Crimes Against Women | Book Review

"Crimes Against Women"- Three Tragedies And The Call For Reform In India

By The Wall Street Journal

Publishers: HarperCollins 

“Crimes against women” as the name says everything about this book is about women condition in India. As we all know 2012 was the most disastrous year for all the women fraternity. Female feticide, gang-rapes, eve-teasing, murders and many more such true crime stories are phenomenally narrated by the authors of this book. This book is about the three tragedies which happened last year which shows chauvinistic attitude of people for women in India. The Wall street journal published with in-depth research about Delhi gang rape on 16^th December, baby falak severe condition and murder of sister valsa.

All the stories were deeply investigated by WSJ’s authors Krishna Pokharel and Paul Beckett. This book is divided into three parts-

Part-1: Sister Valsa, a 53 year’s old nun was brutally murdered by the villagers for whom she did so much. This incident happened in Pachwara a village in Jharkhand. She fought for villager’s rights. In 2002, she organized “Rajmahal Hills Protection movement” against Panem Coal Mines LTD because they were extracting coals and destroying their lands for other purposes. But after some time the greed for royalties spoiled the relationship of sister valsa and parganaith’s (head of the village) son who begun challenging sister valsa’s supervisory role and he wanted to have complete control of the process of negotiating with the company. On 15 November 2011, around 40 men armed with weapons attacked and murdered Sister Valsa. 

Part-2: Story of baby falak is about prostitution, human trafficking, bride selling and domestic violence. This story is about Munni Khatoon and her three children Golu, Khushboo and Sania (Falak). They suffered over 10months, from mid-2011 to early 2012. Many people exploited them; baby falak’s severe condition opened everyone’s eyes including police, media and some politicians. When police started investigation, they unfolded many other crimes that were happening in the underbelly of Indian society.

Part-3: A gang rape that happened in Delhi on December 16, 2012 in which a girl was allegedly raped by 5 men and a teenage boy. A young woman who was studying physiotherapy and her male friend who is a software engineer boarded a bus after watching Life of Pie at a very famous mall in Delhi boarded a bus from Munirka to Dwarka around 9PM. We can never imagine in our worst nightmares that actually happened that night with that young couple. The girl was mercilessly raped in a moving bus. Some other aspects of this story are also well written in this novel.

Read all these stories closely in this novel because these cases changed the image of developing India. WSJ researched about each incident before publishing the stories in a novel. We all have heard about these cases on many different news channels but WSJ explored these crimes with their expert team of researchers. As we all know all these cases were once on the headlines of every news channel but after some time because of our slow system, these cases fade away. So what happened with the criminals and all the ‘behind the scenes’ are very well written in this book by maintaining the emotional pull.

The best part about this book is the afterword part in which they suggested the changes that need to happen in India, if we want to change the image of our country. WSJ also researched on various other cases and found the main problems in India are-

      1. Police ratio to citizens is very low i.e. 1 police for 1030 citizens.

      2. Chauvinistic and misogynistic attitude of people in India.

      3. Ignorance of small issues leads to such horrible incidents. 

I recommend this book to all those who loves to read about true incidents. This book is about those brave and innocent women who sacrificed their lives because of some ill-mannered people. It’s a MUST read for all the citizens of India because they all should know and feel the pain of women who are living fearfully. 

Published: June’2013

Language: English

Price: 250INR or $9.99

ISBN: 978-0-06-231217-4

Genre: Current Affairs

Available on Flipkart, Amazon, Crossword and HomeShop18. 

Overall Rating- 4.5/5