TW: Rape

This is with regards to the Hathras Gang Rape of a 19 y/o Dalit Girl in Uttar Pradesh,who was brutally raped by 4 Thakur (upper caste) men on 14th September 2020,her tongue was cut and her spine was crushed resulting in paralysis and multiple fractures. The Uttar Pradesh police did not file the victim's immediately & said that the victim is just "pretending".Also, she was not given proper medical care. Later as the word spread and political as well as social media pressure set in, she was shifted from a normal ward to ICU in Aligarh's Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital.There she breathed her last on 29th September 2020.

The victim herself told her family that she was raped and also named the 4 Thakur men who brutally raped her.

And the brutality does not stop here, due to the social media pressure and fear of mass protests in the upcoming days, the UP police cremated the victim's body at 3am in the dark (against the Hindu law of cremating the body in daylight) without the consent of the family. The victim's family and relatives were locked in their house and barricaded. If this was not enough, the body was burnt with the help of petrol to hurry up the procedure & remove all the evidence of the existence of the victim and the rape.

In the Hyderabad rape case, the rapists burnt the body of the victim but here the UP police did the deed to help the rapists!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

a couple of things that have happened in the past week:

UP govt (BJP) hired a PR team to push forward the ‘no rape’ statement

several protests against rape took place across the country many of which got banned

false info is being spread abt how the family was present at the cremation even though there’s video evidence of the family pleading to see their daughter

the family’s demand for a fast track case and SIR investigation has been accepted by court

the lawyer requested by the family was not permitted to communicate with them

the family is currently being harassed to change their statement

the accused have been arrested

there is also smthg abt the journalist who uncovered the incident and brought it to light. i don;t have clear info on that but i heard that her conversations are being tapped 

important links:

this article on casteism in india

carrd with info and resources to help the family

Anyway here are the names of the rapists:

Sandeep Thakur

Ravi Thakur

Luvkush Thakur

Ramu Thakur

thread on Concept PR India, the PR firm hired by Yogi to push forward claims to the media on how the raped Dalit woman was not raped.

This is too harsh a punishment! For now I cannot see my face reflected in your eyes.

Jodhaa and Jalal, facing each other.

A single guttering candle is all Rama can abide while on his sickbed. His whole body is afflicted with aches and pains, but those in his eyes are the worst. The lamp flickers and casts the whole room into shadows. He blinks furiously.

The sight of you is repugnant to me… 

It had been painful to look at Sita, after she stepped out of the palanquin into the crowd of vanaras, to be reminded of how he had failed her. He knew the rumors that would swirl about her, society’s bone-deep beliefs about women’s purity, and he had spoken the words. They were cruel, and calculated to get her to prove her chastity and her reputation beyond all doubt. But as soon as he had spoken them, he saw her face turn white with shock, the rigid line of her jaw, pain blooming in her eyes.

She had the same countenance years later, when he asked her once more, right before she decided to perform bhumipravesh rather than another agnipariksha.

… as a lamp is to one whose eye is diseased.

Rama is a king. He has ruled, even when he wanted to rend the earth apart with a single arrow, when he wanted it to swallow him up as well. He has sat on his throne and ruled, has been a father to two dispirited boys already half-grown. Luv and Kush are model princes who touch their father’s feet without fail, praise him to anyone who will listen, and never look him in the eye. Kosala has flourished, and people are calling his rule Ram Rajyam, speculating that this will be an era of unprecedented prosperity. No hunger, no grief, no sickness.

There is a wide gulf between reality and what people say, and illness still exists under Rama’s reign. He himself has fallen prey to it. The physicians say it is a passing thing; he is not as young as he once was, and doesn’t always take care of himself. He will recover, they promise, but for now, he is confined to his chambers. 

The flame flares suddenly, and it leaves spots in his vision. For a moment, he thinks he glimpses a figure at the foot of his bed, clad in simple saffron. 

“Janaki?” he whispers.

The lamp flutters again. He winces.

He is alone. 

1. Urged Jewish people to commit mass suicide

2. Forced little girls to sleep with him

3. Was extremely racist towards black people

4. Supported caste + poverty

5. Stole the credit of freedom fighters who died as martyrs for independence

6. Viewed women as ‘objects’ for men’s pleasure or pride

7. Cared for cows but not Sikh lives.

8. Constantly belittled and insulted his wife.

10. Gandhi wanted The Union Jack to appear on our national flag as an expression of gratitude (WTF)

11. He gave our country in the hands of a piece of shit named Nehru.

12. There are so many evidences claiming his hands in the vanishing of Subash Chandra Bose & INA

13. He considered whites to be superior.

14. He promoted what Brits did in Africa.

15. He was Hitler's friend. So he supported the Holocaust.

16. There are seriously more things I wanted to include but I guess it should be enough.

17. He opposed Baba Saheb Amedekar. He was literally not even given the ticket from the congress. You can read the collection of his speeches, most of them were anti-Gandhi.

18. He insisted Indians to support Brits in WW2.

I hate calling him father of the nation. I hate to see him on my currency. I hate to use Mahatma in front of his name or even 'ji'.

No wonder why the colonizers loved him.

Just two dudes being bros.

I’m not sure if Rama is meant to be super chill here, the way Arun Govil was always half-smiling, or if he’s recoiling away from the action.

Some krishna doodle at 12:30am when I'm supposed to be solving HC Verma

Having finished his business at the tavern, Pradyut’s next stop is the nearest well. Wells boast a more reputable clientele than do taverns, but this also makes a spy’s job more difficult. Sober people are not as easy to manipulate. Not that this would make any difference to Pradyut, who prides himself on his diligence and efficiency. His employer has given him a job, and he will comply – not just for the money, but for the sake of honor itself.

You guys remember that anime Ramayana? There’s this clip right after Kaikeyi’s boons are granted and announced where Sita and Lakshmana tell Rama they’re coming too. What I like about it is that they both do it while taking off their ornaments, which obviously symbolises them giving up their status/lives as royalty.

But the difference is in how they do it - Sita takes off earrings neatly, one after the other, and setting them down, all as she explains her reasoning: they are married, the husband’s fate and duties are the wife’s too, and so on. Lakshmana goes after her and his approach is markedly different: he has only one line, that the same soul should share the same fate too (referencing Rama’s earlier statement that Lakshmana is “part of [him]”), which he follows up by grabbing hold of his necklace and yanking on it once, hard enough that the string snaps and the beads go scattering all over the floor.

And I liked the way the makers did that scene, because obviously they were pressed for time - the movie is maybe one and a half to two hours long and condenses almost the entire epic - but in this clip of only a couple of minutes they draw all three characters so well. Rama accepts his fate (seemingly) easily, gracefully, without conflict - we start the scene as he is already folding away his old royal clothes. Lakshmana and Sita, it’s made clear, both love him very dearly, as evidenced by their decision, but they are very different people: Sita is thoughtful, arguments thought out, reasoning clear, mind obviously made up by the time she actually lets Rama know of her decision.

Lakshmana isn’t like that - the breaking of the necklace illustrates that so neatly. He’s more impulsive, more swayed by emotion. His decision comes across as sudden, made in the moment - kind of unlike Sita’s - but when he takes off the jewellery he destroys it. You can’t un-break the thread and gather all the beads and string them back on to it. He’s stubborn, he will not be persuaded to go back on this choice now that he has made it, and he makes that clear essentially slamming the door shut as loudly as possible - through use of force and emotion.

This is not to say that anime Sita would agree to stay in Ayodhya based on her not wrecking her jewellery (“things cost money, Lakshmana!”), only that I feel like her approach, like I said above, would be very different.

(And although this next thing isn’t just an anime thing, I also like that Sita’s jewellery makes a comeback later in the Ramayana when she drops them from the pushpaka vimana as a clue to her whereabouts; I like to see that as evidence of presence of mind even in the face of high distress).

here!