Why society 'needs to undertake' a penance for what Bilkis Bano has had to suffer

By Sandeep Pandey*
It is a matter of shame for us as a society that Bilkis Bano's rapists have been released by a District level committee of Gujarat Government. Some people in the Hindutva family are also justifying the act by claiming that a few of the rapists are Sanskari Brahmans.
If rapists and murderers will be called Sanskari, then we as a society have to rethink about the moral values and ethical standards necessary to be upheld for us to be called a civilised society. Besides Biliks Bano feeling cheated by the act of Gujarat government, what would be the feelings of women of family of convicts?
We're sure no woman would feel that men of their family are sanskari if they indulge in violating the modesty of other women, irrespective of which caste or religion they belong to. We take pride that India is known in the world over for its spirituality. India is identified by Mahatma Gandhi who himself is a symbol of values and virtues.
It is a shame that Gujarat which produced a global spiritual stalwart like Mahatma Gandhi today is silent on people who have committed heinous crimes. Are we as a humanity going to defend the victims of violence and hate or not? Are we going to silently suffer the injustice being done to innocent people? What kind of society do we aspire to build and live in?
All 11 rapists and murderers who have been released are associated with the Hindutva ideology. Godhra based Advocate Narendra Parmar asks why the committee in Panchmahal district, of which the District Magistrate is also a part, chose to release only these 11 and not any other convicts serving sentences in Godhra jail for crimes much less heinous than these men?
The proceedings of the meeting in which decision was taken to release the rapists and murderers is not being provided under the Right to Information Act, in spite of the one month stipulated time being over in response to an application filed by journalist Rajjak Mansuri.
It is interesting to note that only one out of the 11 convicts had asked for remission of sentence from the court but all 11 were released by the district committee in a rare gesture of goodwill on the Independence Day soon after the Prime Minister made an appeal from the Red Fort that we must change our attitude towards women and must treat them with respect.
By releasing them just before the Gujarat elections the Bhartiya Janta Party government intends to send out a message that all its cadres will be protected in spite of the graveness of crime committed by them so long as it serves the purpose of Hindutva ideology.
We are one step closer to the establishment of Hindu Rashtra of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh by this decision of Gujarat government. The BJP and RSS may gain politically from this decision but anybody can predict that they are setting a dangerous precedent but letting out the culprit convicts, putting the victim and witnesses in a precarious position.

A Sorry Bilkis padyatra from her village Randhikpur, Dahod district, to Ahmedabad will held from 26 September to 4 October

The devious design for the purpose of communal polarisation is distorting or numbing the conscience of people. We are not being able to decide on the basis of merit of the case but our view is being coloured by caste and communal considerations. Slowly, this process will render us incapable of having a sense of empathy and we’ll become human beings without any feelings.

This phenomenon has already started affecting families where relationships are getting soured between those who support this Hindutva narrative and those who don’t. The scenario is becoming further murkier because the strident Hindutva is being confused with assertive nationalism by a section of population including people in positions of influence in bureaucracy and judiciary.
Some people feel that supporting BJP or RSS is in the interest of the country without realising that the sectarian politics espoused by these organisations is taking the society apart, alienating people even among close circles of friends and relatives, condoning hatred and violence which they would have otherwise not done and ignoring the socio-economic reality of the country intoxicated by some obscure notion of Hindu rashtra.
They are so blinded by this narrative that they don’t even realise that they are being misled purely for the political gain of a virulent ideology. This process has to be arrested at some point otherwise our slide down the hill of moral values and ethical standards or merely even civilised behaviour will continue unabated. We have to say enough is enough somewhere.
Let us speak out so that humanity survives, so that moral values and ethical standards are respected, so that innocent people feel safe and criminals are discouraged. We have to decide whether we owe any responsibility towards making our society more humane?
Until then we can only say we're sorry Bilkis. We only hope that what has happened with you will not happen with any innocent human being. The society actually needs to undertake a penance for what she has had to suffer.
---
*Magsaysay award winning academic and social activist, general secretary of Socialist Party (India), is taking out a padyatra from Bilkis Bano’s village Randhikpur in Dahod district to Ahmedabad during 26 September to 4 October, 2022

Comments

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai* The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Subaltern voices go digital: Three Indian projects rewriting history from the ground up

By A Representative A new wave of digital humanities (DH) work in India is shifting the focus away from university classrooms and English-language scholarship, instead prioritizing multilingual, community-driven archives that amplify subaltern voices . According to a review published in the Journal of Asian Studies , projects such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), the Oral History Narmada archive , and the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre are redefining how the country remembers its past — often without government funding or institutional support.

Beyond Lata: How Asha Bhosle redefined the female voice with her underrated versatility

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The news of iconic Asha Bhosle’s ‘untimely’ demise has shocked music lovers across the country. Asha Tai was 92 years young. Normally, people celebrate a passing at this age, but Asha Bhosle—much like another legend, Dev Anand—never made us feel she was growing old. She was perhaps the most versatile artist in Bombay cinema. Hailing from a family devoted to music, Asha’s journey to success and fame was not easy. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had already become the voice of women in cinema, and most contemporaries like Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, and Noor Jehan had slowly faded into oblivion. Frankly, there was no second or third to Lata Mangeshkar; she became the first—and perhaps the only—choice for music directors and all those who mattered in filmmaking. Asha started her musical journey at age 10 with a Marathi film, but her first break in Hindustani cinema came with the film "Chunariya" (1948). Though she was not the first choice of ...

Search This Blog