Some of India’s achievements are unique. Recently, a woman who had complained of gang rape was remanded in judicial custody and sent to a jail 265 kilometres away by a court in Bihar for obstructing judicial proceedings. Two women from a non-governmental organization had accompanied her to court; they were remanded, too, for the same reason together with a contempt charge. The court issued the first information report. The survivor has been given bail after a week, although her companions are still in custody. A letter from 376 lawyers and activists from across the country was sent to the chief justice of the Patna High Court emphasizing that the handling of the rape survivor had been insensitive, and that sending her to jail was harsh and excessive. Reportedly, the 22-year-old woman was giving her statement before the magistrate according to the law just four days after the event, and she insisted that her companions read the statement out to her before she signed it. The woman apparently lost control, and the fact that her companions requested the magistrate’s staff to show them the statement did not help matters, since the magistrate was offended at the din.

Rape survivors do not find it easy in India to face the police or the courts in spite of the many kinds of amelioration that have emerged through reform. The episode in the Bihar court is exceptional even then. The letter pointed out that the survivor was probably distraught and disoriented, emotionally dependent on her companions — they helped her when her family did not — and would be further traumatized by her separation from them and her stay in jail. The other two women must have been exhausted too. The letter lays bare some simple possibilities resulting from the intense trauma that women are forced to bear when faced with the usual institutional lack of empathy and insight. There are far more incidents of rape, sexual torture and domestic violence than are reported. In 2018, women reported 34,000 rapes according to government data and in 2017, 90 rapes a day. The Bihar incident shows why women would baulk at going to court. The criminals are always the beneficiaries. This time, too, the survivor’s ‘bad’ behaviour drew more attention than the alleged crime. Only one suspect has been arrested so far.