The Rediff Special / Venu Menon
'The people will not forget my past. What is my future?'
Soon wall posters proclaiming Rasheeda an AIDS carrier began to
appear in Malappuram. She had already built up a police record
for her sexual escapades in Perunthalmanna and Mannarkad. By now,
Rasheeda was fully into the lifestyle of an active sex worker.
Rasheeda and Mymoona, and others like them, are the social eyesores
that irk the people in the villages that fringe Malappuram town.
The contrast is inescapable. The town itself is the hub of business
and commercial activity. But just outside its limits lies a verdant
rural setting with villages nestling in pastoral calm.
This is the social milieu where disapproval has started to build.
Rural Mallappuram is militating against the perceived urban decadance
that is offloaded in the busy marketplace of a town saturated
by Gulf money. The Gulf returnee is viewed as a profligate spender
out to satisfy his pleasures, luring girls from impoverished
rural families into the flesh trade.
The era of permissiveness inaugrated by the Gulf boom has unleashed
a conservative backlash in the rural areas. It should not be mistaken
for an upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism in a Muslim-dominated
district. The lynch mob that attacked Rasheeda and Mymoona was
led not by a Muslim zealot but an overzealous Hindu, not by a
'communal' rabblerouser of the IUML but by a 'progressive' leader
of the CPI-M.
Pulakkal Mohan is a Marxist by political persuasion and a local
leader. He is also a school headmaster. He is one of the
accused in the tonsure case.
As the secretary of the citizens council, Mohan was in the forefront
of the morality campaign in his area. Naushad, an auto-rickshaw
driver tonsured along with the two woman, has in his petition
to the police identified Mohan as the man who addressed the crowd
before the tonsuring got underway.
Moideen, the barber who has confessed his part in the incident,
told the writer he acted on Mohan's orders.
Pulikkal Mohan confirms his presence on the occasion but only
as a good Samaritan who phoned the cops when he felt the situation
was turning ugly. ''It was a crowd of cultureless people,'' he told
the writer. ''Since all this was happening close to my house, I
came out to take a look. When I saw that the mob was going to
shave the heads of the women, I called the police."
The Malappuram police is dragging its feet in the case. After
arresting 14 suspects who were released on bail and collecting
a corpus of evidence, it lapsed into inaction. Reason? ''Political
interference'' comes the reply, on condition of anonymity. Again,
the name Pulakkal Mohan crops up.
What is the legacy of the act of barbarism that took place at
Padinhattummuri in Malappuram on November 12, 1996?
A disturbing social event has generated some debate and eventually
become a media footnote. The police have put the case in mothballs.
Political parties are shunning the issue. Women's groups are looking
for new atrocities. The Muslim clergy has rallied to protect the
image of the community by swearing the victims to silence, the
perpetrators sleep peacefully.
Rasheeda and Mymoona continue to live their lives in the back
alleys of polite society. One is defiant, the other despondent.
"I demand compensation," says Rasheeda."Or else replace
the hair that I lost. What was our crime? We were pulled out
of an autorickshaw and beaten. My body still hurts.''
Mymoona breaks down. She is united with her children, but there
is that one question that women like her are condemned to ask:
''The people will not forget my past. What is my future?''
These are women who live on the wild side. Women of whom society
learns to beware. They smile for your cash and your sympathy. They
carry disease, and the burden of society's guilt. Their lives
never change. Even when they are strapped to iron poles and carved
up with razors, their lives never change. They never move an inch
from ground zero.
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