Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani CC#20 (IO) new title pg106 - Page 6

KOTTAYAM, India — The Suryanelli girl goes to the office in the morning with her long, wavy hair neatly combed, tiny gold earrings glinting, packed lunch in hand, like a normal working woman in India.

But once she leaves her front gate, she holds her body tight, with shoulders hunched and arms wrapped around her, and looks down. If she makes eye contact, a stranger at the bus stop might recognize her and point her out as the former 16-year-old who was raped by more than 40 men over more than 40 days. Worse still, if she dares to raise her face, she may spot the men themselves.

For all but one of her attackers walked free, while it is the Suryanelli girl who might as well be in prison. For 17 years now, her life has been put on hold, frozen at the night of Jan. 16, 1996. There has been no justice, no closure that would allow her to move on and salvage the pieces of who she used to be.

It would have been easier if she had quietly disappeared, as do most of the tens of thousands of survivors of rape in India every year. Instead, her fight for an elusive justice has marked her, she says sadly, as a "shameless woman." And her punishment is to be victimized, again and again, by the police, the courts, the local officials and the society in which she lives.

Since Indian law does not permit the naming of rape victims or their families during trial, her moniker comes from the beautiful hillside village in the southern state of Kerala that was once her home. Yet it has been eight years since she lived in Suryanelli. Her family was hounded out because taxis and buses full of tourists were stopping outside their house.

As she talks about the rapes, she anxiously twirls the edge of her traditional powder blue dupatta scarf. Her smile is childlike and eager to please, her soft, whispery voice still that of a shy 16-year-old.

"I did nothing wrong, but I'm the only one still suffering," she says. "My side of the story was not heard by anyone."

___

All across India — in Suryanelli, in New Delhi, in Mumbai and Kolkata -- there are nameless, faceless girls who have been raped.

The government recorded 24,206 rapes in 2011. With a population of almost 1.2 billion, India's official number of rapes per capita does not stand out. However, the vast majority of attacks go unreported because of police apathy and cultural stigma.

"From decades of working in villages and slums, I can say that when 10 sexual crimes happen, only one gets reported," says Ranjana Kumari, director of Delhi's Center for Social Research.

Rape is often viewed less as a crime against a woman than as her shame. Most of the time, the victims hide, on their own accord or forced by their families, and life goes on.

Sexual harassment is part of a landscape of fear that almost all women in India must negotiate. Women learn from girlhood to dress conservatively — legs covered, nothing tight or revealing __ on buses and trains. They avoid going out after dark. They teach themselves to ignore the lewd comments that are rampant in the streets, market places and most other crowded public spaces.