Behmai! Well, does that name sounds familiar? Some of us may recall the infamous massacre of 22 men belonging to the upper caste Thakur clan in which the notorious dacoit chief and former member of parliament, Phoolan Devi and her gang shot these men to dead at one go, and that was Feb-1981. How ferocious a woman can be to commit such a heinous crime!! Isn't it? And as we all know her assassination conducted in July 2001 was a befitting reply to what she had done.
But do many of us know, that the small village of Behmai situated on the banks of the Yamuna situated about 50 kms from Kanpur dehat,(countryside) had witnessed a much horrific tale of destruction of honour, of humanity and more precisely of womanhood in the past somewhere in 1980? Yes, that was Behmai-1980 which was the precursor of the massacre that took place on 14th Feb 1981. The incident which is still breathing in the memory of many and is agonising enough to send down chills through spines. This was the savage act of gang rape endured by Phoolan Devi who abducted and captivated for three weeks because she refused to pay heed to the patriarchal approach of her opponents who belonged to the the upper caste. Her retaliation was looked upon as a grave crime by the Thakur dacoits, because she was a lower caste poor girl. A Mallah , who was not pure enough to be touched even as per the societal set up. Those three weeks she had to take up the assault of the upper caste men of Behmai continuously, without a pause. She screamed, begged and cried yet her condition did not seem to be pitiable enough to let her go. The punishment decided for her was not complete; She then had to walk along the village- wounded, battered, destroyed and stripped!. As a Dalit woman, she had no rights to retain her honour. So her pride was reduced to ashes ! So patriarchy and caste privilege emerged victorious. the voice of a woman must be out down like this always!
Does this resonate a lot with recent case of Hathras, where in a 19 year old Dalit girl was predated , yet again, an innocent life fell prey to regressive social rules highly acrimonious to women. And just like what had happened in case of Phoolan Devi, here as well a lower caste woman was taught a lesson. Phoolan was a phoenix who rose from her own ashes but not all the victims can do that. Manisha- the victim of Harthas gang rape, succumbed to the dreaded collateral attacks hat included a fracture of spine and strangulation. She could not get a chance to fight for justice, she could not get a chance to shot her perpetrators to death!!
Many would argue that out of the men shot by Phoolan Devi and her gang many were innocent which is absolutely right but the question here is what was Phoolan's fault? Was it her audacity to fight back or was it her caste? Was it the fact that she could easily compete with a man to be the leader of a gang or was it her courage to leave her husband's home where she was constantly exposed to severe sexual violence? Perhaps, all of these.Right from the tender age of 11 when she was married off to a man three time as old as she was, her ordeal started but she protested and stood back at every phase. She went through innumerable incidents of violent sexual attacks when she was merely a teenager. After reading her life story, at certain instances, I felt her all her fault was to be a woman above all and that too from a lower caste.
Till day this country has not got any respite from such incidents of violence especially faced by Dalit women. Many cases are closed down with substantially influential backing by the concerned authority or even by the state government, as has happened in Uttar Pradesh.So what is the solution? Education? Empowerment? Educating whom? The oppressors or the oppressed? Empowering whom? the victimised women or the bodies that are supposed to take the right action? Yes, we have movies made and acclaimed on these issues but those merely remained pieces of work merely done for entertainment. We see people demonstrating frequently against caste based discrimination but have we really reached a phase where we no longer need this? Has the perpetual caste based discrimination been abolished ? Have we started looking at every human being as a person without noticing their caste tagging them as ‘lower castes ’ or ‘untouchables’? Have the never ending incidents of atrocity on women on the basis of caste come to an end? Well, we all now know the answer- Nothing has changed in past four decades, Behmai 1980 is still alive in Harthas 2020.
