Hemang Ashwinkumar

Poem

Labani Jangi

Illustration

Pratishtha Pandya

Editor

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How can justice for any woman end like this? – Bilkis Bano

In March 2002, Bilkis Yakub Rasool, 19, was brutally raped by a mob that also killed 14 members of her family – including her three-year-old daughter Saleha – in Gujarat’s Dahod district. Bilkis was five months pregnant at the time. The men who assaulted her family that day – in Randhikpur village of Limkheda taluka – were from her village. She knew them all. The case was probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the Supreme Court’s direction in December 2003; the accused were arrested a month later. In August 2004, the Supreme Court transferred the trial to Mumbai, where, in January 2008, a special CBI court found 13 of the 20 accused guilty. Of them, 11 were given life sentences. In May 2017, the <a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/165311885/">Bombay High Court </a>upheld the life imprisonment of all 11 serving their sentences and quashed the acquittal of the seven accused who were let off. Over five years later, on August 15, 2022, remission was granted to the 11 life convicts, based on the recommendation of a jail advisory committee set up by Gujarat government. Several experts have raised questions about the legality of their release. Here, the poet speaks to Bilkis, giving voice to his own anguish.

Be my name, BilkisWhat’s it in your name, Bilkis? It burns a hole in my poem, its fortified ears bleed.What’s it in your name, Bilkis? It paralyses the loose tongue, it freezes mid-speech.Dazzling suns of grief in your eyes blind every single image I conjure of your pain,that scorching endless desert of pilgrimage. Whirling seas of memories, dammed in that still searing gaze,dry up every single value I uphold, and smash this sham of civilization – a house of cards, a lie well-sold.What is it in your name, Bilkis that splashes inkpots in the sunflowery face of poetic justice?Soaked in your breathing blood, this shamed earth will blast one day, like Saleha’s soft, cracking skull.The hill you climbed with just a petticoat on will probably remain denuded,without a blade of grass, for eons and every wind to sweep this land will sough the curse of impotence.What’s it in your name, Bilkis that my phallic pen pauses mid-waythe long arc of universe and breaks its moral nib? This poem too, most likely,will become worthless, – a dead mercy policy, a shady legal affair – unless you touch it to life, breathe courage.Give it your name, Bilkis. Not just a name, be a verb, to my senile, sullen subjects, Bilkis.Qualify my unmoored nouns as adjectives. Teach embattled actions to break out like agile, interrogative adverbs, Bilkis.And complement my language limp with supple, sinuous figures of speech. A metaphor for fortitude,A metonym for freedom, Bilkis. An assonance of justice, An antithesis of revenge, Bilkis.And grant it your vision, Bilkis. Let the night flowing from you be collyrium to its eyes, Bilkis.Bilkis its rhyme, Bilkis its chime, Bilkis a song in its heart sublime, let this poem break the page-cage,and soar high, spread wide; let the white pigeon of humanity take this bloody planetunder its wing, heal and spill all that’s in your name Bilkis. Pray! This once, be my name, Bilkis.

The ends of justice: a case of Bilkis Bano

बिलकिस बानो: चूल्हा मं गीस नियांव, दोसी अजाद

न्यायाचा अंतः बिल्किस बानोची गोष्ट

بلقیس کے مجرموں کی رہائی سے ہوا انصاف کا قتل

ਬਿਲਕੀਸ ਬਾਨੋ ਮਾਮਲਾ:  ਨਿਆ ਦਾ ਅੰਤ

న్యాయాంతం: బిల్కిస్‌బానో కేసు

ন্যায় ইমানতে শেষ বিলকিছ্ বানো

ବିଲକିସ୍‌ ବାନୋ ଉପାଖ୍ୟାନ: ନ୍ୟାୟର ନିର୍ବାସନ

நீதியின் முடிவுகள்: பில்கிஸ் பானோவின் வழக்கு

നീതിയുടെ അന്ത്യം: ബിൽക്കീസ് ബാനുവിന്റെ കേസ്

ನ್ಯಾಯದ ಅಂತ್ಯ: ಬಿಲ್ಕಿಸ್‌ ಬಾನೊ ಪ್ರಕರಣ

बिलकिस बानो: इंसाफ़ हुआ क़त्ल और आज़ाद हुए क़ातिल

বিলকিস বানোর দাস্তান: পরিহাসের নাম বিচার

ન્યાયના અંત: વાત બિલ્કીસ બાનોની

Gandhinagar

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The ends of justice: a case of Bilkis Bano

A lone woman’s painful struggle for justice, and the recent remission granted to 11 convicts who had assaulted her during the 2002 Gujarat riots, sits, disturbingly, at the centre of this poem

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