Sonia Faleiro’s The Good Girls is a tale of retribution for patriarchy

Aradhika Sharma

We have lived through the real time reportage of the incidents narrated in this book set in a small village called Katra Sadatgani in western Uttar Pradesh. One usual night in 2014, two young cousins, 16-year-old Padma Shakya and 14-year-old Lalli Shakya, went to the fields to relieve themselves. The next morning, their bodies were found by a villager, hanging from a mango tree in the orchard, their clothes muddied, their slippers placed neatly at the base of the tree.

Upon hearing of the discovery, the anguished women of the family form a protective shield around the tree, not permitting the bodies to be brought down, knowing that if they were removed, the girls would be forgotten and justice would never be theirs.

And that was the beginning of the merry-go-round of politicians, media and policemen, of accusations, botched investigations and protests taking place all over the country. It left us shaken because this horrific incident occurred close on the heels of the Delhi gang rape.

Despite fully knowing exactly how the case played out, Sonia Faleiro’s excellent narrative-reportage unfolds like a crime thriller. It is still a riveting read that completely engages the reader while saddening him/her deeply about the condition of young women in India. Faleiro relentlessly exposes the deep-rooted patriarchy of the Indian system. It is evident that the liberties and freedoms that women in even slightly more advanced countries take for granted, are denied to these multitudes of girls who dwell in the villages, smaller towns of India and urban settlements.

There is a yawning chasm in the western experience of violence against women and that of Indian women, who must be watched closely every minute so that they do not transgress in any manner, and thus jeopardise the ‘honour’ of the family. And if they are perceived to have crossed the line, in even such an ordinary activity as speaking on a mobile phone, then honour must be restored and the cost could be their lives.

No person or institution is spared from Faleiro’s sharp scrutiny. She examines the fumbling investigations by the police, the inept post-mortem examination of the girls’ bodies by the inexperienced doctor who threw up the erroneous report of them being raped and later, backtracked. The witnesses are suspect and compromised; the media and politicians have vested interests; key evidence goes missing and the ‘simple’ villagers are anything but guileless. Nor does Faleiro spare the governance — or lack of it — that cannot ensure appropriate handling of the numerous and heinous crimes against women. From time to time, she brings up comparisons and examples of other such egregious activities as happened to Nirbhaya in Delhi, Bhanwari Devi in Rajasthan, the Shakti Mills rape case, etc. Says she: “The morning after the girls were buried, a teenager in Azamgarh… was gangraped in a field. Two weeks later, a 45-year-old woman was found dangling in a tree by the corner…. the day after, the body of yet another teenaged girl was found in yet another tree.”

The plot throws up several conflicting theories based on the re-examination of evidence, the crime scene and the witnesses. Eventually, the botched-up case is handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which concludes that the deaths of the two girls were not murder but suicide. The explanation offered is that the young girls, filled with shame for having been ‘caught’ in a field with a boy, opted to voluntarily end their lives. Faleiro does not volunteer an opinion.

As insightful and feminist as it is deeply sympathetic, the book encourages conversations about freedom, misogyny and violence and about women being the sacrificial lambs at the altar of honour, morality and tradition.