Suicide and in jail- Who is Guilty

The newspapers brought news items tucked away in the internal pages of the conditions and plights of the poor women, especially rural ones......

 my earlier involvement with Front for Rapid Economic Advancement of India (FREA) where we were involved with rural development had sesitised me to rural India....I had travelled all over India developing projects with the Gandhian rural development organisations and then had to develop the training programme for the students to get them aware of the social questions of development.....

(unfortunately did not write about these experiences.... but am trying to get feedback and memories of some of the key people like Dunu and Javed and Ulhas... and will add those , fingers crossed)...

anyway...

                                                SHE

                                      WHO IS GUILTY?

Every time I think about it my blood begins to boil. It was a news item- a young.  27-year-old Dalit girl living in a small town in Gujarat threw herself and her three children, Nilu (6), Sheela (3) and Sanjay (1) into a well.

SHE had just about had it—and wanted to end her life.  Her husband, a government employee, had not given her any money for the family for seven years.  All the money was spent on drinking, and she had to look after the children alone.

                                                                 TRAPPED

THEN, one day she had borrowed some money to feed her children.  And even that was taken away.

WHAT could she do? Where could she go? So she decided to end her life.  But who would look after her children?  Again no answer.  So she decided to take them with her.

SHE jumped into a well with the children.  Sometime later she was pulled out – alive.  The children were dead.  The report indicates that she refused to come out, but whoever was there fooled her.  They told her that her children were well and alive.  She came out to face the truth.

TODAY she is in jail-facing the charge of murder of her children.  Also charge of suicide, because it is illegal to commit suicide in India.

IMAGINE her, 27 years old, over-worked for seven years, slogged probably fifteen hours a day to earn some money, to cook and look after three children.

THE children were all she lived for.  Now they are gone.  And here she is , in a  jail, locked up in a cell with crowds of others( the condition in our jails is a subject for another article).                                          

                                                               NEGLECTED

EVERY day she probably relives-relives the cries of her children.  They torment her.  What does she want to live for?

Slowly but surely, she will go crazy.  Life will have little meaning for her.  And she will be punished even further.  They will keep her locked up in the jail to prolong her anguish for fifteen.  Perhaps twenty, years.  Lock her up…..making her a criminal, making her guilty.

THERE is money enough for jails to lock up women, but there aren’t resources enough to help women find alternatives so they don’t have to take such drastic actions.  Alternatives-a place where single women and their children can stay, where they need not fear being alone.

I BELIEVE that Mao tse-tung, as a young boy, was so angered by the suicide of a young girl, that he dedicated himself to changing society where young women felt driven to make such a drastic choice.

                                                                   JAILED

SHARDA Vinod’s case is similar.  Will we let Sharda sit in jail, languish for life, live each day with the anger and sorrow for her act which she did in desperation.

HAS Sharda committed a crime for which she should be punished?  What punishment is her husband getting?  And the State, which does not ensure work for all, or places where women who are being physically harassed can go?

WILL we let Sharda,  a 27-year-old woman, die in jail for a crime which was no fault of hers?

IS IT SHARDA WHO IS GUILTY? OR IS IT SOCIETY?

                                                                                                     SEPTEMBER 12, 1981.