'We won’t let you forget #Nirbhaya'

After 2012, December 16 has not been the same for the country. Nirbhaya’s brutal gang rape, which eventually led to her death, had sent shockwaves across the nation. Seven years on, artistes have kept

Nirbhaya

alive through their plays, dance acts, TV and web shows, and street plays.

Delhi Times

spoke to some of these artistes who have, over the years, recreated the gruesome crime through their work, and the trauma they underwent while doing those projects.

While filming my documentary, I saw that post Nirbhaya, mothers are accompanying daughters to report gender crimes: Vibha BakshiVibha Bakshi’s National Award-winning documentary 'Daughters of

Mother India

' (2014) was based on the aftermath of Nirbhaya gang rape. She says, “In my documentary, I had included (versions of) the police, lawyers, judges and activists, because they deal with cases of gender violence on a daily basis. Neeraj Kumar was the Delhi Police Commissioner then and he gave me access to the Police Control Room and police stations to do my research and shoot. I had spent several weeks in police stations observing them and realised that after 2012, more women started coming forward to break the silence surrounding gender violence and they were reporting crimes. I have noticed that now even mothers accompany their daughters to report cases – be it molestation or stalking.”
She adds, “What I realised during the filming of my documentary was that we’ve to take steps to make our society and our police force gender sensitive. If a girl complains to the police that she was harassed at 1am, then the police should not be judging her and asking her the same question which society does – ‘What were you doing at 1 am?’”

When I pointed the rod towards the audience, I felt I’m just a body: Arsh Dadwal
Arsh Dadwal, former

Maitreyi College

student, who acted in the play 'Uncivilised Daughters', which had a segment based on the Nirbhaya case, says, “In one of the sequences of the play, we hold a rod and show it to the audience. Nirbhaya was gang-raped and the perpetrators had inserted a rod inside her and her intestines were pulled out. In the play, we have a rod, and we point it towards the audience. In an accusatory tone, we tell them that it’s you (society) who’s depriving us (women) of the right to our own bodies. You are taking away our own identity. To talk about something so horrifying was unbearable for me. And we can only imagine what Nirbhaya must have gone through. While I was performing on the stage, I felt that gaze towards me – as if I am just a body. That feeling took a toll on me.”

After the Nirbhaya case, we rewrote our play: Shilpi Marwaha
Shilpi Marwaha’s play 'Dastak', is based on gender violence. She tells us, “We started doing 'Dastak' in 2011. But after the Nirbhaya gang rape, we rewrote our play and a major part of our script was based on the responses that we got from women after performing the play – they shared with us instances of sexual violence and harassment they have faced. We can never forget Nirbhaya, and our street plays will always talk about her.”

I still cry after playing Nirbhaya on stage: Pari SinghIn the last six years, members of Shree Umapati Theatre have performed their play, 'Ek Thi Nirbhaya' at different venues in the city. Pari Singh, who plays Nirbhaya in the play, 'Ek Thi Nirbhaya', says, “I want people to always remember December 16, and that’s why I perform this play even today. And after every performance, I can’t stop crying. When we recreate a scene of showing the gang rape victim’s body on stage, the audience starts crying. We want them to never forget that scene. After the play, many people come up to me and say, ‘You made us feel her pain.’ But I never felt her pain. Nobody knows what she must have gone through, I am just acting. When we started staging the play in 2013, we used to demand justice for Nirbhaya towards the end. But two years back, we changed it to 'Nirbhaya Keval Ek Toh Nahi Thi', because rapes have not stopped.”

My show gave me a platform to channelise and project what I felt in 2012: Shefali Shah
Shefali Shah played the role of Vartika Chaturvedi in the show 'Delhi Crime'. Her role is based on Chhaya Sharma, former DCP South, who investigated the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape. Shefali says, “When I met Chhaya Sharma, I wanted to know the technical aspects from her because the story is about the entire investigation procedure, so it had to be accurate. When she was investigating the case, what were her high points? When did she think, ‘OK! This is my first break’, or ‘Now, I’m getting close to nabbing the perpetrators’.”

She adds, “As far as the emotion is concerned, it is not a new emotion. Whether it’s me or Chhaya Sharma or anyone who heard about that gruesome attack, they would have felt the same thing. What this show did was that it gave me a platform to channelise and project all those emotions. Also before the show, as a layperson, I had a lot of questions and anger. I would often think, ‘Why is no one doing anything about it?’ But after I did this show, I realised that there were people who were working on this. And a woman was leading the investigation. On one
hand, there was this girl who underwent a lot of pain and on the other, there’s another woman who was fighting to get justice for her.”
Talking about the police, she further says, “Right now, in the light of what’s happening in the last 20 days (rape incidents), it’s difficult to see the good part, but to rubbish it, and say police officials don’t do their job is extremely unfair.”

If a girl comes with a complaint, the police should register it without judging: Aslam Khan, IPS officerPost the Nirbhaya incident, police departments across the country launched several women’s safety initiatives, including safety apps, self-defence training camps and PCR late-night drop service, among others. We spoke to Aslam Khan, a Delhi-based IPS officer of the 2007 batch, about women’s safety, if the police initiatives have worked, what needs to change and more.

In 2015, the Delhi Police launched the Himmat app for women. But Khan, now SP, BPRD (Bureau of Police Research and Development), feels that the app has not proved to be effective. “There are so many connectivity issues in the app, which have not been addressed, then how will it help?” she asks, adding, “Agar main ek ladki hoon, aur mujhe koi ladka road pe harass karta hai, toh mujhe kya time milega ki main Himmat app nikal ke police ko call karoon? It is not possible. Rather, what we need to have is extensive beat policing. Unless we do beat policing in all the
localities, we won’t be able to nab the miscreants.”

Several police departments, including those in Punjab and Haryana, have started an initiative under which, if it’s late and a girl is unable to find transport, she can call the PCR to drop her home. But Khan has a question: “If PCR vans start dropping women home, then who will patrol that area? Is it the job of police to drop girls home? The problem is that the police are jumping into each and every area which is not their domain. And if every girl starts calling the police, can they provide with so many drop-services?”

Aslam Khan says that while she believes that police is just a stakeholder in preventing rapes and a holistic approach is needed, “Police’s most important role is that when a girl comes to them with a complaint, they should register it. If you’re a police officer, and even if you have been in service for five years, you will be able to differentiate between a genuine and a fake case. But even then, why do you have to judge? You have a complaint, register it. Aap yeh nahi keh sakte ki yeh meri jurisdiction hai, yeh nahi hai.”
She adds that gender sensitisation of the police force is crucial and it should be a part of police training.

Doing our bit to keep Nirbhaya’s spirit alive: Yael FarberPlaywright and theatre director Yael Farber shared how her play 'NIRBHAYA' was conceived. She said the play was conceptualised when actress and producer Poorna Jagannathan reached out to her in the wake of Nirbhaya’s death.
“Profoundly affected by Nirbhaya’s death, Poorna shared that her own silence about sexual violence has been part of a larger fabric of culturally engendered behaviour – which Poorna felt had implicitly contributed in its own way to what had transpired on that bus. With Nirbhaya’s death as the inciting incident and narrative spine of the work, five other sexual violence survivors told their own stories – brought to light by this devastating incident in Delhi – and the ways in which Nirbhaya’s horrific ordeal and death – and her courage and determination to see the perpetrators brought to justice – inspired these women to speak out,” she explained the journey of her play.



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