Rana Dasgupta - Capital - The Eruption of Delhi

Politicians and journalists often tried to claim that the upsurge of rapes in the capital was due to the presence there of large numbers of poor migrants — people who, in the impoverished imagination of the middle classes, were entirely lacking in culture or values. Indian culture venerated mothers, wives and sisters, went the thought, and no ‘properly raised’ Indian man would ever think of subjecting them to improper acts. But the problem was almost the opposite of this, and far more discouraging. The problem derived, precisely, from that ‘Indian culture’ whose veneration of those idealised, domestic women also somehow implied an abhorrence for ‘public’ women (and the two senses of that word, when applied to women, inevitably merged). The violence originated not with men without culture or values, but with just those men who were most concerned with these things. It was obvious in the comments of policemen, judges and politicians, for instance, that, even as they were called upon to express outrage for these crimes, they could barely suppress their feeling that women who walk in the streets at night deserve anything they get. A significant number of rape cases were filed, indeed, against politicians themselves. These were men who had pledged their lives, in a certain sense, to the protection of ‘values’, and in twenty-first century Delhi, unfortunately, such men were not necessarily outraged by the punishment of women.

Delhi was in the grip of one of those mad moments in human history, in other words, when terrible violence is imagined by its perpetrators as constructive and principled. Violence against women in the changing world of post-liberalisation India came not just from a minority of uncultured misfits. It came from the mainstream, and from every social class. It came not from an absence of values at all, but from a psychotic excess.

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“I come from a very wealthy family,” says Anil. “My uncle is the head of a big tea company. We have plantations in Assam, and some of my uncles discovered oil on their plantations. They’re billionaires. They live in a huge house in London, they have twenty-four servants. My family name is rare so everyone knows I must be related to them.”

Anil is a Marwari: he comes from a community with its roots in Rajasthan which is known particularly for its business acumen. India’s richest woman, Savitri Jindal, who inherited her husband’s steel empire, is a Marwari, as is Britain’s richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, another steel magnate. Marwaris are known also for the strictness with which they keep traditions of diet and family life. Their commercial success derives partly, in fact, from the great fidelity with which each generation takes over, not only the family business but also the abstinent, hard-working lifestyle that built it.

About thirty-five years old, Anil is quite extraordinarily rotund, and carries himself with that altered gait of people who must support an enormous stomach. His speech sticks in his mouth in a way that resembles a lisp but seems to affect all his consonants.

“I was working in Atlanta at the time my mom decided it was time I got married. I was running my business so I couldn’t come to Delhi, and I got married through the newspaper. My mom wanted to make sure there was someone to take care of me. As soon as they put the ad out there were loads of applicants because of my name. So we chose a girl, I came back to Delhi to get married, and then we went to Mauritius on our honeymoon.

“The honeymoon was perfect. I didn’t have all this fat in those days. In fact, I was a taekwondo black belt. She and I were both excellent dancers and when we used to dance together, everyone else used to stop dancing and watch. My wife was a great singer, so she sang at all the karaoke sessions and everyone loved it. She wasn’t beautiful, but I didn’t mind. She was perfect for that time we were on honeymoon — she used to massage my head at the end of the day, wash my clothes and polish my shoes, massage my feet.”

We are sitting in the bar of Delhi’s golf club.

Driving along the dusty, congested roads of central Delhi gives no sense of the verdant landscape behind the high walls that line them: it is only when you ascend, for instance, to the top of the Taj Hotel, that you can look down and see that these roads are but arid strips through an enormous expanse of green. The several-acre lawns of the politicians’ bungalows add up to a great garden tract of their own. The Mughal tombs at either end of Lodhi Road have expansive grounds of lawns and fountains; between them is the pleasant botanical sprawl of Lodhi Gardens, home to diplomatic joggers and unmarried lovers, who go — the lovers, that is — to hold hands and kiss under its bushes.

But most verdant and extensive of all is the golf club, set up by the British in 1931, and extending over 220 acres in the middle of the city. Unknown to all but Delhi’s elite, the club is so pampered and insulated that it has an ecosystem all of its own. Walking in past the Mercedes promotional diorama of glinting limousines, the roar of the street fades behind the cushion of forest. Flirting pairs of yellow butterflies, a species I have never seen elsewhere, flutter on every side. Three hundred species of birds fill the air with song. Peacocks wander lazily across the lawns as, in quieter moments, do sambar deer. The hedges are perfect, the Mughal tombs — their red sandstone heart-rending against the golfing green — the most lovingly maintained in the city.

Here, in the bar, sit Delhi’s landowners, lawyers and businessmen, laughing, chatting and exchanging fraternal handshakes.

“When we got back from our honeymoon, she thought she was going to have a lifestyle like my uncle. She thought she was going to have twenty-four servants and a mansion in London. But we don’t live like that. We’re not from that side of the family. I bought her a Toyota SUV and she was very disappointed. She thought she would get a Mercedes.

“We were only together for another twelve days. During that time she managed to persuade my mom to take her to the bank deposit box where she kept her jewellery. She said, ‘Mom, could I borrow that necklace you wore to the wedding? It was so beautiful!’ So my mom took her to the lock-up and she borrowed three necklaces, each one worth a crore [$200,000]. My mom said to her, ‘Look: you have to be careful with these because they’re worth a lot of money.’ ‘Of course I will.’

“After that she said she was going to her home town to spend a few days with her mother. I said, Fine — I thought maybe after the first sex, a woman wants to chat to her mother about it. But then she didn’t come back. She kept making excuses and then her mother said to me on the phone, ‘You don’t seem to love her.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? We’ve only been together twenty-eight days!’

“She said to my parents, ‘Your son doesn’t love our daughter. He only wants to work. He was checking email when he was in Mauritius on honeymoon.’ I mean, what am I supposed to do? Can’t a guy check email? As it was, she wanted to have sex five or six times a day, which is not normal, and I was having trouble keeping up.

“Eventually we got a divorce settlement where we paid her 10 lakhs [$20,000] and she gave the necklaces back. She had to give them back because we had all the receipts and photos and everything.

“I was really shaken up by this because divorce is really bad for Marwaris. You can do anything you like behind closed doors — you can beat your wife and everything — but you should not get divorced.

“When she left, I lost it. I started drinking heavily. I started eating meat, which I had never done. I put on a lot of weight. That’s when I started doing this thing with prostitutes. I wanted to humiliate girls. And because my wife liked sex, I took it out on girls who liked sex.