‘Rupam is more sinned against than a sinner’

[1]

No one in the whole world understands a woman better than her mother. I am the same mother since Golden (Rupam Pathak’s pet name) was born 40 years ago as the first of my four children and today she has become such a controversial murder accused, while living a modest life balancing her family and a career. I am as happy for my daughter today as ever because she chose not to perish in womanly timidity by enduring the vicious mixture of a predatory man’s sexual lust, political power and muscles of money.
The shock of my first learning about Golden killing the MLA of Purnea on January 4 morning still lingers within me, struggling with my understanding of the simple girl who grew up always wanting to be a teacher, reading books and writing poetry. But my heart knew her tortured soul since she became victim of the insatiable sexual hunger of MLA Kesrijee and his flunkey Vipin Rai.
Golden confided in me, over the phone and during occasional meetings, right since she started getting sexually wronged by both Kesrijee and Rai some three years ago. I used my experience as a woman to advise her how to keep a distance and live a peaceful life caring for her family and mothering her growing private school, which she built by borrowing money from banks and relatives.
Instead of asking her to hush up the injustice that went on worsening and tearing up her soul, I could have then stood up for her like I am doing belatedly now. I could have petitioned the women’s commissions and human rights commissions about the pressure tactics being used against her by the MLA and his men, how they threatened to abduct Golden’s 12-year-old son Ayush if she did not withdraw the rape charges.
Last year, I had no other choice than shifting Ayush from Kendriya Vidyalaya in Purnea to Imphal in Manipur, where his father teaches at a college, and order Nupur never to come to Purnea from Imphal again.
Golden first came into contact with Kesrijee when she invited him to inaugurate her school, Rajhans Public School in Purnea, in April 2006 as the people’s elected representative living in the same small town.
Just days after Kesrijee attended her school’s first annual function, he first made her the victim of his lust. The man paid no heed to her protests and continued to violate her many times in the following months till she could no longer bear it and lodged an FIR against him in May 2010.
Vipin Rai had by then started grossly misbehaving with Golden by visiting her at her school. What broke Golden’s soul was Rai’s desire to make young Nupur the object of his lust.
Golden’s intense physical and psychological torture was first known by her school colleague Rama Pathak, a local journalist’s wife, and it led to the journalist’s small English tabloid, Quisling, publishing an article about Golden.
The MLA never denied the charges, but after she lodged an FIR, he put pressure on her to withdraw the charges, which she did very unwillingly after my advice. But when the MLA’s hunger for sex returned after a police probe into the FIR gave him a clean chit, she decided to fight back with the judiciary’s help.
Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who belongs to the MLA’s party BJP, had last year described the MLA as innocent even when Golden’s charges were under probe. The day the MLA was killed, Modi described Golden as a blackmailer and the journalist who had first published her story as unreliable. Such comments by top government functionaries had threatened to derail the police probe into the murder and its motives, but protests by women’s organisations finally led to the case being handed over to the CBI.
I have full faith in India’s judiciary and believe that the judges would clearly see how Golden has been a woman more sinned against a sinner. She is yet to recover from the physical injuries inflicted on her by the MLA’s supporters soon after the attack on him at his house.
The battle of the sexes for power and prestige should never worsen to sexual subjugation of any woman and must never end with anyone’s murder.