When the world knows the identity of the gangrape victim who was brutalised in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 night, by six beastly men, including the driver and his brother, thanks to the victim's father himself revealing it in an interview to the London tabloid-the Sunday People, the Indian media is still unwilling to disclose it even though she died on December 29 in the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore due to severe internal injuries. The relevant law in the Indian Criminal Procedure Code is quite clear that the identity of a rape victim cannot be revealed as long as the victim is alive; only the victim can do it. However, the law provides that it can be disclosed in the event of the rape victim's death by the next of kin. And, in this particular case, the father has given out the victim daughter's name:Jyoti Singh Pandey, in a recent interview in his UP village home, to Indian reporters of the British Sunday newspaper. He even showed them a family album, including her daughter's photographs. The newspaper has put the entire interview alongwith a few family pictures on its website with the exception of Jyoti on the specific request of the father.
But, amazingly and inexplicably, the Indian media continues to remain secretive, denying its readers the information the world, and those with access to internet, have already got. We want to perpetuate the brave 23-year-old woman's memory to inspire Indian women at large but, at the same time, we want to keep her nameless and a non-person, some people calling her "Nirbhaya" or "Damini". Why this charade? For how long? She is now dead. The stigma of rape haunts and traumatises the living. Shouldn't we honour the brave-heart-Jyoti-the eternal flame-by her name, as her father has done, to narrate her dreams and determination to lift her family from the pit of poverty through education of herself, her two younger brothers and her own physio-therapist job, even though the dreams had a sad end with her own premature, tragic death.
But, amazingly and inexplicably, the Indian media continues to remain secretive, denying its readers the information the world, and those with access to internet, have already got. We want to perpetuate the brave 23-year-old woman's memory to inspire Indian women at large but, at the same time, we want to keep her nameless and a non-person, some people calling her "Nirbhaya" or "Damini". Why this charade? For how long? She is now dead. The stigma of rape haunts and traumatises the living. Shouldn't we honour the brave-heart-Jyoti-the eternal flame-by her name, as her father has done, to narrate her dreams and determination to lift her family from the pit of poverty through education of herself, her two younger brothers and her own physio-therapist job, even though the dreams had a sad end with her own premature, tragic death.
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