Controversial Verdict

The verdict has dismayed women activists, for whom Bhanwari had become a cause celebre. A WDP worker, she was allegedly raped by five upper caste men for trying to stop a child marriage in Bhateri village, her home. But the judgement has delighted the denizens of Bhateri. Villagers exult that "justice has been done" and "Bhanwari's lie has been exposed". The five, two of whom were charged with raping Bhanwari and three with colluding in the crime, roam freely in the district, drumming up sympathy and support. The police, panchayat and politicians are solidly behind them.

Women activists are preparing to launch an all-out campaign against the verdict, in and outside the courts, starting with a rally in Jaipur on December 15. The "conjectural" reasons given by Sessions Judge Jagpal Singh for dismissing the charges of rape have fuelled their anger. For instance, theorder argues that Bhanwari's petition militates against Indian cultural ethos; Badri, 40, and Gyarsa, 60, could not have lost all sense of shame and raped a woman in the presence (much less with the collusion) of the venerable, 70-year-old Shrawan Panda—while Ram Sukh restrained her and Ram Karan held Bhanwari's husband, Mohanlal, back.

The WDP itself, hailed countrywide as a model programme for upliftment ofwomen, has come under attack in the Bassi area, within which Bhateri falls. The villagers claim that sathins (WDP workers) like Bhanwari have a vested interest in creating periodic outcries, to justify their monthly honorarium of Rs 250 and are nothing but "trouble-makers". Bhanwari is isolated with few villagers willing to risk the panchayat's wrath by speaking to her. The alleged rapists proclaim their innocence and present a pathetic picture of themselves. Shrawan Panda, shaking from some unidentifiable affliction, says: "Bhanwari is avenging herself on us for having had a fight with her husband. She was not even in the village on the day she claims to have been raped."

 Bassi MLA Kanhaiya Lal Meena would like to see the wholeWDP dismantled. "We are conducting our own programme against child marriage. But we do not want to involve the sathins, " he says. He alleges that they have no regard for village traditions. Social activist Alice Garg agrees that Meena might be partly right. "The programme is not working within the traditional village set-up. Change has to come step-by-step," she says.

Rathore is convinced that Bhanwari was able to defy the partriarchal establishment because the WDP gave her access to a support structure and information system. There are, after all, dozens of women who endure similar abuse in silence.

Cases of sexual abuse pending in various courts in Jaipur and Dausa districts read like horror stories, observes lawyer Moha-mmad Irfan Khan. Prema Devi, a widow from Chudiawas village, was gang-raped and tortured by her late husband's relatives before being sold off to an old man for Rs 60,000. A young girl from Boyal village was forced to wear a crude iron chastity belt by her husband, able to relieve herself only when he allowed it. Anokhi and Shanti, two sisters from Bassi, were repeatedly gang-raped and their house burnt down when they filed a complaint.

Recently, a woman stumbled into Bhanwari's hut late one night. "She was a Gurjar and had been raped by men of the same caste. She lifted her ghagra and showed me her body...bruised and swollen to five times the normal size," recalls Bhanwari. They held each other and wept through the night, sharing their pain.