Hemang Ashwinkumar

Poem

Labani Jangi

Illustration

Pratishtha Pandya

Editor

large_01-Be-my-name-bilkis-HA-The_ends_of_justice-a_case_of_Bilkis_Bano.jpg

medium_01-Be-my-name-bilkis-HA-The_ends_of_justice-a_case_of_Bilkis_Bano.jpg

small_01-Be-my-name-bilkis-HA-The_ends_of_justice-a_case_of_Bilkis_Bano.jpg

thumbnail_01-Be-my-name-bilkis-HA-The_ends_of_justice-a_case_of_Bilkis_Bano.jpg

01-Be-my-name-bilkis-HA-The_ends_of_justice-a_case_of_Bilkis_Bano.jpg

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

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


আমাদের সম্বন্ধে জানুন

পারি’র দুনিয়ায় স্বাগত

আমাদের যাবতীয় লেখাপত্তর নিখরচায় ব্যবহার করা যায়, আর আগামীদিনেও এই নিয়মই বজায় থাকবে। আমাদের কাজকর্ম ভালো লাগলে আপনি স্বেচ্ছাশ্রম দিয়ে অথবা অর্থ সাহায্য করে এই কাজে সহায়ক হতে পারেন।

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

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

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit