A nemesis for every sin

This deeply researched and emotive work manages to give readers a much-needed reality check.

Another International Women’s Day has rolled on — a day where a small minority, in their cocooned environments, celebrate the women’s rights’ movement, from suffrage rights onwards, towards a more equal world. As a recent meme showed — from Rosa Parker to Kamala Harris — it has been quite a journey! However, one needs to reflect on what such days mean to the millions of ordinary women across India. Sonia Faleiro’s book — The Good Girls, An Ordinary Killing — does exactly this. This well-researched and empathetically written book shines an unforgiving light on the plight of women from the Indian hinterlands, giving us a much-needed reality check.

Circa May 2014, close on the heels of a regime change, when the air was punctuated with optimism and aspiration, came a story that proved to be a dampener on the euphoria — a chilling tale from the interiors of Uttar Pradesh, captured in the photograph of two teenage girls hanging from a tree. Newsrooms worked overtime trying to answer questions; was it murder or suicide? Was there rape involved ? Why did the family not seek out police help as soon as they learnt that the girls were missing? Did the family murder the girls?

Brilliant analysis

In The Good Girls, the author, through extensive travel and interviews, seeks to answer all these questions. She does this, not in a matter-of-fact sense of examining evidence and reports, but by delving into the lives of the girls, the families and the village eco-system of Katra Sadatganj in Badaun district of UP, the site of the incident. The result is a brilliant analysis of societal norms and state apathy, inaction and incapacity.

Interviewing a cross section of people in Katra Sadatganj of Badaun, the author first introduces the reader to the socio-economic milieu of the place. For instance, one of the interviewees says: “The Constitution existed for decades, but Hindu religious beliefs date back thousands of years…”, which helps us understand that in most parts of the country, societal norms prevail over ‘constitutional morality’.

This background setting helps remove the judgmental mindset of the reader and moves her to one of empathetic learning. So, when we learn that it was the community, which decided that girls should not use phones (forget owning one), and the act of using a phone itself was blasphemous enough for them to be put under surveillance, one is left with a sense of resignation and despair. Similarly, the two girls going to the village fair was an act of rebellion. And then there is urban India where debates around safe public spaces are gaining traction! Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder if it is the same country we’re talking of!

As the book progresses, we learn of more damning revelations about how women are viewed in that society. The absolute lack of agency for girls, whether it be for their own bodies or their lives, is heartbreaking. The reader will begin to ask: did this act deserve a punishment as brutal as death? The nonchalance of the family in saying that they would’ve done the same thing leaves the reader speechless.

Honest appraisal

Women’s safety is a subject that is perched precariously between three pillars — the state, the society and the markets (to a lesser extent). The author, on one hand, delves into the effects of social constructs of caste and community on attitudes, and on the other, makes an honest appraisal of the state, both in terms of law making (the Vishaka guidelines and the POSH Act), and provision of public goods.

The state, as we know, exists to provide both safety to its citizens and public goods. Using reports and statistics, the author presents an assessment of the instrument of law enforcement — the police force — and the state of healthcare. That the police force is understaffed is an understatement. The book gives you a glimpse into the innards of the system. Poor working conditions, drunk on-the-job policemen, inherent caste biases while dealing with lower caste complainants and even collusion based on caste, remain markers of the system. The reliance on mob justice to solve complaints serves as the ultimate indictment of the police force.

In the healthcare area, the low doctor-to-patient ratio is a well-known fact. But here, the author draws our attention to the terrible working conditions that exist in health centres (lack of basic supplies, use of a butcher’s knife for a post-mortem) and the cultural mores of caste that are intertwined with dealing with the dead. That the person doing the post-mortem was a helper from a lower caste and not a qualified doctor, was indeed a jaw-dropping revelation! The many lapses in the post-mortem process holds a mirror to the state, highlighting the distance it needs to travel in capacity building as well as sensitisation of its workforce.

In the last part of the book, the author takes us through the nitty-gritty of the case, all the while exposing political and social interlinkages to the problem of safety, all pointing to a flailing state. At this point I was reminded of Dr B R Ambedkar’s ever-prescient comment on Indian villages: “The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite, if not pathetic,” wrote Ambedkar. “What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?”

So, who actually killed the girls? We could come to different conclusions, but like the author, for me too, the answer would remain “all of us”. Delhi, Badaun, Hathras — as safety of women gets compromised, beyond the initial outrage, we appear to be helpless to do anything about it. Problem solving involves understanding all stakeholders. The book will be a valuable addition to the growing body of knowledge that seeks to understand this multi-faceted problem and provide solutions. A must-read for anyone interested in society, gender issues and public policy.