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In the year since gangrape, silence around sexual assault shattered -Amrita Dutta
-The Indian Express


A year ago, in Delhi's dark December of 2012, 24-year-old Natasha Raghuvanshi was on Rajpath, occupying the streets with thousands of other angry young people, carrying with her the memory of being stalked, flashed at, and groped while returning home from college. Aswathy Senan, a 27-year-old Delhi University student, was there because it seemed to be "the last straw" - "the accumulated anger and helplessness" of many Indian women had reached "a breaking point".

For several of the people who spilled on to Delhi streets in anguish at the gangrape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old woman on December 16 last year, the horrific violation of one woman was a reminder of their own encounters with sexism, patriarchy, and violence. It was also a warning: it could have been me.

The politics of that uprising was personal. From one of the first protests organised in Vasant Vihar by JNU students, a slogan of the 1970s women's movement took wing, matching the cries for death (or castration) to the rapists. It said: Hamein kya chahiye? Azaadi.

"Perhaps the young people were anticipating the torrent of advice that always follows such incidents: that it was too late, or they were wearing the wrong clothes. They knew that the old script was about to kick in. And so they made it about freedom," said Albeena Shakil, a DU teacher and a former students' activist at JNU, who took part in the protests.

In the year that followed, the many unfreedoms of Indian women, long ignored by the political class, were red-flagged. The questions about women's safety raised on Delhi's streets have prompted new laws and a scrutiny of the patriarchal underpinnings of Indian life. The silence around sexual violence has been shattered.

A law intern wrote about being assaulted by a Supreme Court judge in a blog, "because the most difficult things... are also the most essential". A Tehelka journalist insisted that her editor's "atonement" for having assaulted her sexually was not enough, and that her fight was about asserting that "my body is my own and not the plaything of my employer". In Kolkata, Suzette Jordan refused the tag of "Park Street rape victim" and revealed her identity, pushing back against the culture of shame that punishes victims of sexual violence.

In Delhi, the number of rapes reported more than doubled, from 590 in 2012 to 1,330 this year, suggesting either that more women are speaking out against the violence they face or that the police are turning fewer of them away. Over six lakh people dialled 181 to access the helpline started for women in distress, many of them reporting sexual crimes.

"Last year's movement seems to have empowered more people to speak out against sexual violence," said Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, but added that the judicial system continues to fail them.

Like the government, which spoke the language of water cannons and barricades when faced with the protests snaking up Raisina Hill, police stations and courts respond with rank insensitivity to victims of sexual violence. The father of a five-year-old girl in east Delhi, the victim of unspeakable sexual abuse, was allegedly offered Rs 2,000 as "kharcha-paani" by a police officer to not "take the case to the media". Since that incident in April, he had to move house several times because there were too many whispers about his daughter in his neighbourhood, and landlords were wary of the presence of the police and mediapersons.

In Haryana, a women's activist, Savita, complained that the police always invoke ideas of izzat and shame to deter women complainants. A woman's account is always suspect, unless she has been injured. "It's not the beat constable who needs to be sensitised alone, but senior police officers and investigators and doctors, judges and lawyers - many of whom do not understand the nature of sexual assault," said lawyer Vrinda Grover.

But the biggest change, say activists and lawyers, is the support women now find from family and friends. In the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots, several rape victims have found their husbands leading the charge for legal redressal. Salim (name changed) said his wife filed an FIR naming the four men who raped her in the face of reluctance of the police, and despite the threats, they would not withdraw the case. "My wife was afraid of going to the police. But I said: teri kya galti hai? (How is it your fault?)"

"The possibility of support and solidarity from people around the complainant has gone up. To my mind, that a woman who faced harassment at workplace was able to speak to her male colleagues and that they offered her support (in the case of the Tehelka journalist) is new, and undoubtedly significant," said Krishnan.