Story from the Field by: Shreyans
Written by: Shreyans
Edited by: Tamanna

*All names have been changed

Drona decided it was enough. Everyday was a battle to survive in a home burdened with poverty and abuse. They lived in Uttar Pradesh; his father was a wage labourer who also suffered from alcoholism; his birth mother had died; his father had remarried. Soon after remarrying, his father withdrew him from school and ordered him to support his step-mother in domestic chores. Poor, subject to the whims of an abusive father, and laden with domestic chores that chipped away at his right to education, Drona had had enough. It was in 2019 that Drona, aged all of fourteen, boarded a train from UP to Delhi in search for work and a better life.

I am Drona’s Lawyer and this is Drona’s story through my eyes.

Circumstances for Drona were not as pleasant as he had hoped when he reached Delhi and he found himself wandering near railway stations in search of work. For three days, he was not able to find any work or any food. In those desperate days of deprivation, to subside the hunger, he started consuming intoxicating substances. Gradually he began working as a helper at a roadside ‘Dhaba’ where he met another child who informed him of a shelter home that used to feed, teach, and protect children who had nowhere to go. Drona decided to admit himself in the shelter home in order to feed himself.

The Shelter Home admitted Drona to a boy’s home as he was in need of protection and proper care. At the boys shelter home Drona was shifted to a dormitory consisting of children aged between eight to seventeen years. He made friends with children who were of the same age and actively participated in the curriculum of the shelter home. It was here that he met Aymen and Sankalp, two older dorm mates.

Aymen and Sankalp beat other children to make them do their chores and had successfully managed to frighten every child in the dormitory into submission. They started to pick on Drona – they bullied him to wash their clothes and utensils, and started slapping him when he hesitated in following their commands. One night, at midnight, both Aymen and Sankalp came over to Drona’s bed under the pretext of having a conversation and forcefully took him to the bathroom. In the bathroom, Aymen and Sankalp asked Drona to undress himself. Drona tried to defend himself by pushing them but all his efforts failed as Sankalp physically grabbed him and Aymen started beating him. Aymen then undressed Drona and himself and sodomised him.

Drona could not look into my eyes when he narrated this incident to me.

I would like to share the social background of Aymen and Sankalp. They were both children of homeless, unemployed, displaced people living on the streets of Delhi. They were pushed into begging by their parents and were often forced to sell commodities on the streets. They had a history of stealing and also suffered from an addiction to intoxicating substances due to which they were admitted to the shelter home. They were children – poor, abused, homeless children struggling with addiction, denied their right to education, forced into humiliating beggary, deprived of nurturing and caregiving necessary for a child’s psychological health. In the dormitory of the shelter home, they earnestly perpetuated the cycle of violence that the chance of their birth had thrown them into; there, at least, they were powerful.

Drona confided in Ankit, his closest friend in the dorm, about the sexual assault. Remarkably, Drona also told Ankit of his wish to report the whole incident to the authorities. And that is where Ankit stopped Drona. Ankit was afraid that Aymen and Sankalp would become even more violent if Drona complained and he advised Drona to remain silent. Drona decided to listen to his friend.

The well-known pattern played out. The fear of the bully had taken deep roots in the minds of the children in the dormitory. They silenced themselves with fear, and they silenced each other, they passed fear around, making the fear ever more intense and the silence ever more dense, and their silence made the bullies stronger, bolder, more violent. Thus, instances of sexual assault on Drona drastically increased. Aymen and Sankalp started forcefully confining Drona to the bathroom whenever they used to find the corridors clear of authorities, taking him to the bathroom in the daytime just before lunch and at midnight after the lights of the dormitory were switched off.

Though Drona had shared his pain and trauma with a sympathetic friend but his friend’s well-intentioned response deprived him of the immediate bodily protection, physchological care, and justice he needed and deserved. Silenced, helpless, and trapped in violence, Drona broke from inside.

In general such incidents are not common in shelter homes as every child is assigned a Child Welfare Officer and a counsellor in whom they confide secrets and problems. The counselors and officers tend to make a relationship with the child to help them grow in life. But in the case of Drona it seems that even after regular sessions, he did not feel like he could disclose the incident to his counselor. Perhaps this calls for even more rigorous sensitising of counselors in the skill of communicating with children on such subjects as well as training of the personnel of shelter homes in nurturing an environment free of fear which can help in eradicating such instances.

After three months had passed from the first occurrence of sexual assault on Drona, he was informed by the authorities of his transfer to a drug rehabilitation centre. Suddenly Drona could see an escape from his abusers; he was going to be shifted to another institution where both Aymen and Sankalp would not be present to harm him! Drona gathered courage and decided to report the abuse to the authorities. He wrote a formal complaint to his counselor.

Immediate action was taken. The counselor provided Drona counseling and reported the matter to the police. The investigating officer had Drona medically examined by a govt. hospital and his statements were recorded by a Metropolitan Magistrate. Drona was shifted to another shelter home for focused care. The police apprehended both Aymen and Sankalp and shifted them to an observation home for boys. Both Aymen and Sankalp were medically examined and an investigation report prepared by the police was submitted to the court. The report contained the statement of the head warden who had informed the police, the counsellor to whom Drona had disclosed the incident, the investigators and medical examiners, the social background report of Aymen and Sankalp, and Drona’s own statement and his written complaint to the counselor and his statements. In the court, both Aymen and Sankalp were produced in front of the Juvenile Justice Board where both of them pleaded not to be guilty of the offences charged against them and the inquiry was initiated. Currently, the case is listed for prosecution evidence. Drona, being the victim and the prime witness of the crime, successfully deposed before the Board

I met Drona before his testimony in court to prepare him for the proceeding. I asked him how Ankit, his friend at the previous shelter home, was. Drona had heard that from the day he made the complaint the vibe of the shelter home had completely changed. The authorities of the shelter home had become vigilant and sensitive to the children residing within it and the home has become a place free of fear for all the boys. Drona added with a smile,

“Ki ab koi nahi darrta bolne se, koi baccha agar zabardasti karta hai toh uski complain karne mein darr nahi lagta doston ko. Sab ab masti se khelte hain aur routine follow karte hain. (Now nobody is scared of speaking, if some child forces himself on another then my friends don’t feel scared of complaining about him. Now everyone plays happily and follows the routine.)”

I also asked Drona what he wanted to become in the future to which he replied,

“Mein bada hokar inspector banunga aur police mein jaunga. Mein mere gaon ka pehla police wala banunga aur udhar se crime hataunga. (I will grow up and become an inspector and join the police force. I will become the first police officer of my village and will remove crime from there.)”

I am fortunate and humbled to have been able to hear Drona share the transformion his complaint had brought about in his previous shelter home and in the lives of so many children within it, observing Drona’s journey, his optimism, and his battle to survive and make a change. With Drona, I have witnessed, in a way, what darkness, hope, courage, and freedom for a child is, and it is no different, no less signficant than it is for us – adults. Drona’s maturity challenges the condescension and patronisation the adult world inflicts upon children.