Bhanwari Devi was raped for trying to stop child marriage, ThePrint traces that child who’s now 32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y70zQ5PVPJA
Jyoti Yadav Sep 18, 2023
31 years have passed since Bhanwari Devi was gang raped for trying to stop the marriage of a 9-month-old girl in Rajasthan's Bhateri village. The sessions court acquitted her five accused in 1995 and since then Bhanwari's appeal has been pending in Rajasthan High Court. ThePrint's Jyoti Yadav traces that 9-month-old girl for the first time and brings this tale of two women-- Bhanwari and Bai
https://theprint.in/ground-reports/bhanwari-devi-was-raped-for-trying-to-stop-1992-child-marriage-i-curse-her-daily-says-bride/1765956/ Her rape case resulted in the landmark “Vishakha guidelines” by the Supreme Court in 1997, a law that protects millions of Indian women from sexual harassment at workplaces.
But what many overlooked was how the nine-month-old girl child has grown up hating Bhanwari Devi. The Print traced, for the first time, the child-bride, who is now 32-year-old Bai Devi. The two women have come face to face many times since, but have never spoken. They find themselves at two ends of a spectrum. Their encounters underline the classic dilemma of a rescuer feminist and a woman who refuses to call herself a victim.
What tied the two women three decades ago, now tells a tattered tale of an unfinished feminist revolution. “I didn’t want to become the Bhanwari Devi I became. It wasn’t my battle alone. It was a fight for justice of all women and I fought for each one of them,” said Bhanwari Devi.
Bai Devi, who lives just 40 kilometres away from Bhateri village, said, “I remember Bhanwari for sending my father and uncles to jail. I curse her every day.”
The Bhanwari Devi case: Origin of Vishaka Guidelines | Back In Time with @KunalKamra Ep 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87C1UWUQKVw
newslaundry 'It took our government 16 years to legislate. That's how much we think about women's rights in the parliament.'
Meenakshi Arora takes us back in time to 1992 to dissect why the #BhanwariDevi case in particular led to the formulation of guidelines on workplace harassment. She recounts how India got recognised world over for taking a position in law which allowed the #Vishakaguidelines to hold the field till the government legislated them in 2013.