AN ANALYSIS ON KISHWAR DESAI’S ​WITNESS THE

NIGHT

Legend

Orange Inés Pérez González

Blue Fernando Suárez del Pozo

Yellow Rebeca Teijeiro Suárez

Green Leyre Tejada Botas

Red Rebeca Yagüe París

I. INTRODUCTION
We are presenting on the book ​Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai. The approach we have
taken has the purpose of raising awareness on gender violence, and specifically on the
situation of women in India. To do so, we will put the novel in context in the first place, and
then, representing the characters, we will cover the most relevant topics and relate them to
real pieces of news in order to demonstrate the stark reality of India. The main characters are
women, which will allow us to get to know first-hand their situation.

II. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

India is a country made up of different ethnic groups, languages, religions, classes and caste
groups. Indian culture is changing in contemporary times despite keeping the social harmony
and order. India is known for being a hierarchical society, in which the hierarchy is divided in
caste groups. The influence of caste has declined, especially in cities where different castes
live side-by-side and inter-caste marriages are becoming more common. Some say the caste
system would have disappeared by now if politicians would have wanted to. At elections,
many caste groups still vote as a block. As a result, the caste system has now become a
vote-grabbing exercise for many politicians.

Another important fact is that the united family is highly valued; such families include men
related through the male line, along with their wives, children, and unmarried daughters. In
the Indian household, lines of hierarchy and authority are clearly drawn, and ideals of
conduct are thought to maintain family harmony. Also, family loyalty and family unity are
both quite important in Indian culture.

Marriage is considered to be essential for every Indian individual. For most of Hindu
northern and central India, marriages are arranged within the caste between unrelated young
people. Women’s duty is traditionally to accept the authority of his senior relatives, perform
household duties, and produce children – especially sons – to enhance his family line. They
generally are not allowed to have a job due to India’s traditional gender norms, which seek to
ensure “purity” of women by protecting them from men other than their husbands and restrict
mobility outside their homes. However, there are independent Indian women, mostly in urban
areas, who have the possibility to work, but they refuse to do so, since they are given
lower-paid and less-responsible positions than male workers.

III. AUTHOR AND LITERARY CONTEXT:

Kishwar Desai​​ (1 December 1956;Ambala, Punjab, India)
Writer and columnist
Her first novel, ​Witness the Night​,[1]
​ won the Costa Book Award​[2] in 2010 for Best First
Novel and has been translated into over 25 languages. It was also shortlisted for the Author's
Club First Novel Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.
She grew up in Chandigarh, where her father was the head of Punjab Police, and graduated
from Lady Shri Ram College in 1977, in Economics (Hons). She has written 4 books, a play,
a biography and several columns for different newspapers and magazines. Desai's novels
have been translated into many different languages, including Chinese, Spanish, French , etc.
Witness the Night
The novel would ​belong to the category of contemporary Indian literature (rather than
postcolonial). It ​deals with serious problems that happen in modern-day India.
The plot of the novel consists of a 14 year old girl who is found, barely alive, raped and tied
to a bed in her house, where all of her family (13 people) lie dead.
Being the only person in the crime scene, she is believed to be guilty and locked in a prison.
She is not helped at all until Simran, a social worker, shows interest in her case and tries to
prove her innocent, with the help of her sister-in-law, who was not in the house that day since
she had moved to England. During her investigation, she finds a network of corruption and
systematic violence towards women.
We’re going to represent some passages of the book:
Leyre will represent the main character: Durga, Rebeca acts as Simran, the social
worker, and Inés will be Binny, Durga’s sister in law.
IV. DEVELOPMENT

i. Presentation Durga
My name is Durga, which refers to a Hindu warrior goddess: the fierce incarnation of the
wife of Shiva. I’m 14 years old. This morning I was found tied to my bed, crying and raped,
surrounded by the dead corpses of my 13 family members. My house has become a shamshan
ghat (...). It was all his idea, he told me to lie. So that’s what I did. I told them that I woke up
by the smell of burning flesh and that I came out of my room and I saw all the bodies when
suddenly a man in black assaulted me.

However, this is not what really happened. Even though we were surrounded by blood and
burnt flesh, he pushed up my shirt, and then he took room, where he removed my salwar (…)
He then pushed me down on the bed. I was feeling sick and I didn’t want to do what he asked
me to do. But he said that he had to do this to me so our story seemed more credible. I
listened to that familiar reasonable voice and drowned myself in the feel of his hands and his
mouth.

Now, I am detained in this prison where, at least, I have some allowances been made for me:
better food, proper clothes and occasional access to television… All this because of my
family’s status (…).

There’s a woman coming every day to see me and trying to retrieve information from me.

(1) Narrator
- ​Shamshan ghat ​is a Hindu cremation ground, where dead bodies are brought to be
burnt on a pyre.
- When this character mentions the ​salwar​, she is referring to ​a pair of light, loose
trousers, usually with a tight fit around the ankles, and it is worn by women from
South Asia typically with a ​kameez​, which is basically a long tunic.
- ​Family’s occupation (pg. 39): Durga is a member of a very wealthy family in
Jullundur, which explains why she is given a special treatment within the prison.

i. Presentation Binny
My name is Brinda, but you can call me Binny. I am Durga’s sister-in-law. I started sending
emails to Simran once I got her email to ask her to take care of Durga and in case I could be
of some help. I live in Southall with my parents.

I have just had a baby. Her name is Mandakini, Mandy, and it was Durga who chose the
name. Mandakini is the name of a river in India which finally joins others to form the Ganges
River. The prefix “mand” means “calm” and “unhurried”, and Mandakini, thus, signifies “she
who flows calmly”. Also, I am trying to formally adopt Rahul. He is a lovely little boy; when
I arrived in Jullundur, they told me he was Durga’s adopted brother although that was not
true.

Although I am a widow now, because Jitu died that night, I am not sorry that I was not there.
I am grateful to Durga because she told me to leave… She saved my life, my baby’s and
Rahul’s. I love her because she was almost killed, like her sister, by that family. That is why
she was so protective of me; she didn’t want me or my baby to suffer what she had been
suffering for 14 years. Imagine knowing you are unwanted, knowing that your parents would
prefer that you were dead. She was angry because of that and now they are using that anger
against her.

i. Presentation Simran

I’m Simran. I work as an unsalaried social worker, rudely called and NGO-wali. But I am as
professional as anyone else. My father worked astonishingly long hours to build an empire
with true Punjabi grit. He only had three pair of trousers and six shirts in his wardrobe so my
mum could have a whole wardrobe full of clothes. He worked for long hours while my mum
spent time at ladies’ lunch and races. When my father died I decided to become a ​khadi-clad
(...).

These days I’m working in a new case with a fourteen-years-old orphan girl. I’ve never seen
such a sorrowful case during my years working. Since there is no other evidence or
fingerprints, she is the chief suspect, and under investigation. But I don’t think she is the
guilty one, how is it possible for a young girl to come up with that terrible idea.

(2) Narrator:
- A ​khadi i​ s a type of cloth that was related to Ghandi, who used this way of
dressing to disconnect it from the elite and connect it to the masses.

ii. Abortion and Infanticide

My parents-in-law actually owned a nursing home and that is where I went as soon as I knew
I was pregnant. My father-in-law came inside with me when they were doing my check-up. I
was very uncomfortable, but he said he wanted to know if I was all right. Then he insisted
that I have an ultrasound. Only now I know it is illegal to know the sex of the child in India.
Finally, when the results showed a healthy baby girl he seemed very unhappy and my
mother-in-law went to her praying room. They spoke about the need for a small compact
family, and how it would make everyone happy if the firstborn were a son while Jitu would
just repeat anything his parents said. They wanted me to have the baby in India, and tried to
trick me into going to the clinic a few times, but I managed to fake headaches and morning
sickness because, after talking with Durga, I realized that my life and the life of my baby
were in danger. Durga helped me plan my return to Southall; gradually and in total secrecy.
Luckily, no one suspected anything; I said I was going to Delhi to visit some relatives, and as
Durga had begged me to take Rahul with me, she took his passport from her mother’s room,
and I kept my promise. One week after I left, I was in Southall and they were all dead.

FEMALE FEOTICIDE
Even if all these events happen inside the novel and would, therefore, be considered fictional,
there are many real life examples that prove that they are, in fact, based on reality. The author
herself states this at the end of the novel, and I quote: ‘While the characters and places in this
book are entirely fictional, the events which take place are not. There is a complicity of
corruption between the police, the judicial system, politicians, media and the uncivil society’.

First and foremost, to understand all these examples, we need to understand the legal status of
abortion in India. Since the establishment, in 1971, of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy
Act, abortion is legal under a number of conditions. These are: if the pregnancy endangers the
woman’s life, if it causes grave injury to her physical or mental health, if the child has the
risk of suffering from physical or mental abnormalities, or if it is a result of rape or if the
pregnancy has happened due to contraceptive failure (this does not apply to unmarried
women). [If the woman is less than 18 years old or does not have complete mental capacities,
a written approval of a guardian is needed] ‘Merely stating that the pregnancy is not wanted
is not enough’
Even if, in theory, abortion is legal and should not be seen as a challenge, it is really difficult
to get a registered doctor to perform abortions, since the number is scarce. It is even more
difficult for unmarried women or for women living in rural places in general, since abortion
clinics are usually located in cities, to which they do not have easy access. Due to this, there
are more illegal than legal ones being performed.

Some women and doctors use abortions as a way to avoid having daughters.
In order to avoid this, in 1976, it became illegal to tell the sex of a baby after an ultrasound or
an amniocentesis. Private clinics, however, can do whatever they want since they are not part
of the public health system, so sex-selective abortions are still widely practised. This can be
seen in the documents that show sex ratios at birth, since the majority of these abortions are
performed in an illegal way or not documented as sex-selective abortions. It was not until
1986, however, that sex-selective abortion started to be regarded as another way of female
oppression.
 NEWS

- Police in the western Indian state of Maharashtra have found 19 aborted female
foetuses near a hospital: ​https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-39176668

The police told the BBC that they found the foetuses while they were investigating the death
of a woman who had undergone an illegal abortion.

Activists say the incident proves yet again that female foeticide is rampant in India despite
awareness campaigns.

Similar cases have come to light in the past.

Eight female foetuses were found in 2012 in a plastic bag near a lake in Indore city in the
central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

In June 2009, 15 female foetuses were found in drains in Maharashtra's Beed district.

Some people argue that ‘sex selection is preferable to female infanticide or ill treatment of
girls after birth’ (p.6 pdf sex selective abortions) This is, however, not at all a solution. It is
too serious of a concern to be approached from a ‘lesser of two evils’ attitude.

ii. Abortion and Infanticide

One day, my grandmother told me about the still present tradition of sacrificing girl children
through the clinics, where tests are conducted and babies are aborted. Their bones are usually
buried without anyone knowing except for the family.

In fact, my own sister was tried to be killed. They first gave her opium when she was one
week old and when that didn’t put her to sleep they tried burying her in a pot of milk and then
in a pot in the earth at night. As she did not die either, they fed her cotton wool soaked in
milk. She miraculously survived all that and I remember, one day, finding my sister when I
came back from school after she had been working in the fields at the back of our house. Her
fingernails were all dirty and she was grabbing a paper envelope. She told me that she wanted
me to know what they did in my house so she made me unwrap it, and what I saw was a tiny
skeletal hand. She also found tiny skulls and other limbs. My family buried all the girls that
dare to be born. After the encounter with the skeletal hand I kept dreaming of the children my
mother had buried.

There were too many of them and most of them died unnamed. Why did my sister and I
survive? Why didn’t we accept a decent burial?
ii. Abortion and Infanticide
The other day I was watching the news in my room. The headlines announced that saplings,
those young trees, were being planted in memory of all the disappeared daughters.

For a largely farming community, girls were a burden. Not so long ago, the midwives used to
take away new born girls from their mothers, seal them in earthen pots and roll the pot around
till the baby stopped crying. Or they would simply suffocate them. Or give them opium and
then buried them.

After talking on the phone with my mum this morning, I remembered one story of woman in
Tamil Nadu who confessed that she tried to kill her daughter by not nursing her. Tired of her
crying she finally decided to mix some poisonous oil from a flower with some oil and force
the girl to swallow it. In fact, the crying bothered the mother more than the act of killing her
daughter.

Here in Punjab there’s one of the lowest sex ratio in the country, there are less than 850
women per 1000 men. I always ask myself, what are they going to do without us? Do they
think they can believe without women? Even after the warnings from social scientists and
demographers girls are considered inauspicious.

INFANTICIDE

When women do not manage or try to abort girls, that is when infanticide happens.

- No girls to play with at school: India’s infanticide crisis:

https://www.rawstory.com/2012/02/no-girls-to-play-with-at-school-indias-infanticide-
crisis/
- A girl says that she is the only girl at her school.
In most cases the killing takes place within 24 hours of a baby’s birth and the crime is
committed either by the mother or the midwife, he says.“​I have heard that people administer
opium or thrust a small but heavy sack filled with sand or mustard seeds on the baby’s face.
Many mothers do not breast feed their daughter, starving the child to death,” Singhi says. [he
is a farmer]
In Rajasthan, local administration and senior police officials say they are aware of the
atrocities committed against female infants, but the authorities appear reluctant to intervene
into private family lives.

“Infanticide is an open secret but it is next to impossible to prove the crime,” says Mamta
Bishnoi, senior police officer of Jaisalmer district.
“Girls are buried in the desert and no one in the clan ever inquires about the newborn or
mourns the loss,” says Bishnoi, adding “we cannot dig up the entire desert to hunt for the
girls.”

- Newborn girl found in dustbin, second in a week:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/gurugram/new-born-girl-found-in-dustbin-second-in-a-wee
k/story-6eOCAFK5C9LjeCplpooxcN.html

Girls are also abandoned when not wanted by their families.

The five-day-old baby is reportedly suffering from jaundice and has been admitted at the
Civil Hospital.
On April 12, a 45-day-old girl child was found underneath a tree in the Civil Hospital
premises. Last year, five such cases were reported.

iii. Education and Tradition

Trying to be a girl was not easy. I always wanted to be a boy; they can go to a co-educational
boarding school where they learn to smoke and drink. But my sister and I had to go to a
convent school and got ready for marriage as my father did not find any reason to further
educate us. But what if I don’t want to get married?

My parents were desperate for boys – they even adopted my cousins –. I tried to do my best,
so at least, my mum would like me. I behaved like a boy. I learnt to play cricket, to go
horse-riding, to smoke…I even behaved aggressively as boys did. But I was never as
respected as them. The only thing I got were slaps.

(3) Narrator:

- Poor and rich families; Households having more children are less interested to
continue school for each child compared to households with fewer children
Disadvantaged children have limited access to music, art and out-of-school activities
compared to rich children. Children are at great risk of experiencing exclusion within
school due to poverty in their household. Children from poor households are late to
receive schooling, experience more drop-out and work during study.

- ​ ducation of Indian girls; Indian girls (such as those from rural backgrounds) may
E
be at higher risk for school withdrawal due to cultural beliefs about gender roles.
Reasons for diminished engagement in school-related activities include the need to
fulfill household responsibilities such as domestic work and caring for younger
siblings. These competing demands for girls’ time may present an opportunity cost for
parents who wish to employ girls in activities that permit the economic survival of the
 family. Other reasons cited for girls dropping out or spending less time in
school-related activities include the burden of school expenses, a lack of parental
interest in educating girls, girls not being allowed to travel to distant schools, and the
dearth (escasez) of female teachers.

The overall time devoted to household chores for both rural and urban girls increased
with age, however, rural girls (ages 6-14 and who were attending school) devoted
more time to household chores than their urban counterparts. Rural girls also
experienced the lowest rates for both enrollment and school attendance, with higher
percentages of rural girls missing from school as they got older.

Within schools, girls may experience a less challenging curriculum than boys,
reflecting the traditional expectation that schools should prepare women for a more
traditional gendered role of homemaking and motherhood. In addition to this
alienating curriculum, girls may have fewer female teachers to serve as role models
(especially in rural areas), and may experience gender stereotyping and less attention
from their teachers.

iii. Education and Tradition

When I first came to Jullundur it was a total shock. I knew that my in-laws were rich and very
traditional. I had been told that I should give up my British life and get used to their
traditions. I did it. I started wearing sarees and long ​salwar kameezes and covering my head,
but thankfully that is over now.

I was in Jullundur for barely six months. When I arrived there I realized what an obsession
these people have with their sons. One day I went down to the farm; there were two girls
there who had been brought from Bihar. They cried when they saw me because I tried talking
to them. No one had tried to speak to them before. One of them even had children, and she
didn’t look any older than thirteen. But that was the lifestyle there. A lot of pressure was put
on me to start producing children, boys, as if I were a factory. I caught Jitu one day with the
younger Bihari girl. He begged forgiveness, and then I got pregnant. The Bihari girl was
upset, she would look at me with such anger, and these strange voodoo dolls began to appear
in my room limbless and pregnant, slashed and bloodstained. In India men have two wives
and no one cares, everyone seemed to be ok with the situation.

It was shocking that during the six months I was there, the family did not pay any attention to
Durga or Rahul. Talking with Durga I discovered that they treated them this way because of
their relation to Sharda: Durga had remained loyal to her, and Rahul was her son. However,
I’m on the process of adopting him legally now. I don’t know where Sharda is and why she
was kept away. In Southall I had heard of these things but never seen any of it.
iv. Marriage
I was never anywhere among the beautiful people in my family. My skin was the colour of
soot and, eventually, my mother was horrified to see the dark, ugly little creature I had
become. I was very hairy too, too much for being a girl. They tried to solve that by regularly
applying a bleaching cream all over my skin and hydrogen peroxide on my body hair to turn
it to a blondish colour. They wanted me to look less boy-like as the final goal of marriage
may have been at risk because of my appearance.

iv. Marriage - Modern woman

I always assumed that I had no choice, that I must get married, because all the girls around
me were being “arranged” into marriages. But I didn’t want to assume that, I broke all the
rules and my mother’s heart, as well as my engagement to a sardar who appeared to have a
Very Promising career in Hosiery. Now, I’m still unmarried but a woman of the world,
veteran of several love affairs.

Tired of my mother’s constant insistence on marrying I promised her the other day to put an
advertisement on the newspaper announcing my availability as a bride. Isn’t that stupid? She
said to me that she would send me a sample of someone she knew that had found a husband
recently on the web. My mother that had always rejected all this technology thing, was not
willing to try it just because of her despair of me being married.

But that is not the only ​dilema ​in my life. There are some days when I just want to get out of
this city and the jail. I desperately needed a glass of cold beer. But I knew that in Jullundur a
woman drinking in public would be an aberration. In fact, in this time of terrorism women
were forced to cover their heads and threatened out of their trousers out of their jeans to wear
only the salwar kameez.

Same happened with smoking. I wished I could smoke but no doubt it would create a scandal.
We, the women, are supposed to be confined to housework, to cook and clean. In the end, I
decided to smoke and drink wherever I want, regardless who was looking at me.

- (4) Narrator: The strong tradition Indians have with marriage is something that is
hard to part with in India. Even in the 21st Century, around 85 percent Indians prefer
to marry the boy or girl chosen by their families, rather than choosing their life
partners themselves. The women from this time have to deal with the strong
patriarchy system of their society, having to live under the guardianship of a man in
all stages of life: Father when she is unmarried, Husband when she is married and Son
when she is old/widowed.
 In previous times, the main criteria to be taken into account when choosing partners
was (in order of importance): religion, caste, culture, among others. Nowadays, the
criteria for matches have also changed - for example in urban areas, working women
are often preferred as better matches and their professional stature is considered
similarly to the grooms. Emphasis is put on education and values, rather than just
efficiency in the domestic arena.

Love in India is not seen as a prerequisite for marriage, but as the eventual outcome.
That is why, the most genuine form of love is expressed through humility and respect,
which is linked to the respect for one’s family and culture.

These facts can be seen in the article ​“Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than
Craigslist?”,​ where Anitta Jain talks about her own experience as an Indian woman
experimenting the whole arranged marriage process. She shows how this process is
something normal in the Indian culture, and how Indian people perceives Western
marriages as strange.

iv. Marriage
I met my husband for the first time on my wedding day, I had put a lot of effort to please
Jitu’s family because they were from our caste, our biradiri, and my parents were very happy
with this wedding. Jitu’s mother had wrote to a friend in Southall to arrange a marriage with a
suitable “good girl” who would wake him out of his drug daze. Also, she was hoping that we
could take care of Rahul. I had to sent them images through the Internet, as the family
discussed the pros and cons of multiple girls. Everyone liked me the best except Jitu, who
was too busy with his drugs to care. He was often away in the farm, and the idea that my
passport would take him away from that house would mean a new life for him. I landed the
day before the wedding. My parents were thrilled that I was marrying into such a
well-established family. The celebrations went on for weeks, mixing partying and praying.

- (5) Narrator: Within the caste system, arranged marriages became essential in order
to maintain autonomy for each social class. Due to the fact that the caste system
emphasizes classicism, there is a strong incentive for families to attempt to marry
their daughters into a higher caste.

Another important concept is ​dowry​. Dowry is the money or goods that a woman
brings to her husband or his family in marriage. This practise is most common in
cultures that expect women to reside with or near their husband’s family, like in the
Indian one. One of the basic functions of a dowry has been to serve as a form of
protection for the wife against the possibility of ill treatment by her husband and his
family.
 The difficult situation that many Indian women had suffered due to the dowry, like
the case shown in ​In India, One Woman's Story of Dowry Violence​, of Saraswati, who
was constantly beaten by her husband, since he recriminated her the lack of a
sufficient dowry from her family. And even when she decided to work hard to earn
more money, her husband beat her for hiding this job and these earnings from him.
She was brave enough to tell her story and show people the reality for many married
women in India.

v. Mental asylums
I had an older sister, Sharda, but she disappeared leaving no trace.

There was no shyness at first and, as we explored our sexuality and we played games, I felt
like she was the only person that listened to me. Soon, she became my idol and I felt like I
had to protect her. We both internally wanted to become boys and that meant:

- being safe

- being able to get shares

- and not feeling obliged to leave our houses.

However, people change. Sharda was no longer interested in me and she was often missing
from her bed at night. I couldn’t understand the change in her.

We made plans of future as soon as her period stopped, she would marry him and go to
business college in America. She was so happy at the thought of being a mother.

And then, she went away forever. I missed her and I felt alone, as I always did. After her
disappearance, life became harder and the atmosphere in the house became suffocating. Why
did my family have to pretend she had disappeared? They removed everything of hers from
the house, as she never existed. If someone asked about her, they said that she was away for
some treatment.

I heard form Amla that she was in an asylum. One day they brought a baby boy but I didn’t,
and still don’t know, if he is Sharda’s son. I also heard that that she was ‘possessed’, she was
seeing things and would scream for no reason, specially if my father come in.

v. Mental asylums
Today I went to see Sharda. I knew her the moment I saw her. She was chained to a bed,
paler than anyone I saw before, with her white hair and looking like a sixty years old woman
rather than a twenty years old mother. Her hands were tied to the bed under the nurses’
excuse that if they let them free she would run away, pick up little children and hide them.
Nurses there were, in general, untrained and there was any doctor to give them instructions
about what to do. Has this poor girl been much more careful about whom she loved, she
would not have been so used and abused.

Before going there, I had already knew that even in the 21​st century, mental health hospitals
were excuses to get rid of the “inconvenient”. Many women were locked up simply because
they were not wanted by their families. In many cases this was because of issues with
inheritance or because those women were too argumentative or aggressive. Or even because
her husband wanted to re-marriage and health hospitals were a cheaper solution than divorce.

According to one brave survey I read some time ago, in India there are less than three
psychiatrists per million people, which compared to the hundred psychiatrists per million in
developed countries, is absolutely nothing. And even those we have are not sure to be
properly qualified. What a long way to go!

In the end I manage to keep Sharda with me, I’m paying her a private nurse with the money
my father left me.

MENTAL ASYLUMS

- Women with no illness dumped in mental asylums, says report:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/women-with-psychosocial-or-intellectual-d
isabilities-treated-worse-than-animals-hrw-report/article6658411.ece
A Human Rights Watch report also illustrates how easy it is to institutionalise women
without their consent.

It was fight with her husband and eldest child that landed 46-year old Deepali in a
mental institution. Her medical history and the psychiatrist’s letter stating that she does
not have bipolar disorder were not enough to keep her off medication and out of the
institution.

There are scores of women like Deepti who are being forced into institutions and
coerced into taking medication for mental disorders when they need none, shows a new
report by the Human Rights Watch ‘Treated Worse than Animals’: Abuses against
Women and Girls with Psychosocial or Intellectual Disabilities in Institutions in India.'

Illustrating how easy it is to institutionalise women without their consent, the report has
testimonies from women who were tricked into institutions and even abandoned there. It
also lists abuses and discrimination that women undergo in these institutions.

“Women and girls with disabilities are dumped in institutions by their family members
or police in part because the government is failing to provide appropriate support and
services. And once they’re locked up, their lives are often rife with isolation, fear, and
abuse, with no hope of escape,” said Ms. Sharma.

- Life inside mental institutions

Documenting the stories of women and girls forced into mental hospitals and
institutions, the report also talks about the life inside the institutions, where they are
made to live in unsanitary conditions, face the risk of physical and sexual violence and
experience involuntary treatment, including electroshock therapy.

- The forgotten women in an Indian mental health ward:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38903780

Vaishnavi remembers helping her father on the farm in her village in the Garhwal region of
the northern state of Uttarakhand when she was six years old. She said she got distracted by
ripe mangoes and a couple of hours later, could not find her father anywhere. She was
brought to the hospital by the police, and has been there for 22 years.

The hospital has failed to find her home despite several attempts.

Most patients on the ward are admitted by their families or picked up from the streets by
police.
Kunti contracted HIV after she was raped, which led her friends to abandon her. This institute
has been her "home" for three decades now.

This issue has been explored in other fiction works as well, as it has been a problem not only
in India but in other parts of the world. It is the example of Bertha, ‘the woman in the attic’,
in Jane Eyre.​ The later rewriting of the novel, ​Wide Sargasso Sea,​ suggests that her case
could be something similar to what happens to many Indian women who are locked in mental
asylums just because they become inconvenient to their families.

V. CONCLUSION:
Witness the Night ​is the story of different women who, despite the suffering, manage to
overcome their situation and remain hopeful. Both characters, Durga and Sharda, represent
the struggle of lots of women, not only from India but from many other countries, as well as
the injustice when punishing those who are responsible for their suffering. But in that world
of inequality and oppression, the character of Simran symbolizes the modern woman who
does not follow traditional values and the prosperity of the country​​. Finally, Binny’s
daughter, called Mandy, embodies their hope for a better future for women in which equality
between men and women will be achieved.

By linking these news with the main topics dealt with in the novel we wanted to show that
literature can make us reflect on real life issues. The glocal (this case is set in India) affects
the global as it transmits a global message to all human beings on gender inequalities.
Even though we have only focused on some specific cases, this only represents a small
percentage of the reality that women face every day in India.

- NEWS HEADLINES -

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