ON APRIL 25th a court in the city of Jodhpur sentenced a 77-year-old religious leader known as Asaram Bapu to life imprisonment for the rape of a 16-year-old girl. That, after a five-year trial, a judge should uphold the word of a poor, provincial woman against a bearded Hindu holy man who is not only venerated by millions, but cultivated by powerful politicians, including at one time Narendra Modi, the prime minister, seems to suggest that in India justice can, after all, prevail.
Yet the public mood remains grim, and for good reason. In recent weeks the country has been battered by a particularly ugly sequence of crimes, as well as by what appear to be glaring cases of miscarried justice. The most shocking involves the kidnap, gang rape and brutal murder of an eight-year-old girl from a community of nomadic herders who migrate seasonally from the highlands of Kashmir to the plains of Jammu. As disturbing as the crime itself was its motive—an...Continue reading
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