Branded for life

It was the unfettered curiosity of some of my committed supporters, the puzzled looks about my motives, my passion and drive that first prompted me to share my own past. I could sense people’s confusion about me. Is she for real? Why is she so angry? Why is she in such a hurry to get things done? Is there an ulterior motive behind her actions?

When I share my reasons, all the pieces fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I don’t offer details, just that I survived a gang rape. The questions cease. Faces flood with sympathy and understanding, an arm or two pat my back, squeeze my shoulder.
But connecting my past with my present had a rather surprising result. My past somehow became a qualification for my work and, many a time, the way I was identified. This didn’t really affect me when we started Prajwala, an organisation that battles sex crimes and trafficking. We were a rather small outfit and there were plenty of others doing similar work. But even as the scope of our work expanded and began to be appreciated nationally and internationally, people would not let go of my identity as a rape survivor.

All leaders are stirred to action by ideas or incidents that move them. But it is only in situations of sexual violence that you can never shake off the origin stories. The label is for life. The world refuses to forget it and, as a result, you’re unable to shed it. Once a piece of information reaches the public domain, it is out there for the world to rake up at will. I wanted acknowledgement of my skills, my approach and strategies, my social entrepreneurship. I began to resent references to the incident, especially when my entire identity became distilled to someone who had been raped. No doubt a crime had been committed against me, but I considered myself a survivor, not a victim.

Labelling — of any kind — does not help. All experiences, regardless of their impact, are ultimately a phase in time. We should leave it to the individual to decide in what manner they want to remember that phase rather than turning it into a vault they can’t escape from. It is rather pathetic that some rely on labelling as a way to
stigmatise someone because of their looks or origin or because of some (usually traumatic) experience. How often have we heard people be addressed as ‘Shorty’, ‘Fatty’, ‘Kalia’ (black), or other epithets that body shame? I myself was called ‘Penguin’ in school because of the way I walked and ‘Kulz’ in college because of my (lack of) height.

Some such labels are made in jest, or even out of affection, but you never know how they impact that person. When these labels arise out of trauma, or even painful life situations, they turn into nightmares. ‘Divorcee’, ‘kojja’ or ‘9’ (for a  transgender), ‘chinaal’ and ‘randi’ (for women in prostitution, or any woman perceived to be ‘easy’) — such terminology can have a deep and painful impression on that person.

My children from Astha Nivas were called ‘Prajwala girls’ in their schools. Most of them tolerated it, but some deeply resented it and it made them reluctant to go to school. This continues even today. Thousands of children have graduated from our home, but are scared to associate with Prajwala, unwilling to be called a Prajwala girl yet again. Labelling, of any sort, can be unkind. 

Coming back to my predicament, anytime a horrendous rape would occur in the country, every media channel automatically dialled my number — not because of my work on sexual violence, but because I can be conveniently labelled as a ‘rape survivor’. One time, a national news channel wanted me on their primetime show. I had given explicit instructions on how I should be introduced. But when the programme started, I could see the label ‘rape survivor’ below my name.
Another time, I was supposed to address police officers on human trafficking. But in his enthusiasm for my work, an officer, while introducing me, graphically described my gang rape. Perhaps he thought he was doing me a favour. But the result was that my talk on human trafficking, its nuances, laws and limitations, was overshadowed by it, and the participants focused only on asking me questions about my personal life. It was a missed opportunity for learning.

Let me make this very clear — being a victim of sexual assault is not my identity. It is a lived experience that transformed my thoughts, gave my life direction, and became the impetus for what I do. Yet, social media posts that supposedly celebrate my work rarely touch upon the huge milestones that Prajwala has achieved in prevention or advocacy.

In their reductive write-ups, I remain the victim who has saved countless others, my work an abridged footnote. Then there is the speculation about my age at the time of the incident. Is this what makes posts popular?

Snide remarks about how I’ve hogged the limelight with this tag have followed me for years. Most of my relatives think I have no better work than to harp on about an event that happened years ago. An aunt even remarked, ‘You talk as if it is a great accomplishment.’ A well-known social worker said to my face, ‘Nowadays everybody is a rape victim. It’s the best way to get more funding.’

The public disclosure of my gang-rape has branded me for a lifetime. My achievements, skills, capabilities, my vision, my accomplishments as a social entrepreneur are all credited to it. Every now and then there are social media posts, especially in March during the week of International Women’s Day, or during Dasara, when all female deities are celebrated. They all say the same thing: Sunitha is a gang rape victim and now she saves children from prostitution. As if being gang-raped is a prior qualification necessary for saving the sexually assaulted!

Once, when we were attending an official event, an elderly gentleman came up to my husband Raj, took his hands into his own and kept saying, ‘Thank you for rehabilitating her.’

Poor Raj did not know what to do. Since this was a first for me too, I could only smile and move away.

Such experiences, among many others, make victims reluctant to speak about their ordeal in public.

For them, it is better if they are nameless and faceless, otherwise closure becomes a lifelong challenge. 

How is social reintegration possible when your past looms heavily over your present?

How can a person move on if you will never allow them to process what happened?

(Excerpted with permission from Sunitha Krishnan’s ‘I Am What I Am: A Memoir’ published by Westland Books.)