“This is what the religious texts say – helping a shudra is killing a brahman. Meaning, the sin of taking a brahmin’s life is the same as coming to a shudra’s aid.”
Hindi writer Shivmurti’s 2010 novel, Tarpan, is alarming in its timelessness. The news of the Delhi High Court granting bail to Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was convicted for raping a minor in 2017, is chilling and deeply shameful. What will the perpetrator, now out of the law’s vigilance, do to the survivor and her family? Her father had already lost his life to the ordeal, and a 5-km restraining order against the victim means nothing when the law can be arm-twisted so easily.
One is reminded of another bizarre case of dropping of gangrape charges against four men accused of gangraping and murdering a Dalit woman in Hathras district in 2020. Do these acts come easily when the victims belong to the most vulnerable communities of India – ‘“lower” caste, poor, rural, women. Does justice – if there is any to begin with – not care for them?
Fighting injustice
A slim novel of 115 pages, Tarpan takes a slight detour from the usual carnage. Fifteen-year-old Rajpatiya, a minor from the “chamar” community, is groped and molested by Chander, an “upper-caste” man. He ambushes her…
Source: Sunday book pick: In the Hindi novel ‘Tarpan’, a ‘chamar’ family avenges a lifetime of indignity
