• Badri's family's conviction of his innocence
• Badri's family's move to poverty
• Caste dynamic - untouchable (Bahveri Devi) vs. Gujjar (Badri's family)
• Community vs. nation
• Stance on child marriage - community ritual, tied to economics
• Different attitudes towards the role of the sathin

“Bahveri was prompted to lie by all those educated women from Jaipur who didn’t want us to marry off our children.”

'They say I have brought shame to the village,' said Bahveri. 'They say that such incidents should be dealt with by the village panchayat [council], not by the police or by any outsiders. They say that by bringing in the authorities I have sullied the name of the village for one thousand years.

'I hope the Gujjar women will not suffer too much,' said Bahveri. 'But did they feel bad when their husbands did this to me?'

William Dalrymple - frequent rape of untouchable women and the few arrests made

• Objective truth and situation for women vs. family convictions and loyalties

'But it is true that you were angry with her for interfering in your marriage ceremony?' 'Certainly,' he replied. 'We all agree that a child-marriage is not proper, not ideal, but it saves us so much money if we marry all the girls at the same time. If not, we have to bear the expense of four separate marriage parties, and we cannot afford that - we are only a poor family. Bahveri Devi should have understood that. But these sathins are very bad women. They are very bossy. Everything they say is wrong. Bahveri Devi had no business to send the police around at such a time. We had a reputation in this village. She has ruined that now.' 'So did you try to seek revenge?' 'No. But we did stop talking to her family. So did the other villagers. They said: "You have sullied the reputation of a good family." It was because of that boycott that she made this accusation. She wanted to punish us for isolating her.'

'But why would she make up a rape? It is the most humiliating thing a woman can admit to.' 'What is Bahveri Devi's reputation? What is her prestige? She is a kumar. And a whore. No one respects her. She has nothing to lose.'

For the last three months we have been crying. All my sons have been locked up. Badri has been beaten in prison. Now there is no one in the house who works. The only man who is left is my husband, and he is eighty. Who will cut the crops? Who will look after the animals? We are all ruined.' The old lady began to sob.

'It's all a lie,'

We are all ruined. Now she's ruined us all.

he publicly vowed to avenge himself for this dent to his prestige in the village

she also correctly  suspected that the police would be completely unsympathetic to a lower-caste woman lodging a  complaint against a prominent local figure.

And why didn't they arrest Badri Gujjar? The answer can only be that Badri was a prominent  local politician, and that in Bassi District the Gujjars are incredibly powerful: the local  MP is Rajesh Pilot, who is not only a Gujjar but also a cabinet minister in the Central Government. In 1993 a state election was  due, and no party could win seats in the area if they alienated the Gujjar vote. I have absolutely no doubt that political pressure was  put on the police both to delay the medical and to clear Badri

Badri Gujjar's family have a very different version of the events of 22 September. According to the Gujjars an incident did take place on that day, but it was only a fight between the priest from the village temple and Bahveri Devi's husband Mohan, over a cow which both claimed as their own. Mohan was getting the better of the priest when Badri's nephew and brother-in-law passed by and intervened 'because we could not bear to see a Brahmin being beaten up by Mohan, a kumar'. By the time they had finished with him, Mohan had been badly mauled.

Women

• What has she suffered due to being a woman?

Perhaps she would have gained more experience which would help with her family's poverty here.

• Was she married at a young age?

Perhaps. Adherence to tradition - prestige. Police interfered in tradition.

• Has she received assistance from a sathin, or do sathins only work with untouchable women?

The untouchable status has allowed women like Bahveri to connect with feminist activism and gain experience outside of the family. However this is largely facilitated by her status as an untouchable, where nobody really cares what she's doing.

Writer's status as a gujjar

• How has the writer benefitted from her husband's position?
• What conventions of gujjar life are threatened by the sathin, and the 'educated women of Jaipur'?

Bossy and intervention is embarrassing. Prefers the work of the panchayat rather than the police.

Character portrait of the woman from whose perspective you are writing

• Traditional
• Married as a child - views this pragmatically
• Committed to gujjar tradition and community
• Resentful of sathin involvement
• Unable to see the hypocrisy in her own views, despite being impoverished by the removal of the male members of her family because she was not educated or allowed to work
• Writing to Badri as a mother - assumption that Badri was married at a young age

Emotionally and socially engaging:

• Emphasise how dire the situation is - creative imagining of how dire (in order to meet your brief)
• Lots of anger towards Bahveri Devi and sathin women in general
• Perhaps a tentative suggestion that the women may gain permission to work

Overview of the sections of the letter

• Current situation - economic state and social state (Badri reputation)
• Assert his innocence (show knowledge of the text - drop in a few details - caste issue Brahmin vs. untouchable (Mohan) - indignation)
• Defend child marriage and express anger against the sathin (Devi's improved reputation) - (economic value of child marriage. Tradition. 'not ideal'. Insulted about the implications of opposition to child marriage, emphasise her own son married, minimising the gendered aspect of the practice)
• Express anger that gujjar community traditions are being threatened by progressiveness (you might like to directly reference those "educated women from Jaipur" - also talking about panchayat vs. regular police)
• Tentatively suggest that the solution to their impoverishment might be female work (she is one of the two grandmothers, four wives)