admin Sruthi Herbert
Protest is a beautiful thing. Almost always. But recent protests staged in the name of the murdered girls in Badaun has taken a turn as ugly as the violence itself, and makes one want to scrutinise the politics of protests. When protests turn into a knee-jerk event to write articles and hold demonstrations based not on facts, but on conjecture, they turn from being a tool of resistance and liberation to one that serves a few narrow self-serving interests.
On 28 May 2014 in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, two girls belonging to the Maurya community, a ‘lower’ caste community were raped and murdered by hanging by men belonging to the Yadav community, another ‘lower’ caste community (both these communities fall under the governmental OBC category, but the Yadav community in more populous and politically organized and represented). The gruesomeness of the murder has already been much discussed. There is reason to believe that the particular gruesomeness was the reason why the images of the lynching were circulated with extreme insensitivity for public consumption despite privacy of rape victims being the law of the land – many called it an act of raising awareness about crimes against Dalit women. Unlike the murders of many Dalit girls and women in India, this was followed up by numerous ways of protests – articles in the mainstream media both nationally and internationally, various protests – again national and international, and also many furious and touching posts of condemnation on the social media.
In the flurry of articles, posts, and protests staged in the country and abroad, two words – Dalit, and rape – stood out. Most of these protesting articles and demonstrations were built on a piece of fiction – that the dead girls were Dalits.Though their experiences of caste atrocity and their eventual death signify an extremely marginal existence, these girls did not belong to a Dalit community. To this day, articles keep appearing in international publications expressing outrage for the dead ‘Dalit’ victims. The protests were also built on another convenient and horrifying truth – that the girls were gang raped – at the expense of side-lining another crucial fact: that the girls were not just raped, but also killed. The girls lost their lives!
This begs the question, why were these words fixated on? Not, for instance, OBC girls, or murder? As in what was hailed by some as a novel form of protest in Kerala (and covered by many newspapers and discussed in many TV channels), women chose to wrap themselves with banners protesting rape of the Dalit victims in Badaun. This kick-started a discussion on women’s bodies, what were the socially acceptable forms of protest, of dress-codes in public, and violence against women. While important in itself to understand patriarchy, this bore no relation to (and indeed, deflected attention away from) the casteist patriarchal violence in combination with dismal social realities (the girls were abducted when they went to relieve themselves in open fields) that the Badaun girls faced, let alone the fact that the protesters, like many others, called the victims ‘Dalit’ girls. Another protest in London taken out in front of the Indian High Commission clubbed together the victims of Badaun and the Bhagana rapes, under the banner of raped ‘Dalit’ girls.
It has been clarified by the Uttar Pradesh government that SC/ST PoA Act cannot be applied to the case as the victims did not belong to these communities. Inspite of this, articles condemning and analysing this violence as violence against ‘Dalits’ continue to appear.
What does this mean – this immediate identification of any oppressed community with Dalit, and highlighting only rape in what is a case of both rape and murder? This is a conscious erasure of the identity of the girls, and nothing but a great lie is being perpetuated in the name of the dead. Any genuine engagement would have been based on the simple basic fact – of doing justice to the girls, to the lives they lived and the experience they underwent by locating them honestly. This erasure is nothing but unjust, and even criminal. That the writers and the protesters can get away with it only points to a further problem of the media and the social commentators – a commitment to ‘newsworthiness’ and a lack of commitment to justice.
What this misrepresentation also indicates is that many writers and protesters are eager to put the victims in an analytical category, apparently for the sake of writing and protesting. This exposes a lack of investment of thought into the facts surrounding the case. That the narratives remained unchanged despite the actual facts being available show a clear unwillingness to engage with caste-atrocity beyond a peripheral level, an unwillingness to locate the history of this violence in the Indian society, and an eagerness to protest at the cost of erasure of the lives of the girls and the history of the community. These ways of opting for convenient and easily available analytical frameworks show nothing but disinterest in having an honest engagement with caste atrocities.
From the many banners and placards of protests (that a google search will reveal), it is clear that rape is prioritized over the murders when it comes to protests. What can this mean, but an utter lack of concern for the lives of these girls? What can this mean apart from that the death of these girls is less significant than the fact that they were raped? This fixation is, at the basic level, not humane. But on an analytical level, this gaze that sees the sexual violence as more criminal, above murder itself is one that accords more importance to the honour of the girls than their lives. This is a patriarchal gaze, and one wonders how the patriarchal powers that cost these girls their lives can be countered by a patriarchal view of the incident.
Another violent aspect of the discussions that followed is that this tragic incident was used to analyse the evolving national and regional political equations. This was done in the following ways: firstly, some analysis located the incident in the background of the newly elected government. Many others reflected on the racialized formulation of ‘Yadavisation’ of Uttar Pradesh. Some others paid attention to Mayawati visiting the bereaved family and rushed to analyse the political strategies behind her move. Such ways of discussing a tragedy by making it a backdrop for political analysis does not seem so innocuous. In fact, it is sinister to use a gruesome caste atrocity of some of the most marginalized people to prove various political points. Because, caste has been a more persistent and resilient characteristic of Indian society in comparison to democracy, elections and governments.
Without doubt this violence is a result of inefficient governance mechanisms that doggedly left the centuries-old oppressive system unaddressed, but, the current protests exemplify an instrumental use of the dead: to shift the responsibility of this horrific incident to the new government at the centre that just came into power reveals nothing but that fact that dead girls are merely an instrument to advance a particular kind of politics. To write articles and more articles, and to organize protests by assuming the victims to be ‘Dalit’ show that the dead are just instrumental to the process of building writing-careers and activism, to write and protest only for the sake of doing so. To display the bodies of the dead to raise awareness against violence against Dalits once again prove that the gruesome death is reduced to an instrument to spread awareness about caste atrocities against ‘Dalits’ with commitment neither to the dead or the survivors, nor to the Dalit cause whose struggles include challenging stereotypes of Dalit women’s bodies. This is a lack of both empathy and intellectual honesty, to understand the working of caste in India.
The girls were victims of the caste-order, but they did not die because they were Dalits. This was not an incident that could be conveniently interpreted as ‘upper-caste violence inscribed on the bodies of Dalit women’. To use the lives of the dead to force-fit this analysis, a false analysis on all counts, is not just condemnable, but also utterly cruel. Such a callous and cavalier attitude to the dead, such shallow engagement with the Dalit and other anti-caste struggles, and such lack of grief and reflection has to stop. Now. It would be worthy of the protesters if all those who protested for the ‘raped Dalit’ girls retracted their statements, and apologized for their mindless acts. Because caste cannot be annihilated by mindless and unapologetic erasures of histories of a people and community, and justice cannot come by when ‘rape’, not murder continues to be the bigger problem. By not doing so, the disservice to the dead girls and the survivors will remain beyond repair.
But before all that, before we analyse any more, let’s pause for a moment to mourn the dead and grieve with the survivors. This is a time for compassion – even for protesters.
~~~
Sruthi Herbert is a researcher who seeks to interpret the Indian society from the vantage point of the underprivileged. She is pursuing her doctoral degree in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
A very very thoughtful, well researched article, Sruthi. Well said, that focus is more on the rape part than on the murder part. Loss of life here is of greater significance than the so-called violation of womanhood.
Let’s mourn the dead, grieve the survivors, as you’ve rightly said. Compassion is the need of the hour. That first.
Thank you Sruthi for this article. For standing out with the exact corrections.
– Inji
what an exceptional piece. outrage is all very well, but too often in recent times it seems to be a useful substitute for the truth. thank you for pointing us in the direction of what really matters.
Thank you, madame. For the clarity of thought. For writing this.ll
Thank you…beautifully written and well researched…
its very common that people read articles and watch news.But the thing is that how it is interpreted..Proper interpretation gives the correct dimension of the thing, as is done here.Thankx for such a nice piece.
correctly interpreted..
Superb. This needed to be said.
This is a very astute analysis Ms Shruti. In my opinion over-emphasis on the patriarchal semantics of ‘Dalit’ and ‘rape’ is a manifestation of the phenomenon which T. W. Adorno called the culture industry. More specifically this particular form of culture industry that leads to such misinterpretation was taken up by Guy Debord’s work ‘society of the spectacle’. We are grateful for people like you, who explore dessent with grace and do not fall for the infectious self-serving truth that the mainstream media dessiminates.
Cheers !
Sruthi Herbert’s article raises important issues about the dangers of appropriation, but it does not make any distinction between the vastly different political projects and perspectives behind the various recent protests against the rape and murder of two girls in Badaun, seemingly rejecting any form of ‘activism’ as by definition ‘self-seeking’ and therefore risking foreclosing the possibility of change. The tone of the piece is also somewhat disturbing. While constructive criticism is extremely important, we would question the ethical implications of comparing a protest demanding justice for the victims and survivors of caste /gender violence with the perpetrators of this violence, as the author does very explicitly. As well as echoing the state in labeling protestors as ‘criminal’, Sruthi Herbert shockingly trivializes the experience of the girls who were murdered in Badaun by suggesting that protests which mistakenly referred to them as Dalits are ‘as ugly as the violence itself’. The net effect of this can only be to further silence public and collective protest. Narendra Modi himself remained silent on the Badaun case for two weeks and has only broken his silence to enjoin others not to ‘politicise’ it, treating it instead as a tragic accident comparable to the drowning of students in Manali. Sruthi Herbert’s article seems to ultimately lead us in the same direction.
As one of a number of groups (including all major Dalit and anti-caste discrimination groups in the UK, South Asian women’s organizations, and others)which initiated and organized the London protest about caste/gender violence in India, we would also like to clarify a number of points about this protest which are misrepresented in the article. 1. We initially were not aware (like many others in India and abroad) that the girls who were raped and murdered in Badaun were not Dalits, as had been very widely reported. On being informed of this by our contacts in U.P., we immediately took steps to make this clear: the letter we submitted to the Prime Minister, http://freedomwithoutfearplatformuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/our-letter-to-indian-prime-minister-to.html which was reproduced in some of the Indian media coverage, refers to ‘ongoing horrific attacks on Dalit and oppressed caste women and children’, and discusses a number of cases in the context of caste/gender atrocities (rather than only violence against Dalits), raising the specific issues and demands which survivors and family members have put forward in each case. 2. Our publicity and slogans focused explicitly on both rape and murder in the Badaun case. In a case like this, we believe it is absolutely necessary to highlight both in order to convey how sexualized terror by the powerful against women in oppressed communities operates – this is exposing patriarchy, rather than as Sruthi Herbert seems to suggest, colluding with it. 3. We at no point claimed that the new government at the centre was responsible for the Badaun rape-murders. However we feel it is absolutely necessary to call to account the Indian government, however ‘new’, about what it intends to do to prevent a recurrence of such events, and to highlight its actions which create an atmosphere of tolerance for these crimes, by rewarding and promoting the perpetrators of sexual violence against Dalit, Adivasi and minority women. 4. We linked the Badaun and Bhagana cases not in order to erase differences in the two cases, but in order to highlight the continuities of caste/gender violence by men belonging to locally powerful groups and the struggles against them. The Bhagana case was particularly important to highlight since on the day of our protest, the survivors, who have been courageously protesting in Delhi for many weeks along with their families, were facing eviction from Jantar Mantar. Making these connections, which were made by the Delhi protestors themselves, and identifying the broader patterns of power within which these atrocities occur, does not amount to appropriation or misrepresentation: it is however essential the development of engaged and reflexive practices of political solidarity, and for collective action.
dear, freedom without fear platform,
please read the article again, it is about a global false narrative to which your protest along with many others have contributed to, please reflect on it.
in any future correspondence with this space please do not target the authors, engage with the issues the author has raised, especially when you speak from a ‘platform’ which does not make your location clear, whether you are male, female, white, upper caste or someone from dalit, bahujan and adivasi communities engaging with caste and gender discrimination. we find it interesting that the perspective of one woman author from dalit bahujan or adivasi community caused so much discomfort.
I also find it interesting that you do not consider this an engagement with the issues raised in the article . Nothing beyond what has been said in the article has been responded to and the response is addresed to issues the author herself raises and condemns ! So was the article put up merely for reflection by others but no critical engagement was to be allowed ? Especially when the author uses terms like callousness, lack of grief , misrepresentation etc in blanket condemnation of protesters , not differentiating between those genuinely horrified and angry who might have missed out that piece of information in the media onslaught claiming them to be ‘dalit rapes’. So if you do not acknowledge it as a dalit rape , you’re responsible for liberal erasures of caste ( how december 16 elicits outrage but a dalit rape doesnt etc) , but if genuinely believing newreports which are often one’s only source of information , you go out and protest to express your outrage, you are guilty of misrepresentation ,instrumentality and being ‘as ugly as the violence itself’ !Damned either ways, so why should one protest anyways?
I also find it interesting while asking people not to address the author, but the issues, a very suggestive comment and insinuation on the possible identity of the person posting the comments is made in completely sidestepping any engagement with the issues the post raises .
And in such a discourse , its not surprising that its missed out completely that the post might come not because the “perspective of one woman author from dalit bahujan or adivasi community caused so much discomfort” but because the perspective of a woman from the dalit , bahujan or adivasi is considered to be significant and crucial enough for it to be engaged with critically , like it would with any other important perspective, but without any patronisation inherent in upper caste guilt !
Anyway, that said, i think this is a fairly nuanced piece talking about production of global discourses in an age of spectacles. One only wishes it had made some concessions for the genuine sentiments of those moved to anger from a position of basic humanity.
well said, sruthi.
dear shravasti,
nothing in the previous comment by the admin has said that the author will not respond, she may or may not, that would be up to the author. the admins lay the rules of engagement in this space, it comes from centuries of being bullied by the caste privileged sections. it may not occur to you, but this is a safe-space, one of the rare spaces where dalit bahujan and adivasi women raise their concerns– zero tolerance for unexamined language of power.
I appreciate the need for this safe space for dalit/bahujan /adivasi women , just didnt think the response was such an attack , it was more a response to what was perceived as an attack. But if it was felt to be so, ofcourse admin is well within their rights to point it out.
Sruthi, as a member of Sthreekkoottayma who conducted the protest which you have mentioned in your article Iwould like to react to some of the points you have pointed out.
Though i agree with you that there is a large element of caste and caste rage in these rapes and murders, we cannot ignore the fact that majority of the attacks happen on women- be it in the form of rape or be it in the form of murder. As you had mentioned in your article Sthreekkoottayma’s aim was not to raise the issue as a mere ‘Rape’ . Even our slogans reveal that. These were the slogans we raised
1) Smash upper caste patriarchy of Indian Society
2) Women! UNITE to smash rapist regime
3) Are the bodies of women killing fields of castist demons?
4) Hey the preachers of psuedo democracy ! what do you have to offer to change this system of ‘femme-eaters’ , other than ‘NIRBHAYA’ and ‘GALLOWS’
5)State which uses therape as a political weapon is the first accused
Butit is very unfortunate that the main stream media could project our protest as a group of women who wanted to show off , conducted a protest against rape in the name of UP issue . And then onwards all the forums started debating the mode and modalities of protest – what mode of protest should and should not be used, what is the dress code women should havewhile protesting etc. That it self shows the deeprooted patriarchial values in our media and society. They think women are not capable of raising real political issues and they demean thewhole protests. And even a progressive person like you (and so many others) see our protest as it is for narrow self-serving interests. This is quite unfortunate.
I think you also agree with me that there no protests were carried out in the nation against these gang rapes and murders (even though here these were series of attacks and towards backward castes and classes) as in the case of delhi issue(where it was an individual issue).And we understand that is because here thevictims are from backward castes (socially and economically backward) and the silence talks about the castiest partriarchy deeprooted in Indian Society . The democracy and the state is also not exceptional. They also carry the very same castiest patriarchy from top to bottom. We also think that rapes ,murders and other attacks Indian army do against women in North East and J&K are also because of this. State uses rapes and attacks against women as political weapon to suppress people. State and system consider body of women as mere tools of war – though it is political, racial or religious. So we wanted to raise our protest using our bodies as ‘weapon of resistance’ .
Sthreekkoottayma an independant collective of women based in Kerala with all itshandicaps tried to raise voice against the attrocities against women especially from backward, dalit, adivasis and minority sections. And we do believe that though women are under patriarchy all over the world in one way or other , in Indian context the base of patriarchy is Brahmanism – which divides the mass in different layers/ levels and use that for oppression.
Brilliant and compelling analysis. Thank you for sharing these incredibly important insights.
am duly reminded of lauren chief elk’s open letter to eve ensler and the storm it raised…
http://chiefelk.tumblr.com/post/49527456060/an-open-letter-to-eve-ensler
and of course the debate about “tone policing”:
http://youarenotyou.tumblr.com/tonepolicing
dear Ms dhar , while the article on ‘tone policing’ makes very valid points, i do hope that constructive engagements are not to be dismissed as merely calling one to be ‘nicer’ or ‘derailing ‘ or not empathising with the ‘oppression’ of the marginalised . Infact the limitations of engagements reifying experience above critical engagements have long ago been rejected by the marginalised themselves , given the patronisation inherent in such acts. This was a response by those who genuinely felt the need to respond because silence when do they might not agree with everything being said maybe worse. The author has chosen to make certain remarks which necessitate a critical engagement by those condemned . Because this would be done in any other case , wherever the need to build bridges , solidarity and alliances is felt . And i hope people do feel the importance and the absolute necessity of attempting to do so where dalit , bahujan and adivasi women’s voices are concerned , more than anything else. While the need for criticism and interrogation of priviliges can never be denied, one also really values the author’s call for compassion for all , including the protesters, for that is what we may need more than anything else today .
dear shravasti,
1) first rule of engagement: careful and humble attention to facts and details. for example getting people’s names or castes correct. case in point: i am NOT “Ms dhar.” period. never was. never will be. thank you. (i’ll leave it to you to figure out the hindutva-izing politics of your move!)
2) the “tone policing” was relevant to the 2nd sentence of the comment from Freedom Without Fear Platform: “The tone of the piece is also somewhat disturbing.”
3) re: your stated “need to build bridges, solidarity and alliances,” let’s think of what constitutes being “in solidarity” with movements of liberation, de-occupation, and the annihilation of caste. “Being in solidarity,” incisively wrote Adrian Boutureira Sansberro, “entails being able to take direction from those one claims to be in solidarity with. Learning how to take direction, as to what is it that those we are in solidarity with wish us to do, is a huge aspect of shifting the relationships of power between the oppressed and the oppressor. It is also a way to really come face to face with our own true commitment and power issues.”
for obvious reasons, this need to “learn how to take directions” is *exponentially increased* when those “offering solidarity” are in a relation of power to those being offered the same. perhaps the former even belong to the oppressor’s group.
http://palestinechronicle.com/educating-stanley-jordan-facebook-showdown-produces-bds-victory/
4) at least one major problem with some “solidarity protests,” as pithily and poignantly described by Sruthi Herbert, seems to be a short circuiting of the self-reflexive and humble questioning of their own deeply ingrained privileges that is foundational to any ethical solidarity work.
that is to say, one cannot sidestep the whole complicated, painstaking, humbling, yet *profoundly rewarding* experience of taking the time to listen to, develop genuine empathy with, hold hands with, and viscerally being *with* the oppressed people. one cannot just quickly jump on to the spectacularized bandwagon of “solidarity protest.” the latter without the former unfortunately invariably misrepresents, stumbles, and appropriates more often than not. please do remember that “learning how to take directions” (see point. 3 above) is *crucial* to any and all sincere alliance-building, and necessarily entails deconstructing and being accountable for one’s own power and privileges, both individually and structurally.
5) if there’s one take away from this, it is the utter and absolute necessity of humility — the humility to acknowledge one’s comparative power and complicities, the humility to simply listen and learn, and the humility to acknowledge there’s an infinity to learn, and that one might never get there…
6) re: your statement: “the limitations of engagements reifying experience above critical engagements have long ago been rejected by the marginalised themselves,” i) please cite (just so one would be warned of work with terribly problematic politics.) ii) more significantly, this statement is abhorrently racist/casteist in implying that Sruthi Herbert or other Dalitbahujan and Adivasi intellectuals and activists are only “reifying their personal experiences” and NOT “engaging critically” and intellectually with the issues. it’s a false dichotomy. moreover it goes to the crux of the typical brahminical construction of the “lower-castes” as somehow lacking in intellectual capacity. please reconsider carefully.
7) please check mansplaining or ‘splaining (on Google or your closest library), in this case “Dalitsplaining” for why your reaction to the article above is itself very troubling.
8) “Consider the following to be a guide for identifying points of intervention against the ally industrial complex:” http://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/
9) please do check Trinh Minh-ha’s work on the ethics and politics of “speaking for” any community…
10) the rest, you’ll really have to educate yourself. good bye from me.
I find Ms herbert’s article an interesting and sophisticated piece that makes a fairly convincing point about the way in which experiences of violence are appropriated, about the instrumentality of death’,and how the naming of these women simply as Dalit not an erasure of the complexity of caste-gender-sexuality-violence.
However the engagement between Ms Dar and shravasti above ironically points to similar complexities. While i agree with many points raised by Ms Dar, I’m going to write this despite the fear of being immediately relegated as a ‘CIS savarna upper caste colonising left liberal feminist’ . I find the clubbing of “left liberal feminist’ ( a term borrowed from american academia and i hardly know who it applies to in the subcontinent sometimes) with ‘CIS savarna upper caste ‘ in a certain kind of facebook style activism , based on outright condemnations and sweeping clubbing together of multiple identities and complexities both exhausting and deeply alienating. More often than not they come from privileged registers themselves even if with a marginal identity tag and are a manifestation of upper caste guilt or guilt of privilege and sometimes even conscious personality driven cults . If solidarities require a lot of hard work and listening and sharing, then how does it become possible to claim an easy solidarity by an academic based in america simply based on ‘minority status’ with the very different oppression of caste by just coming together in condemning the so called left liberal strawmen and strawwomen conjured on a facebook post or an online article ? But a similar attempt at solidarity by the left liberals , located atleast in the same context , is immediately termed appropriation – after all those protesters like many of those left liberals are also part of a more everyday lived struggle in despite their probable human complicities and admittedly their privileges ! Don’t get me wrong , I’m not saying that many on social media are not genuinely enagaged nor that merely being based in a foriegn university denies them their right to speak out , but I wish then the same minimal benefit of doubt be extended to the much abused and condemned ‘left liberal feminists’ who are also not merely powerless but themselves being witch hunted at this moment . Sweeping judgements are very easy to make – its become easy to condemn someone merely on the basis of their positionality beyond redemption and likewise condemn those who can be shown to be in any position of relative privilige….you don’t have to really do or say anything – just being from a certain class, caste, location, even a university and even an elist with many dalit activists on it !! And its equally easy to pass on the buck to someone else down the privilige hierarchy, while meanwhile ofcourse the right is going from strength to strength.
If ‘solidarity’ is becoming a hackneyed word , so is ‘appropriation’ . You are damned if you protest for ‘appropriation’ and you are damned if you don’t for insensitivity. Then why bother really either ways? This is the kind of intolerant criticism of people who are probably the least part of the problem. It’s an attitude fostered
by the podiums of social media, which has had its utility but
also seems to have cost us a lot. At a moment like this , when the right is more powerful than ever before, many
have lost the desire to engage before judging, and the ability to
recognise their allies and combine strengths, instead of attacking
from within. They have replaced constructive criticism with outright
condemnation. and in the bargain, they reduce the receptivity of those
they are attacking to some of the important points they are making.
I’m perfectly willing to be led by dalit voices over here , but many dalit voices were involved in these protests – what about them ?
All this is not to deny the problems so succinctly summarized in “ one cannot just quickly jump on to the spectacularized bandwagon of “solidarity protest.” the latter without the former unfortunately invariably misrepresents, stumbles, and appropriates more often than not. please do remember that “learning how to take directions” is *crucial* to any and all sincere alliance-building, and necessarily entails deconstructing and being accountable for one’s own power and privileges, both individually and structurally.”
But then where is the space for genuine disagreements? – I hope real solidarity does not demand blind agreement either – nothing could be more patronizing than that . Enagements need to be critical without reifying either privilige or experience . And yet be empathetic and be able to interrogate their own power and privilige while enagaging with the oppressed and the vulnerable to move towards genuine solidarity . The question is how do we work towards that ? And can we make some allowance for human beings in the process who are niether demons nor gods- who might be doing and saying something worthwhile despite their very human failures, limitations and complicities? Especially if they’ve demonstrated willingness to both be conscious of their positions and open to criticism and also to being led?
I think while Ms herebert’s articles raises some important issues about politics of protest in general, it however discounts the space for empathy in protests . It was not just non dalit but even dalit groups and individuals who were initially led to believe these were’dalit rapes’ and many searing articles and statements came out , even calling out savarnas who would protest for a december 16 but not when ‘dalit rapes ‘ were involved.I even read comments like , they will protest when someone from their own caste/class after watching a movie in a ‘savarna theatre’ comes out in the night , they get out to protest but not otherwise. I was frankly appalled at the jingoism of those statements for december 16 was a spontaneous outpouring for what remained a nameless, faceless identity for a long while . In that case while some of the points made by Ms Herbert also held , it was also much more – it was a public outpouring against something which had gone on for a long while and it was the common man saying enough is enough – so while production of a media discourse etc also applied there , for me it was more than that – it also brought with it a cathartic rage – which makes Ms herebert for instance talk of the ‘beauty of protest’ for mass protests often hold the key to revolutionery changes and also make us realise that human conscience exists despite the odds it fights against. If Ms Herbert chooses to only see the production of a certain discourse and its instrumentality for all protesters , she misses out on the fact that many were moved to come out and protest out of genuine horror and anger at the gruesomeness of the event as it was presented , many would perhaps have come out irrespective of whether it was a dalit rape or not and some would have come out genuinely believing it to be a dalit rape and moved to genuine anger for teh same. While a lot remains to be said about the media discourse which picked on the ‘dalit angle’ , i do not feel that most protesters were out there in act of instrumentality for other reasons. People protesting perhaps deserve a little more than being ‘as ugly as the violence itself’ despite their probable human complicities .