The suggestion is stark: hordes of female nudes. On roadsides, in broad daylight.
Operating hand pumps or using the well, they bathe, feigning to ignore the gawking drivers passing by in their jeeps, cabs and—most frequently—trucks.
It’s no uncommon sight in this stretch of the highway from Mandsaur to Neemuch to Ratlam— close to puritan Gujarat.
So who are these women? What are they up to? Well, they are Banchchada tribals, and they practise prostitution. The showing off the bare body is an invitation to prospective clients.
The “Banchchada dish”, as it is called these days, first began to be served during the medieval period when constantly marauding armies of the Mughals and Rajputs required women. Of late, the tale is even more sordid. Girls from various parts of the country have been increasingly brought to this pocket in the Malwa belt of northcentral India. It is rampant flesh trade what with a dwindling local female population. Worse, the immigrants—mostly kidnapped girls below the age of eight—are fed on steroids to ready them up for the market at the earliest. And truck drivers aren’t the lone takers, these girls are a matter of exotica for high-end travellers too.
Stung by the trend, a young police officer has decided to act.
Mandsaur Superintendent of Police G K Pathak’s campaign is recent, but it has started finding results.
It has led police parties from four states—Delhi, Raja sthan, Haryana and Bihar—to land in Mandsaur in search of 28 missing girls. More than 34 men have been arrested for their alleged role after the police found an unusually high number of girls—869—in these settlements shunning pregnancy because their trade prohibits it.
The National Human Rights Commission and the Child Protection Rights Commission have taken note and instituted inquiries.
The injection of sex hormones is a major issue. The girls are given over-the-counter steroids that are rich in testosterone. They are also administered with estrogen in certain forms.
Voluntary organisations working in the area are puzzled. “It’s strange that as a society we have these neatly tucked corners where we even encourage prostitution,” says Rekha Singh, who is associated with an NGO and has earlier worked with truck drivers to create AIDS awareness among them.
“But even I could not have imagined the depths to which this has sunk. All this tradition of the Banchchadas is mere bunkum to hide something that we have been unable to deal with. In fact, we do not even want to deal with.” But does estrogen overdose or steroids aid fast development of the body? The doctors aren’t too convin ced. “It can even be counter- productive,” says B S Yadav, a Bhopal-based surgeon. “It may lead to abnormal hair growth, enlargement of wrong muscle groups and, at its worst, permanent kidney and urinary disorders.” But the pimps are sure it works.
“We need to give the girls steroids,” says one of them without revealing his name. “Big breasts and hips are what most clients want.” For some Banchchada women (known as Khilawadi), it is local doctors and quacks who give them estrogen supplements.
The police are now gearing up for a mass DNA testing. All the 869 girl children currently living in the 39 Banchchada hamlets of this district will be tested for maternity.
The move arises from the suspicion that most of these girls answer to mothers who cannot provide suitable records of pregnancy and delivery.
“The test will establish how many Banchchada women are the biological mothers of the girl children in their possession,” says Inspector General of police Upendra Jain. The police action, however belated, came after 21 abducted girls aged between one and eight were rescued from brothels in a series of raids over the past three weeks. All is not lost.