If their parents and guardians do not step in to stop it.

• 4,15,94,735 young boys.
• 6,28,53,160 young girls.

•

The first edition of Bitter Chocolate was released in 2000. And society’s deepest, darkest, most shameful secret was dragged into the light. The outcome has been acceptance in the public domain; of special note has been the fact that victim teenagers and adult-women have felt strong about shedding the ‘shame’ and that Indian males are speaking up about their sexual abuse in childhood. The book has also been effective in generating—apart from a government survey which followed to confirm the research within these pages—the use of this subject on TV news and talk shows, drama-plays and feature films. By the 25th edition of Bitter Chocolate, there is also a law in place which deals with the points raised in the chapter ‘What the law ignores’. A tête-à-tête with the Author during the release of the book’s silver jubilee edition:

A: One can now confess to being petrified a day before the first edition was released. Not personally since negation has been part and parcel of growing up, but for those very real, breathing and hurting adults and children whose grief was being brought to light. Thus, the validation is welcome as any victim of Child Sexual Abuse will certify.

Praise, too, is appreciated. But the pages before this one do spell out those who did the spade work, like Sakshi and specific persons in some non-government organizations. Credit must also be given to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2000 who not only allowed the provision of addresses to parents and educationists, as above, so that they could write directly for the laws but also assured that the letters would be looked at. The real stake-holders, the parents, grandparents, principals and educationists wrote in. As did other private citizens who stepped up to do the right thing by India’s children. Like the retired naval officer and his wife who sent a copy of their letter to the Penguin office in Delhi, which received other letters too. Some of these were drawn to the personal attention of then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee while gate-crashing a party armed with the letters and a copy of this book.

‘Agitate for a separate law,’ he said, ‘IPC takes too much time to ratify. Bachchey hamarey tab tak dubh jayegey.’ He asked someone to get a key official on the telephone, a signal went down-the-line and the bureaucrats became the spine of the anti-CSA law, bless them, as the government changed. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi sent out her clear message, there was a survey, then drafts, then a bill, then a Standing Committee whose chairman Oscar Fernandes gave a finely nuanced report, then a better bill—wherein several ministers including the young South Bombay MP Milind Deora provided their attention—and finally a law through the Ministry of Women & Child Development where, again, fine bureaucratic minds like those of Dr Vivek Joshi and Director Anju Bhalla withstood the various pulls-and-pushes which need to be resisted for a nation to truly stand by all its children. Finally, Parliament passed this historic law, The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 which protects girl and boy children till they turn 18. Acronym POCSO, pronounced Pok-so.