A Moment of Truth

Some incidents change you forever, 14 February 2013 was the day when one such thing happened to me. Before I go directly to it, I find it almost necessary that I give you a background of events that led to that fateful day. The atmosphere of Delhi was charged and discord was in the air. The brutal rape of 23 year old physiotherapy student in the capital came up as a wake up call to every citizen and especially the young. As a student myself, I was shocked, disgusted and terrified. The facts about the case left the citizenry sick and India faced one of its most sudden outbursts of public anger. Huge crowds gathered at the historic Vijay Chowk, only to be beaten away to their homes a few days later. Being an activist with a left oriented students group( All India Students Association), I was among the people who first took out demonstrations. It all started on 17 December, we assembled   at a bus stop and decided to march to the CM residence to demand speedy action in the case. The 50 odd group constituted mainly of students from the different Universities and Institutes in the city. All of us were near strangers. There was anger and confusion in everyones eyes and no one talked to each other. Many had just heard about the demonstration and came of their own discretion. When we arrived at the main gate of her residence, we were stopped by a huge group of Delhi Police personnel. I was standing against one of the barricades that they had placed with some girls, all of them new faces. We started shouting slogans after slogans for a while. Shouting along with the beats of the dhapli can get very exhilarating at times. All of a sudden the policemen started hitting us with their lathis. I got hit and felt a sudden sensation of pain arising in my lower arm, but even before I could grunt, I saw that the girls beside me were being treated the same way and the lady constables tried to get some of them away to the other side of the barricades. Some of us were hurt, but none budged and we held on to the barricades. It seemed so strange and unreal; We who considered ourselves as the forerunners of the next generation, just angry at the crimes committed against one of us; we were being treated like criminals, were we the culprits? Why were we being beaten? If only the C.M had taken out the time to address us, things could have been solved in a civil manner and an example could have been set. Some minutes later a water cannon mounted on a truck was aimed at us, someone in the background shouted, “Run….Run!” . In the confusion that followed, adrenaline kicked in and for a moment everything went slow. A shattering jet of cold water hit me on the chest and for a moment I couldn't breathe. When I came back to my own I saw the people around me running away. Right next to the spot I was standing a girl got hit right in her face and fell down on the road; I rushed to her and picked her up and with the help of some other fellow took her to a nearby pavement. Formerly I had never imagined that I had it in me to save someone by exposing my own self to harm. Dispersed we lay, drenched in water but it aroused our anger even more. We sat on the street and held a meeting. All around me I saw strangers helping each other, sharing water and cracking jokes. Now, we were strangers no more. The media covered the whole crackdown and I actually gave a brief interview. The anger spread and what followed was unprecedented.  

In the protests that followed I got hit by lathis, water cannon and tear gas more than a dozen times. I spent 10 days on the roads with hardly any money in my pocket, distributing pamphlets and organizing daily protests. Numerous groups joined in. We got huge participation from all walks of life but there was hardly any instantaneous outcome of the agitation. I was disappointed but reconciled myself to fact that people actually felt for the cause and so many came out on the streets. I made many friends; people started recognizing me and came up to share their experiences with me. My cell phone received scores of calls from strangers who wanted to join and be the part of our movement. The sense of camaraderie which I felt among that crowd of people was very satisfying. We later began with our ‘Bekhauf Azaadi’ Camapign, which demanded stronger laws for the protection of women through constitutional means. A people’s parade was organized on Republic day after the conclusion of the parade ceremony at Rajpath. We started from Arts Faculty, North Campus, in a bus, full of fellow students, singing revolutionary songs and raising slogans. When we reached the Mandi House Metro station from where we were supposed to start our march, we already saw a big crowd gathered there. People were delighted to see us get down from our bus. Many came forward and gave me hugs and waved hands. That feeling is inexpressible; I felt like I had traveled back in time to the days when our country was fighting for its freedom against the British Raj, though this fight was against our own. Little children carried banners. Many of our teachers from different colleges also joined in. Government employees and housewives also constituted a major chunk. Students came in big numbers. The procession was about half a kilometer long and bigger than anything I had ever seen. I was delighted. Somewhere near Tolstoy Marg, a big car came halting right next to our group, an old lady stepped out, dressed elegantly and with a walking stick in her hand. She was bent with age. I couldn't help smiling at her. She heard one of my slogans and came up to me and expressed her delight at seeing so many young boys and girls coming out for a just cause. She gave me a little pat on the head and continued walking with her assistance near hand. The parade was very successful and after a few days we heard the news about the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee being included into the new amendment Bill passed to prevent sexual violence. I had witnessed the fear and anger of the young. None of us wanted the incident to be repeated. After that the wider agitations waned, we returned to concentrating on the betterment of things in our campuses. 

 Some days passed and the month of February arrived. Individual freedom and safety was the high point on our agenda and in keeping with the same we decided on checking any incidents of moral policing at north campus on Valentine's Day. Our plan was to hold a meeting at Arts Faculty early morning. On that fateful Thursday, I was staying at one of my friends place. The night before all the members of my group had gone around the area distributing pamphlets and putting up posters. Early morning I got a call from   Ragini, who was already at arts Faculty with some other students who had been working with us for the last few weeks. I got up in a hurry and left for the spot. On my way I called up everyone, but to my dismay no one picked my call. I talked to one of my comrades from the association and he asked me to get there and assemble those people and take care of things till everyone arrived at the scene. At Arts Faculty I met Ragini, Oshin and Ketaki. All of us had met at the republic day parade. Oshin had to put up some posters at the different colleges, ketaki was to accompany her and Ragini wanted to attend a class in the mean time. Since the meeting stood postponed, I decided to help them put up posters. We started talking and to everyone things looked normal as we could see a lot of people going about their normal routine. We didn’t come across any saffron brigade or moral policing troops on our way. We kept walking and reached Hindu College, there we parted with Ragini. As soon as the three of us entered the premises of Hindu, I saw groups of students hurrying to and fro. Swarms of students were moving towards the courtyard located near the boys hostel of the college. Though the hullabaloo there was nothing new to us or to the college but there was something different about it that day. I associated it with the special day. When we reached the courtyard, there we saw a big crowd standing around one of the trees there. Then it all became clear, it was the famous Virgin tree of Hindu College. I had read much about it in the newspapers and the Valentine ’s Day pooja that the students performed. We were excited and decided to stay and witness the proceedings. Groups of boys and girls stood around cheering the group of boys from the hostel who were decorating the tree with ribbons and water filled condoms. Most of them, whom I knew to be netas , wearing their white shirts and forehead adorned with saffron tilaks were overseeing the decoration. Girls and boys cheered and some of them giggled at the odd shaped condoms. A poster was also hanging on the tree which read ‘Damdami Mai’( Mai stands for mother and the euphemism involved was clear) and many multi colored packets of contraceptives were also on display. The three of us laughed and shared jokes like the hundred people gathered there. We were impressed at the level of tolerance observed at the college. We were standing near the pedestal around the tree when someone gave me a pat on the shoulder. It was Shweta, she was the sister of one of my fellows at the association. She was a student there. After exchanging greeting we stood among the crowd with some of her friends. I told her that this practice is something unique and it’s great to see that everyone participated in it. A scowl emerged on her face and she told that the whole practice is sexist and highly disrespectful of women. Though I got the feeling earlier when I had read the poster but I didn't wanted to believe it. She told me that the boys from the hostel who were now making the arrangements throw the water filled condoms at women once the pooja is concluded. This was to the utter surprise of the three of us. She also told us that the ritual is performed inside the boys hostel and women who wanted to participate are expected to follow the others there. Shweta told us that many girls and even lecturers had complained about the total mayhem that follows the ritual but the administration always turned deaf to their calls. The atmosphere becomes so unsafe she said that many students and faculty members decide to take a day off to be safe. I was shocked and hurriedly apologized. I decided to witness things for my own cause somewhere in the back of my mind I thought she was exaggerating. There was a media crew standing on one side of the tree that was there to cover the whole act. I thought, “how can a channel like cover such an act if her account of things was true?”. I told her that if she felt so strongly about it then she should raise her objections right there in front of the whole crowd and make her views known to others. I was assured that there must be other people in the college other then Shweta and her friends, who wanted to raise objections or tone down the level of vulgarism involved in the tradition. Personally I had no problem with the display of contraceptives but in my view to get a condom thrown at you must be very offending to anyone. It was than that the group of young men who had taken upon themselves to adorn the tree finally finished. A commotion of their friends came along with the loud noise of a beating drum from the boys hostel. One of them, who was dressed in what is officially known as the election attire in that campus, came forward and urged the students gathered there to go to the boys hostel and participate in the pooja, and he also reminded everyone to get the ‘prasad’ with a sinister wink to his friends. Afterwards I was told that he was the hostel president. I was also told that the elections were something that the hostel controlled and they could make the administration yield to anything. To my surprise hardly any of the girls and boys moved, it was only the hostel boys and their companions who stood around the tree. They returned to the hostel for a brief while. Seeing an opportunity I asked her to get on the pedestal and address the crowd. Without waiting to spare a thought she went up on the pedestal and started speaking. She first introduced herself and started telling about the accounts of those students who did not feel good about this display of male vulgarity in their campus. She begin by saying that many of the students who came from rural backgrounds could not associate, could not connect to this tradition and that it was just for a group of city bred students who understood the whole concept; thus puncturing the claim that the ritual was a college ritual got a major beating. The three of us were standing down there and listening to her. With every statement she made my heart swell with pride. Many people assembled around her and started listening intently. Some who worked for the college magazine started making notes and even the lady from the news channel started recording her statement. Some of the boys from the group who had stayed back went into panic mode. They started shouting at her but to no avail, she continued without the least of worries. By this time one of my comrades reached there and he expressed his appreciation on such a courageous move. Then the commotion of men returned from the pooja and on seeing there ceremony hijacked, they came running to the pedestal. That group of 50 men hurdled around her and started shouting,”Fuck Off” and “Bhaag Ja”. But she continued telling the people how even lady lecturers are afraid of these men and the whole event. It was then that the men raised such a hue and cry that her voice got drowned among the noise. I felt helpless. Among the hundreds of students gathered there none came forward to ask the men to let them listen to her. She kept standing there while all of them surrounded her and tried to intimidate her. In a jiffy I decided that I had to somehow help her continue and somehow prevent a seemingly inevitable skirmish; but then I thought I should wait for some time because she was sending out a clear message that women don't need men to protect them. My comrade told me that I should get up on the stage and try to pacify the young men. I was a little hesitant since neither I nor my friends were from the college we were standing in. In the background someone shouted,” Chandigarh se aayein hain toh thokne ke liye”, clearly giving out the collective signal of the ritual. It was a celebration of male dominance over the female sex. Some of the men started dancing to the beats from the drum and asked others to join.  Many others hurled abuses, while a group of girls standing next to me expressed their irritation at her words. I couldn't take there gibberish no more, I turned to them and asked for the reason of dissatisfaction. They told me that according to them anyone who doesn't like the concept of the ritual is not welcome and she should just stay away and that they considered her conduct too “unladylike” to argue with her. To that I replied that the college is a place for all the students and anyone has the right to object to any practice that affects the whole student body. They stood there silent and drew long faces. Then I asked them, “if you are so much for the pooja and the celebration, why didn't you go the boys hostel to get the Prasad? And why don’t you go and dance among those men?”. Again they were silent. “Its just because you are afraid and you know the whole thing is not safe. You are doing just for the sake of being cool!”, I shouted. I turned to my left and saw Ketaki and Oshin arguing with other people on the same front. This is when I noticed that some of the men standing on the pedestal were trying to push her down. In a reflexive move I got there and on the top of my voice shouted that if even one of the women from among the crowd declares that she feels safe here and is willing to go to the boys hostel or dance with the men, then we will leave. As I expected none came forward and the group of aviator wearing women that I had earlier conversed with just stood there staring at me. My two friends followed me to the pedestal and all of us stared conversing with the crowd. The group of men surrounding us, trying to push us down the three of us must have been bizarre. About 12 pairs of hands grabbed me from all directions as I stood by Shweta and some of the men asked me, ”What college are you from?”, in an angry tone. There was so much of vengeance in their eyes, I felt like I was there enemy number one. Some of them tried to grab my collar but I waded through with the help of my fists. Some of them told me, “get her down or we will beat her and you and your friends”. I tried telling them that there college is a democratic space and everyone should have a right to express themselves. My comrade, who was standing in the crowd, pulled me down and told me to not name my college. He wanted me to stay back among the crowd and said,” You can Be killed! I couldn't understand, why he was asking me to stay back? This was not the time when I would think about my own welfare. We were facing a hostile crowd of hundreds for speaking out the truth. All of a sudden someone from among the rowdy men gathered there burst a condom that was hanging over Ketaki’s head taking her by complete surprise. The whole crowd went silent for a second as I hurried up to her. All the men and women around us laughed as the three of looked about us. The hostel president shouted, “Hindu Ko Salaam!” and bowed to the crowd. The crowd gathered about the tree cheered and bowed back. Some of them were as taken back as we were but none dared to speak. For a moment we were silent but we understood that we cant allow the hooligans to subdue us. I again got on the pedestal and shouted,” You are all cowards and you should all be ashamed that a fellow student is being treated this way in your college. Don't forget today its us and tomorrow it can be anyone of you, if you allow such blatant act of harassment here”. Some of the men gathered around Oshin tried to push her around but she didn't move and grabbed one of them and gave him a push. I was so impressed by her move. Some of the men who had by now recognized me and my comrade told the others that we were members of the All India Students Association(AISA). They started chanting,” AISA Go Back!”, and again the crowd cheered them on. To be honest we were not there to advertise for our party, we just happened to be there by accident. Some of the men huddled around me and said,” We will kill you and these girls if you don't get out of here right now”. I wasn't scared. I told Shweta that we have made our point and that now we can leave. It was then that we got down from the pedestal and the men took over. As we walked away from the spot I looked back and saw that group of girls standing there dumbfounded. We stood in a corner, listening to their chants of go backs and salaams. No one spoke to each other but we could listen to our hearts, they were beating fast. The anger we had felt at ours protests was back. We were all contemplating about something, our thoughts, our beliefs and ourselves. All of us knew that students from that college had also been there at Vijay Chowk protesting in the aftermath of the rape incident, but we could not figure out why no one dared to speak out. Were they afraid? Yes, they could have been, but if they were, then how could they expect to change a country when they didn't have the courage to stop such a shameful act in their very own college? Were we all so fickle? Cowardly? The students of Hindu were not so offended at the fact that we, who were outsiders dared to speak against a sexist ritual in their college; but at the fact that they, who were students of the college could not, and some outsiders had the will to put them, and their college to shame. The boys who were trying to intimidate us were not individuals; they constituted a crowd that had no face. It was this facelessness that gave them the courage to indulge their vices. I was no longer very confident about crowds. My state of mind became very turbulent. Some days before the incident I was imagining that the young people from all over the country can bring a flooding change, but in that moment of truth I was rudely reminded that a lot needed to be done. It was difficult to come to peace with the fact that the men inside actually wanted to hurt me and my friends. Though I always knew that our University and Delhi as a city was not what it appeared to be, but going through that experience was very liberating. I could not help laughing at the fact that most students think of D.U and especially North Campus as a ‘modern’ place, where men and women can walk around in pajamas and boxers. In that moment of truth I realized that a whole life of struggle was waiting ahead for me. I wasn't discouraged in the least, witnessing the courage of my two friends was in itself a boost to my aspirations. The so called pooja was a celebration of fear and sexual harassment, by continuing with it the college and its students were imitating our society which continues with “rituals” that instill regressive ideas under the name of religion. The boys who felt so secure in their disrespectful indulgences would eventually turn sadists, lacking any hint of a moral compass. I also wondered,” what was it in me that made me stand up to such a situation?”. I honestly don’t know. I often think about it but the only answer I get is that it was the right thing to do. Later we sat for a meal with a couple of other girls at Ramjas College and had a good laugh about it. What I always wanted was, a life without fear for anyone and that is what my personal struggle was about. The young boys and girls who think of themselves as a panacea for all the rot in our society must introspect. Lets ask each other, is this the atmosphere that we want to hand over to our kids and their generation, a society where fear and sexual violence prevail?