‘Wasn’t your mother in that video?’ is a question that is still thrown at 22-year-old Rama*. Exactly a year ago, his friends and relatives saw videos of his mother Mridula being sexually assaulted, allegedly by former MP Prajwal Revanna, and told him about it. Mridula is one of five women who filed complaints against Prajwal Revanna, accusing him of varying degrees of sexual assault.
In the past year, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was formed to investigate the complaints against Prajwal Revanna has filed chargesheets based on the complaints of five women. The trial in Mridula’s case began earlier this week.
A status check by TNM, a year after the allegations shocked the state, found that the women and their families have been living lives of uncertainty in the past year, not knowing when they will be able to return home and carry on with their lives.
A daily wage worker, Rama now lives with his father and grandmother in their village in Mysuru district. Rama’s father, once employed, has stopped going to work and has taken to alcohol. “He barely speaks now,” Rama says.
Their relatives have distanced themselves. “My brothers-in-law were supportive in the beginning, but now everyone keeps to themselves,” Rama says. “We’re on our own now. People still try to humiliate me. They say, ‘Wasn’t your mother in that video?’”
For Girija* and her 29-year-old daughter Sunita*, too, the past year was marked by a constant unease. Living in a safe house arranged by the Karnataka police for months on end has not been easy, but they have held their own, battling illnesses and holding small celebrations.
Birthdays were never a big deal in their family, Sunita told TNM. “But this year, I don’t know what got into my mother, she insisted that we do.” When her daughter turned 13 last February, Girija wanted to go the whole hog. “We had a langa (long skirt) stitched for her, we got balloons and a cake.”
Sunita too celebrated her birthday for the first time last November. The staff at the place where they work got her a cake.
While the small celebrations keep their spirits up, they still don’t know how long they will have to live in the safe house in Bengaluru. “The police told us that court proceedings will start this week, but that’s all we know.”
Read: Prajwal Revanna claims court prejudiced against him, plea for transfer of trial junked
How it all started
The allegations against Prajwal Revanna first came to light a year ago, amid a heated Lok Sabha election campaign.
A week before the first phase of voting in Karnataka, visuals of sexual acts involving a politician began circulating on social media. Soon, it became clear that what was happening was not yet another of the ‘sex scandals’ that Karnataka is infamous for.
The Mahila Dourjanya Virodhi Vedike wrote to the Karnataka State Women’s Commission on April 24, seeking an investigation into allegations that a politician had sexually abused many women and videos of the alleged assaults were being circulated across Hassan. The women’s commission wrote to the Chief Minister the next day urging that an SIT be formed.
The very next day, Prajwal Revanna cast his vote in Hassan district and quietly left the country. On April 28, an SIT headed by ADGP CID BK Singh was formed and a helpline set up to encourage women to file complaints.
Over the course of the next month, the SIT went about gathering all the visuals. “We had to watch all those videos many times to identify details. It was awkward, because both male and female officers had to sit together and see those visuals over and over again to identify and record details…” an officer told TNM at the time, trailing off, implying that it was part of the job.
The SIT identified around 70 women in the visuals, but only five women ultimately came forward to file complaints. The others were perhaps dissuaded by social stigma or other pressures.
When TNM visited Holenarasipura, we found few people willing to talk about the allegations against Prajwal Revanna, a leader of Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)) party. Unsurprising, because HD Revanna, Holenarasipura MLA and Prajwal Revanna’s father, ruled Hassan like his own fiefdom with an iron fist. He and his wife Bhavani are accused of orchestrating the kidnap of Mridula, who worked at the Revanna family’s Gannikada farm, and who was also allegedly raped multiple times by Prajwal Revanna.
During this time, the videos, which were widely seen as ‘consensual’ acts, wreaked havoc in Hassan. People were seeking and sharing the videos — many watched them, but perhaps due to social disapproval of ‘explicit’ videos, few admitted to doing so.
Although the videos have slowly receded from public memory, the whole episode has weakened Revanna’s hold over the party and the district administration, says Hassan-based activist and the district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Dharmesh.
“Although Revanna’s hold has weakened, it cannot be dislodged so easily. Neither the BJP nor Congress have stepped in to fill the vacuum. There is no alternative political force and people will go where power is. So there is still scope for the kind of caste politics that the JD(S) has played,” he says.
The JD(S) may yet make a comeback in Hassan, Dharmesh believes. “They are making gains in the agricultural cooperative society elections, and the rural local body elections will be held in the next couple of months.”
Process and punishment
Several years can pass by before people who have been wronged receive justice.
Waiting out that time has been hard this past year for the survivors and their families.
Rama says his family has been wrecked. He has no idea where his mother has been living for the past year. All he knows is that she’s at a safe house in Bengaluru.
The last time Rama saw her was three months ago. “I keep waiting for the police to call and tell us we can visit her.”
He last spoke to her a week ago. “She doesn’t have a phone, she borrows one when she can. She said she’s okay, but wants to come back.”
As the trial begins, Rama admits he doesn’t fully understand what’s happening. “I just hope it’s over soon, and my mother can come home.”
(*The names of the women and their family members have been changed to protect their identity.)
