune is that we always have to prove at every step that this incident happened with our child. On the other hand, criminals are emboldened and deny any wrongdoing in court.

After Nirbhaya’s rape, we had a set time to leave in the morning but there was no fixed time to return home as we were running from pillar to post meeting relevant authorities. Until that day we had never called the police for anything, but life took such a turn that there was a mic in our hands, but we couldn’t utter a word from our mouth.

When a hanging is pronounced victims feel justice is done but in reality, no hanging takes place and if it does happen there are so many loopholes in the law. Even in Nirbhaya’s case, the hanging was postponed thrice.

When such a brutal crime is committed what happens to the victim’s family?

A: We die while being alive. In Kolkata, the girl has passed away, but her parents will have the same fate as us. We die every day. We lose our child, and we wander from door-to-door looking for justice. Some say the girl was wrong, why was she roaming around? This is people’s mentality.

Even today it hurts a lot, but we have to roll like a movie and laugh while suppressing pain. When incidents like the Kolkata rape and murder happen, I feel sadness that another family will suffer in pain for years. But this sorrow doesn’t happen to our governments or those in the system. They even say that rapes happen daily. But in the family that is impacted, it is the first rape. Only a family whose child dies understands the pain.

Jyotsna Mohan

@jyotsnamohan

Jyotsna Mohan is the author of the investigative book ‘Stoned, Shamed, Depressed’. She was also a journalist with NDTV for 15 years.