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India is a democracy which means its people reap the benefits of democratic principles. This includes rights to freedom of speech, religion, press, and the right to assemble. Many times throughout Indian history, citizens have exercised their rights to assemble in the form of protest. Protestors have been able to express their displeasure over multiple issues, including the rampant corruption within Parliament, ignored environmental crises, and, in recent years especially, the brutalization of young Indian women and girls. This paper will serve to focus on the latter.
I will begin by discussing the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape and the social movement that occured because of it called the Nirbhaya Movement. This case had been the reason for mass protests in the Indian capital city. The outrage from both women and men regarding the case served for amendments to be made to the penal code and enforce stricter laws against sexual assault (Narang, 2014). Proponents of women’s rights in India believed this would be the beginning of equality for women in societal standards and better protection under the law.
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Next, this paper will explore the ramifications of the Nirbhaya Movement in subsequent cases of rape and sexual assault in India, particularly in the cases of the Shakti Mills gang rape and the Kathu rape case. Both incidents sparked widespread outrage and protests ensued in days after the reports of the cases were publicized. Finally, I will analyze why the Indian government seems to inconsistently handle the cases of rape and youth femicide and why the obvious outrage from citizens and the stricter laws regarding assault have not been sufficient in deterring such heinous activity.
The Nirbhaya Movement can be seen as the precursor to the “Me Too” movement in India.
On the night of December 16, 2012 Jyoti Singh and her male friend boarded a private bus after seeing a movie in celebration of Singh’s completion of medical school and beginning her residency program the next week (Udwin, 2015). When on the bus, a physical fight ensued between Singh’s friend and the other young men who owned the vehicle. After her friend was beaten unconscious by five of the six other men on the bus, Singh was then taken to the back of the bus where she was gang raped by all of the men, one being a minor under the age of 18, and assaulted with a metal rod so violently that her intestines were removed (Mosbergen, 2012). Singh and her friend were thrown from the moving bus, later being found by authorities and given immediate medical attention (Mosbergen, 2012).
Jyoti Singh’s rape and her subsequent death 13 days later (Belair-Gagnon, Mishra, & Agur, 2014) spurred one of the largest protests and caused some of the most public outcries for women’s rights ever seen in Indian history. In the days after the incident women, girls, and all feminists alike flooded the streets of the Indian capital city and demanded the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice (Shandilya 2015). In the days after Singh’s death, the protests did not diminish but only grew in numbers, claiming the young medical student’s story could be the story of any Indian woman and that the normalization of sexual assault and murder was no longer acceptable (Shandilya, 2015).
Due to the absolute harrowing nature of the crime and the protests that raged on because of it, the Indian government reacted quickly. The perpetrators were arrested, tried, and found guilty relatively soon after the incident had occurred. The real victory for proponents of women’s rights in India was the amendments made to the penal code that allowed for harsher punishments for rapists, the re-defining of the terms sexual assault and rape, and the removal of wording that previously served to blame the victim (Narang, 2014). From a legal perspective, the Nirbhaya Movement was a complete success. Unfortunately in the years following, as outlined by the next two cases, the movement was not as successful in the groundbreaking of women’s rights as activists had expected.
The Nirbhaya Movement was supposedly the turning point for India in regards to the abhorrent violence against women and girls and while the movement did largely reform the penal code for such crimes, there continued to be little deterrence for the perpetrators. Not even a year later, an incident known as the Mumbai Gang Rape or the Shakti Mills incident took place in August 2013. In shockingly similar circumstances as the Delhi bus incident, a photojournalist and her male co-worker had gone to the Shakti Mills compound on an assignment when five men including one minor tied up the journalist and raped her (George, 2013). The perpetrators allegedly took pictures of the crime and threatened to release them on social media if the woman reported the rape (George, 2013). Even with the threats lobbied against her, the survivor was courageous enough to report her assault and the perpetrators were subsequently arrested and made to stand trial. After the incident was highlighted in the media, a second woman reported to police she had also been gang raped at the Shakti Mills and named three of the same accused rapists that the photojournalist had identified as her assailants (“Mumbai,” 2014).
Like in the Delhi bus rape case, there was swift action taken against the accused rapists. Their public trials resulted in all perpetrators being found guilty and the three offenders who raped both the photojournalist and the second young woman were sentenced to death. The death sentences of the three men were directly due to the amendment to the criminal code that was passed after the Delhi bus gang rape which called for the penalty of death for repeat offenses of rape (Changoiwala, 2014). Before the convictions, hundreds of Indian citizens staged protests, calling, yet again, for the end to violence. These protests were largely staged in silence (Vaidyanathan, 2013) and lasted a much shorter length of time. Unlike the Delhi gang rape, the Shakti Mills incident was considerably more politicized.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder and leader of the Samajwadi Party, addressed the Mumbai rape at an election rally: “Boys will be Boys. They make mistakes. That does not mean they should be hanged. Our Party if it comes to power will repeal the new rape laws in India” (Narang, 2014). This type of apologist rhetoric is, unfortunately largely accepted within Indian society. Even though backlash because of the comment ensued, Yadav was elected in the 2014 Indian elections along with other members of his party who supported his statements regarding the rapists (CITE). It is clear through the election of political figures who so openly side with the culprits of sexual crimes that these individuals either represent their constituents’ perpetuance for victim blaming or those who cast their ballots simply do not care enough about the victim and the crimes committed against her to consider voting for a different candidate.
Even though the outcome was favorable for her daughter, the mother of the second rape victim commented on the political nature of the trial. She claimed that she and her family felt the verdict was delivered quickly and favorably for the two victims of the case because of the then-upcoming 2014 elections and noted the necessity for all rape and assault cases to be handled with the same urgency as with which her daughter’s was dealt (“Mumbai,” 2014). If this is true, this is cause for speculation regarding the credibility of the Indian justice system and the legitimacy to which they investigate criminal violence. Simply investigating to maintain a public image of due process and delivering a conviction because it is favorable to do so does nothing to realign the misogynistic mentality of the society and it calls into question the well-being of India’s democracy as a whole. Above all, it does not bring true justice to the survivors of the case when their charges were only met with judicial action because government leaders were politically motivated for re-election purposes.
The Nirbhaya Movement served to make necessary changes to the penal code and the Shakti Mills case made rape a partisan issue. The final case I will discuss is the most recent and an incident that spans from the implementation of the revised penal code to the polarization of parties over the issue of sexual assault, and also has an important focus on religion and culture within India. The Kathua rape occured in January 2018 in which 8 Hindu men were charged in connection to the kidnapping, rape, and torture of an 8 year old nomadic Muslim girl (Gettleman, 2018). The young girl was instructed to follow one of the alleged perpetrators, to which she complied, and was subsequently held in a Hindu temple for three days where she was drugged, raped repeatedly, and ultimately strangled to death. It is also alleged that the victim was then raped once again after her death (Gettleman, 2018).
When details of the case became public, the brutalization of this child (who will remain unnamed for the purposes of this paper as her identity was published illegally (“India outrage spreads over rape of 8-year-old,” 2018)) immediately became not only a partisan issue, but also a religious one. As seen in both previous cases, there was overwhelming political and social support for the victims. The women’s stories served as a call to action for the Indian government to take further measures to ensure this violence against women is properly handled and that future potential perpetrators be deterred from committing such crimes. This type of outrage was seen, and is still occuring, with the Kathua rape case. Prominent politicians staged a walk-out of a Legislative Assembly meeting in protest of the crime, the prime minister of India cited the rape as being heinous, the Chief Minister of the state in which the rape took place called for the death penalty for those who raped the child, and even Indian actors vocalized their disgust over the event (“India outrage over rape of 8-year-old,” 2018). Yet something almost unseen in the other cases was made overwhelmingly apparent in this particular case, and that is support for the perpetrators.
Hinduism is the largest religion in India, followed closely by Islam, and the hatred of the two groups towards each other is historical and fierce (Gettleman, 2018). Because all the perpetrators of the crime were Hindu and the victim was Muslim, there was immediate large scale support from many Hindu citizens who called for the release of the men (Gettleman, 2018). When women and other feminists were so eager to demand justice in the cases of the women in previous years, citizens of India were more hesitant than ever to proclaim the need for action against those who murdered a small child. The only differential factor being that the victim this time was Muslim and whose identity had been disclosed. Even Hindu lawyers staged a protest outside of the courthouse of the state, blocking the police officers who were attempting to file charges against those who were arrested and claimed the case was unfairly biased as there were Muslim officers also working on the investigation (Gettleman, 2018).
Of the 8 men arrested in connection with the rape, 2 were police officers who allegedly accepted bribes from the perpetrators to withhold and cover up evidence (Gettleman, 2018). If found guilty, this will be a gross miscarriage of justice from the very people charged with keeping the peace and upholding the laws implemented in the Constitution and the amendments made to the penal code reformed by Jyoti Singh’s case- amendments set forth to prevent these types of heinous crimes from occuring at all.
The Indian government took a hard stance against the issue of rape and sexual assault after the activism of the Nirbhaya Movement. The movement itself expressed the Indian citizens’ clear intolerance of the brutalization of women. Yet even with the new penal code and stricter laws for punishment regarding sexual assault- results directly yielded due to the Nirbhaya Movement, activists claim it has not been enough to deter criminals. This is exemplified in both the Shakti Mills gang rape and the Kathua rape. If criminals know they will face harsher punishments if caught, the question raised is why does sexual assault continue to occur approximately every 20 seconds in India (Udwin, 2015).
Leadership support has served as a positive force in the action of supporting victims and prosecuting offenders, but it is also a significant reason why sexual assault continues to be an epidemic problem in India. In all three cases, the Prime Minister called for immediate action and denounced the nature of the crimes. Unfortunately, not all leaders hold the progressive feminist views and perpetuate the idea that women deserve to be raped. Mulayam Singh Yadav was not the only political leader that issued sexist comments in the wake of the Shakti Mills rape. Asha Mirje, the female leader of the Nationalist Congress Party was quoted as saying: “Rapes take place also because of a woman’s clothes, her behavior, and her presence at inappropriate places” (Narang, 2014). When a political leader with a national platform excuses rape by blaming the victim of the crime, perpetrators of violence see no reason to change their behavior if their leaders are emboldening them to continue acting in the same manner. What is even worse is that when female leaders like Mirje publically and unapologetically give voice to these oppressive ideas, women are less likely to accept the misogynistic tendencies of the society.
Protests and Youth Femicide in India . (2022, Jan 07). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/protests-and-youth-femicide-in-india-essay
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