JAIPUR, India ) - Mevar was a typical Indian bride four years
ago: a bit apprehensive but very excited about the life ahead of her.
But it did not take long for her dreams to be shattered.
On her wedding night her husband Rakesh came with a skein of thread to
determine whether she was a virgin. Minutes later, he emerged from the
room and announced loudly to waiting relatives and friends: "She's
impure."
The 19-year-old bride's pleas of innocence were ignored and she was
beaten and dragged to a village council for a public hearing and
demands that she name her supposed lover.
"When the torture became unbearable I took the names of youths who came
to my mind -- dozens of them," she told Reuters. "But they wanted me to
name my sister's husband, a police officer, as my lover and I refused."
Mevar is just one of the women belonging to the nomadic Sansi community
in India's desert state of Rajasthan who are subjected to such crude
virginity tests, which assume that only an unbroken hymen is proof of
virginity.
The centuries-old "Kukari ki Rasam" (Thread Ritual) is not used only to
torture women. It is also a money-making tool. "Impure" brides are
beaten to reveal the names of their "lovers" who are then forced to pay
big sums to their husbands' families. Sansi women like Mevar often name
any man to end their ordeal.
An 18-year-old from Alipura Chhan village, for instance, buckled under
the pressure and named two innocent men as her lovers, one of whom paid
25,000 rupees ($535) and the other 60,000 rupees, locals told Reuters.
"It's irrelevant that she privately says she was forced to name these
men," said Ramavtar (one name), a school teacher. "Here the brides are
beaten to make them admit to affairs."
Virginity tests are common among the Sansis, said Zakiya Inam, state
minister for women's development. But police say their hands are tied.
"It's more of an immoral thing then an illegal one," said S.N. Jain,
deputy inspector general of police in the state capital,
Jaipur. "Virginity tests are not covered under the Indian Penal Code
and as such cannot be considered a crime. So how can a case be filed?"
GROWING SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE
Although Indian women have made enormous inroads in fields from
corporate finance and politics to diplomacy and the arts, violence
against them is not uncommon. A recent government survey showed 20
percent of women have been beaten or otherwise abused since the age of
15, most commonly by their husbands.
But the tourist state of Rajasthan, better known for its palaces and
forts, has a particularly horrifying track record. In the late 1980s, a
young widow jumped on to her husband's funeral pyre following the
banned ritual of sati, triggering a furious debate over whether she had
been drugged and pushed.
Under the centuries-old ritual, a widow is supposed to immolate herself
on her husband's funeral pyre, a tradition started in medieval times to
keep wives of slain warriors from falling into enemy hands.
There are also continued reports of infant girls being smothered to
death by traditional families who consider girls a burden because of
the huge dowries they must pay for them.
Officials say the main reason for such crimes in the state is a low
literacy rate of only 38.5 percent in the last census. Literacy among
women was particularly low at 20.4 percent, the lowest in India and
half the national rate of 39.3 percent.
Virginity tests can only be abolished through education, women
activists say.
"There are conspicuous disparities in the literacy rates in urban and
rural areas and among males and females," said Nirupama Banerjee, a
women's activist. "Illiteracy is a major cause of ills against women in
Rajasthan."
Though women's organizations are active in Rajasthan, moves to abolish
virginity tests have yet to take off.
Mevar, who dared to file a police complaint, is an exception among
Sansi women. Others suffer the humiliation in silence rather than face
the fate of Mevar, who was made an outcast and lives in penury. No
action was ever taken against her husband.
Other tests are the "Paani ki Dheej" (purity by water) or a modern-day
version of the "Agnipariksha" (trial by fire), which Lord Rama's wife,
Sita, faced in the Hindu epic Ramayana.
"I stayed submerged in water while a neutral person walked 100 steps,"
said a victim who proved her virginity by holding her breath under
water.
As part of the trial by fire, brides are made to walk with a piece of
red-hot iron with just seven betel leaves held together with a thin
layer of dough to shield their hands. Women whose palms get burned are
considered impure.
But the government says it is powerless since few Sansi women dare go
public with the problem. "The government of Rajasthan cannot do
anything but educate the people against this custom," women's minister
Inam said. "Whatever happens in the house is between the husband and
the wife."