Siddhartha Mishra | The News Minute | December 12, 2014 | 12:48 pm IST
Close to ten days ago a video of two girls thrashing three boys in a bus went viral.
The media labeled the two sisters “Rohtak bravehearts” and hailed them as members of the female sex who stood up against provocation and gave as good as they got.
Later, a second video of the two girls started doing the rounds in which they beat up a youth in a park in Rohtak. Questions were hence raised about whether the two girls were “vigilantes” with some taking their side and others choosing to stick to the tone of “if you go looking for trouble, you find it”.
According to recent reports, the two girls are under police protection after several witnesses to the incident in the bus proclaimed the boys’ innocence.
In a recently released documentary entitled “The Final Side of Rohtak Bravehearts”, journalist and documentary filmmaker, Deepika Bhardwaj explores this other side of the Rohtak story.
On the basis of several interviews with reportedly aggrieved families of the two sisters and their father, she claims there is a different side to the story. Several boys in the interviews claim to have been on the receiving side of false FIRs filed by the family.
On being asked why she decided to make the documentary the filmmaker told the News Minute: “You have to look at every side of the story and I’m a girl from Haryana who got in touch with these people who started questioning the reports on TV”.
According to Bhardwaj, “the girls’ father, Rajesh Kumar, started a truck business in 2006/07 which failed”. When it did, the investors who went back for their money got threatened with false FIRs and kidnapping charges. One such “victim”, Praveen narrates his account in the documentary along with Jile Singh of Thana Kala, who claims to owe Kumar Rs 5,68,000.
It’s the clout of the family in the area that Bhardwaj attempts to show with these accounts and also by transcribing the second video that got attention.“In the video one of the girls asks someone to call Mahesh uncle at the police station, it’s not a normal reaction that I would have”, says Deepika Bhardwaj.
It’s because people in the villages saw the girls on TV and they felt sorry for the boys”, says Bhardwaj, who also talks about “woman-centric laws” helping the girls who “seem aware about them”.
“FIRs are also quoted by the newspapers verbatim and in some cases boys are innocent and are framed which also leads to them losing their dignity”, says Bhardwaj.
Using statistics, the filmmaker claims that this is a case that highlights the victimization faced by men in cases of such false FIRs filed against them and the damage it causes to their reputation.
But is Deepika stretching it too far? Was there a need to even further malign the girls? "I applauded the girls when the news story broke without thinking of the other side at all. But when people sitting inside the buses took on social media, i felt i owed it to myself to find the truth because i know media never does or is interested in what the boy side is. That's when i went to see things for myself and what i saw and heard is in the videos," she says.
One point of contention has been the second video of thrashing, many have asked what is wrong if girls thrash men more than once as there are quite a few men who are perverts anyway. "Yes, there are men who are perverts but it's unfair to judge all men and presume if it's a man he has to be guilty. I mean how many times women haven't fought over seats? How many times bitter fights haven't happened in public? Why are we so obsessed giving everything a sexual color? If the girls started using bad expletives first, should the boys stand there and hear it silently? Why? Why isn't anyone supporting the girl's version ? It's not going too far. If they brought the case in public then they would have to face questions too by public. If they have beaten up 2000 men then where are those cases? Why were they compromised?"
"When we have a man as perpetrator of a crime, media feels so comfortable unravelling his past present and future. But here we have girls so questioning anything becomes unfair?" Deepika says.
Deepika maintains her intention was not to malign anyone, but simply tell the other side of the story.
It’s the theme of his the media chose to play out the entire story that seems to be common ground for arguments across the board.
“This whole hype created around the sisters ended up putting them on a high”, says Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the AIPWA. “Every woman has slapped someone more than once in their life, and to single out such instances is extremely dangerous”, she adds.
Commenting on the video, she says that “basically to assume that all cases are being framed is a wrong premise to begin with”. “In some instances of harassment cases are not filed at all and the media is insensitive, rather, under-sensitive”, she says.
“In terms of statistics, 40% of rapes in Delhi are those registered by parents of the girl in cases of consensual elope”, Krishnan says in response to the 53% false rape cases in Delhi as quoted near the end of the documentary. “These are cases men-rights activists will not talk about”, she adds, while also saying that “lack of convictions also don’t mean false cases”, hinting at coercive methods used to quieten victims and force them to withdraw cases.
We live in a society where violence by men against women is commonplace and according to statistics, in more than 95% sexual crimes against women in Delhi, the women know the assailant. Crimes go unreported and some catch our attention and our eye while many go unpunished.
The sight of two girls thrashing a few boys makes for interesting viewing to an audience where oppression against women seems par for the course.
But to give them critical importance and to glorify unique cases without a proper background check to them, maybe the problem.
