She’s a saint, she’s a victim, she’s everything we need to know about hate wrapped up in one name, and she’s everything we need to learn about courage. All of this is us, hyperbole-hungry Indians, fattening ourselves on one or the other discourse.
One: the shock of what happened to Bilkis Bano in 2002 – the gangrape of her, her mother and her cousin; the murder of her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter and 12 of her family members before her eyes; her struggle for justice past corrupt policemen, courts and doctors, past a botched-up investigation; and finally, the conviction of the 11 men. Only to have them released on India’s 75th Independence Day on August 15, 2022. And now, finally, the convicts have been sent back to jail at the behest of many petitions in the Supreme Court by her and citizens’ groups.
