Episode 21: When Survivors Speak (and Reporters Listen)

“There isn’t one particular case that I could pick out,” said Kavita Bundelkhandi, over the phone from Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Khabar Lahariya’s editor-in-chief has covered so many rape cases over the years, yet each one feels like it deserves consideration. “I see them unfolding like scenes of a film,” she elaborated. “But there are some that constantly come before my eyes. Especially the ones that involve small children.” There was one case, in Kalinjar, where a five-year-old came home bleeding from a neighbour’s house. “We had actually gone to report some other story when this happened,” Kavita said. “But we went there, and I saw this child, the clots of blood.”   Kavita finds it difficult to talk with specificity