Tag Archives: Delhi Gang Rape

Debates, Genders, Identities, Images, Language

Come Frolic with Me in the Streets of Delhi: Amrapali Basumatary

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Guest post by AMRAPALI ‘TARA’ BASUMATARY

Another Report on the Gathering of the Night of 31st of December 2012/Ist January 2013 against Patriarchy in Delhi

It was 31st December 2012, city-Delhi, the same Delhi which has gained the infamy of being the Rape-Capital of a country called India, a nation whose ‘dignity’ has been maligned by the increasing cases of sexual assault on women. Around three hours before the clock struck the decisive moment of New Year, many of us gathered at the PVR Anupam complex in Saket to “take back the night”, back from the shackles of misogyny, sexual assault, patriarchy and above all from the banal and real fear of being subjected to crimes meted out by multifarious forms of male-supremacy and power. It was a night when ‘dented and painted’ females as well as males were showing that ‘denting and painting’ are not reasons that ‘invite’ rape or sexual assault and those ‘hormone driven gazes’. Continue reading Come Frolic with Me in the Streets of Delhi: Amrapali Basumatary →
Bad ideas, Genders, Government, Images, Language, Technology

The Bitter Truth Regarding Delhi Police’s Womens’ Help-Line: Kavita

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Guest post by KAVITA, an activist with the Stree Mukti League

Translated from Hindi by Shuddhabrata Sengupta

It would be natural to expect that in the wake of the barbaric Delhi gang-rape of December 16 and subsequent popular upsurge of anger the police and the state machinery would betray a modicum of sensitivity and alertness. The reality is just the opposite of what you expect. We have heard this from many women in the past few days, and a few evenings ago, came face to face with this sad fact ourselves.

For the last few days, we (activists of the Stree Mukti League) have been going to different places in Delhi to hold meetings, demonstrations and to distribute leaflets against sexual violence. The leaflet has a contact phone number for the Stree Mukti League. Since the evening of the 1st of January this year a perverted male individual has been continuously ringing that number, abusing us, threatening us, using obscene and unprintable language. He even said ‘I know all you girls, and you cannot escape me. What I will do to you will terrify people…’, and several other things which cannot be repeated. Continue reading The Bitter Truth Regarding Delhi Police’s Womens’ Help-Line: Kavita →

Everyday Life, Genders

Unlearning submission: Neha Dixit

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Guest post by NEHA DIXIT

In the last fortnight, we unlearned submission. On December 16, a 23 year old girl, just on the brink of leading a socio-economically independent life was raped in a moving bus at 9.30 at night.

We saw protests, we saw outraged masses. It is the first time in the history of this nation, when people were out on the streets on the issue of gender. For more than two weeks in a row. And it continues. Figures have been thrown at us: every 20 minutes a woman is raped in India, every third victim is a child, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

At one of these protest sites, the car parking contractor informed me that they have slashed the parking charges from 30 bucks to 10 bucks in solidarity with the girl and her family. This may be dismissed as a ‘simplistic’ contribution by those who have been accusing these protests of being ‘middle class’. But we need to hit the core, to understand the wider repercussions of the Parking contractor’s this simple act. Continue reading Unlearning submission: Neha Dixit →

Everyday Life, Genders, Identities, Violence/Conflict

You were amongst those six; un chhay main tum bhi shamil thay: Swaang Songs

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This song in memory of the unknown citizen is produced by Swaang, a Bombay based cultural group, whose members include actors, writers, music directors, musicians and producers “all in the grips of the market-driven Bombay film industry, but whose hearts continue to pull towards progressive politics!”

Composer – Rohit Sharma
Lyrics – Ravinder Randhawa
Singers – Rohit Sharma, Pankaj Badra, Pinky
Narration – Pravishi Das, Ravinder Randhawa

English translation of ‘Maa Nee Meri’

Mixed in every morsel,
What was that chant you kept repeating?
In the garb of concern and worry,
Why was fear the only virtue I learnt of your teaching?
Mother, I will not fear
Mother, I will not become you. Continue reading You were amongst those six; un chhay main tum bhi shamil thay: Swaang Songs →

Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Genders, Law, Mirror Worlds, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Justice for Soni Sori. Gathering at Jantar Mantar, 02/01/13

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Protests against Sexual Violence continue in Delhi. Earlier this morning, there was a gathering to protest against the gruesome sexual violence committed on Soni Sori while in custody in Chhattisgarh under the supervision of Ankit Garg, Superintendent of Police, Dantewada. Ankit Garg was awarded with a presidential police medal on Republic Day (January 26) in 2012.

Soni Sori’s petition at the Supreme Court is due to be heard tomorrow. Continue reading Justice for Soni Sori. Gathering at Jantar Mantar, 02/01/13 →

Centre watch, Genders, Government, Law, Metropolis, Movements

The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge

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At the Khan Market Metro station

The girl wasn’t aware that the Udyog Bhavan Metro station in central Delhi had been shut down. In the Metro going to Gurgaon, she needed to get down at Udyog Bhavan. Her friend was waiting in a car outside the station. She waited at the door. The train stopped too, but the gates didn’t open. The PA system — the annoying PA system of the Delhi Metro that never stops saying something or the other — – fell silent. The station was deserted. Not a soul in sight.

The girl asked fellow passengers — all of us men around her — which would be the nearest station that would be open. All the options were far off. Ramakrishna Ashram station on one end, for instance, was four kms. away. “Now what?” the girl asked her friend on the phone in a tone that blamed him, in a way only lovers can. “Now what?” she kept repeating. Continue reading The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge →

Bad ideas, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Movements

Your rapists and ours

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Two interesting articles:

Emer O’Toole in the Guardian CiF:

There’s something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India’s civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country’s culture of sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western rape culture. [Full article]

And Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu:

The rape case was one of the most discussed topics in Chinese microblogs over the past week, prompting thousands of posts and comments. By Sunday, however, the authorities appeared to move to limit the debate: on Monday, a search for the topic triggered a message on Sina Weibo – a popular Twitter-equivalent used by more than 300 million people – saying the results could not be displayed according to regulations. The message is usually seen as an indicator of a topic being censored by the authorities. [Full article]

 

Debates, Metropolis, Movements

The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine

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Guest post by AAKSHI MAGAZINE

She was sitting among a group of young men and women at Jantar Mantar, shouting “Hang those bastards.” When the slogan lost its effectiveness, it turned to “We want Justice,” “Inquilab Zindabad,” and then “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Borrowed and heard slogans, but they came from a very real place. “I work in Saket but live in Dwarka.” That is a long distance to travel especially at night. She nodded. “I don’t like it when my parents tell me to come home early just because other people are at fault,” she said anger rising in her voice. She didn’t know any of the people in the group she was sitting with. “We just met here. I had come with a friend who I can’t locate at the moment.” Continue reading The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine →

Culture, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Genders, Images, Movements

Naye Saal Mein Azaadi – Freedom from Fear in the New Year

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[ Click to play above Youtube video of young women and men, led by Com.Lokesh (‘Lucky’) of Stree Mukti Sangathan (Women’s Liberation Organization) articulate their desires on the ‘Take Back the Night’ night walk and street party from Anupam PVR Complex to the road outside Select City Walk in Saket, New Delhi on the night of the last night of 2012 and into the early hours of 2013. ]

Delhi took back the night as we moved into the new year. Took it back from fear, from patriarchy, from misogyny and a stupid state. They said it loud and clear. This is what I remember, roughly in this order. Continue reading Naye Saal Mein Azaadi – Freedom from Fear in the New Year →

Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University

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[ B&W pictures, courtesy Chandan Gomes. Colour pictures and cell phone video footage, courtesy, Bonojit Husain, New Socialist Initiative ]

Dear young women and men of Delhi,

I am writing to you again because I have been listening to you. This is a strange time, when everybody is talking, and everybody is listening, and the unknown citizen, who could have been any one of you, has transformed us all.

I was with you last night, from five thirty in the evening to around nine at night, while we walked together from the Vishwavidyalaya (University) Metro Station to Vijay Nagar, Kamla Nagar and the North Campus of Delhi University. There were around twelve hundred of you. Several of you held candles. You made yourselves into a moving blur of light. As the shopkeepers of Vijay Nagar, as the rent collecting aunties of paying guest accommodations, as the men and boys and girls and women on the streets and in the verandahs looked at you in wonder, you looked back at them, many of you smiled and waved. I could see some people in the crowd lip-synch with your Hallabols.

[ video of the night march near Delhi University ]

Continue reading Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University →

Bad ideas, Metropolis

Desires of planning and the planning of Desires: Vignettes of a Rape Culture and Beyond: Rijul Kochhar

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Guest post by text by RIJUL KOCHHAR photos by CHANDAN GOMES

Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone. And if on these terms there remains in his mind a sense of family, there no longer remains a sense of society.

~Alexis de Toqueville (Epigraph to Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man)

Friends! You drank some darkness

and became visible

~Tomas Tranströmer (“Elegy”)

An hour is what it took for a band of six males to show a woman, a paramedic, ‘her place’ in contemporary Delhi. Often, in our pathological public places, it takes a mere moment. This case is different because it compels us to think through the limits of brutality of the living; it compels us to confront the limits of our capacity to inflict violence. But the night of December 16, 2012 also confronts us with the kind of cities we are building and the kind of places we want to inhabit. It is a different, by no means less important, matter that this woman—from whatever one has gathered these past weeks through the periodic medical bulletins—has battled to compel us to confront all of this and more, for the pain of her body and the brutality of an experience that she had survived for two weeks, serves a specular role—through it, we bear witness to ourselves, or so one hopes.

Passengers in a DTC bus try and catch a glimpse of the candle light vigil organised outside Safdarjung Hospital. Thousands of commuters became witness to today’s meet – some got down from their buses to join the vigil. Some joined their hands when their gaze fell on the bed of candles. An old woman took out her hair clip that was shaped like a flower and threw it towards us.
Passengers in a DTC bus try and catch a glimpse of the candle light vigil organised outside Safdarjung Hospital. Thousands of commuters became witness to today’s meet – some got down from their buses to join the vigil. Some joined their hands when their gaze fell on the bed of candles. An old woman took out her hair clip that was shaped like a flower and threw it towards us.

Continue reading Desires of planning and the planning of Desires: Vignettes of a Rape Culture and Beyond: Rijul Kochhar →

Genders, Identities, Movements

In Memory of The Unknown Citizen

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We may never know her name. But not every memory needs a name or a pile of stone. Her memorial need not claim space on a city street, or square, or on the river-front. Let the well-known Leader and the Unknown Soldier have their real estate, but for the Unknown Citizen, let us not fire gun salutes, fly flags at half-mast or build portals and pedestals. And let us not for even a moment imagine that instituting police measures against the people the Prime Minister calls ‘foot-loose migrants’ will mean anything remotely resembling justice.

We can think about what the contours of enduring justice can be without being hangmen. Only safe cities, safe towns and safe villages, and freedom for all men and women will mean justice. Justice does not come from the gallows. It springs from a freedom from fear, and the gallows only perpetuate fear. Hangmen will turn the bullies who rape into the cowards who will automatically murder so that there may not be a trace of their rape. It will make fathers who rape their daughters into fathers who rape and murder their daughters. Capital punishment will lead to less, not more convictions for rape and heinous sexual violence. That can never lead us to justice. Continue reading In Memory of The Unknown Citizen →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Evening at Jantar Mantar.

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Candles at,Jantar Mantar
Candles at,Jantar Mantar
The Wake
The Wake
Armed, Cold, Bored
Armed, Cold, Bored
Genders, Law, Metropolis, Violence/Conflict

We must resist the cunning of judicial reform: Pratiksha Baxi

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Guest Post by PRATIKSHA BAXI

The death of the 23 year old woman following the brutal gangrape rape and assault on a moving bus on 16 December 2012 at a hospital in Singapore early this morning leaves all of us in states of deep mourning. This is a political death. Rape and murder of women is political violence against all women, whether or not, the political class recognises and accepts this. In the course of the last two weeks, many body blows have been endured. We felt a body blow after the political death of the 17-year-old gangrape victim in Patiala who took her life after she was humiliated and pressurised to compromise. The numbing list of such political violence continues.

We have seen the emergence of many kinds of publics. There have been many speeches and writing against the emergence of a retributive public, where the cry for death penalty or castration became a vocabulary of protest, also especially since the media initially focussed largely on this demand. Yet in the last few days there has been a perceptible shift from the focus on forming a retributive public moving towards a passionately reasoned and informed public on what the government needs to do to be accountable to rape survivors, and indeed, to all of us who reject the rape cultures in India.
Continue reading We must resist the cunning of judicial reform: Pratiksha Baxi →

Genders, Language, Media politics, Movements, Violence/Conflict

For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy

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Guest post by NILANJANA ROY

Photo: Ruchir Joshi
Photo: Ruchir Joshi

That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper.

Sometimes, when we talk about the history of women in India, we speak in shorthand. The Mathura rape case. The Vishaka guidelines. The Bhanwari Devi case, the Suryanelli affair, the Soni Sori allegations, the business at Kunan Pushpora. Each of these, the names of women and places, mapping a geography of pain; unspeakable damage inflicted on women’s bodies, on the map of India, where you can, if you want, create a constantly updating map of violence against women. Continue reading For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy →

Genders, Movements

Hope

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Some images from Jantar Mantar today.

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Genders, Metropolis, Movements

Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together

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Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting
Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting

This morning, Delhi woke up to the news that the 23 year old Paramedic that the city had taken to its heart had breathed her last at around two in the morning at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. From early morning, sms messages, phone calls and facebook and twitter posts and updates, informed the city about a condolence meeting scheduled for 11 am in the morning at Jantar Mantar. I was there by 11, and realized that a lot of people were having problems getting there because a shameless administration had decided to shut down entry and exits on to reportedly ten stations of the Delhi Metro. Buses were also being diverted. Despite this, a sizable crowd had gathered by around noon. Two minutes silence was observed. Sucheta Dey (AISA, JNU) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) spoke briefly.

Both emphasized the need for a peaceful, dignified gathering to pay respects to the brave fighting spirit of the deceased woman. Kavita Krishnan spoke about the need to combat patriarchy everywhere, in the family, at home, in the workplace, in colleges, schools and universitities. And called for an to end the culture of impunity that lets men think that they can get away with rape and sexual violence. Continue reading Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Images, Language, Sex, Violence/Conflict

What Do Men Have To Do With It?: Rahul Roy

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Guest post by RAHUL ROY

I have been sitting quietly trying to finish my new film and had promised myself that I would not get side tracked and concentrate on the task at hand. But enough is enough. I am shocked and disappointed at the way men high jacked a protest that could have been and probably still is the most significant pouring out of women who may never have thought in their wildest dreams that they would be facing water cannons and cops giving them a chase with iron tipped sticks. I am sure it is a coming of age moment for many young women of the city of Delhi.

I am aware that there has been a fair bit of cynicism about middle class women running up and down Raisina Hill and whether it adds up to anything. It damn well does. The next time they see adivasis being chased down by the police in Chattisgarh or in Orissa a penny will drop. It already is, today there is an article by a 19 year old student form Lady Sri Ram College narrating her brush with Delhi Police at the Parlaiment Street Police station and quite significantly she adds that if they are capable of behaving the way they did with a group of ‘well connected’ college students in Delhi then what must be happening in the more remote areas of non metropolitan India. Continue reading What Do Men Have To Do With It?: Rahul Roy →

Genders, Politics

Dear Abhijit babu – The Society of Painted and Dented Ladies responds

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Rajyasree Sen in Firstpost:

Dear Shri Abhijit Mukherjee,

I am writing to you in my capacity of  General Secretary of the Society of Painted and Dented Ladies of India. First of all, I would like to state that I was most touched that you have noticed our presence in your midst. For long, we the Painted and Dented Ladies have suffered on the fringes of society, waiting to be recognised – especially by the likes of political luminaries such as you. This honour from a sitting MP, has given me inestimable joy. Not to forget that you are our venerable president, Pranab Mukherjee’s very own son. I stand up in respect, sir.

Read the rest of this article here.

Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

This Truth Will Never Be Televised: Saiyed Danish

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Guest post by SAIYED DANISH

The death of the police constable Subhash Tomar in the middle of the anti-rape protests at India Gate is eerily reminiscent of the controversial death of Inspector Mohan Chandra during the infamous Batla House encounter in 2008.

 The post-mortem report of Constable Subhash Tomar says that he died of a heart attack which was triggered by internal injuries. The police say those injuries were the result of fatal blows given to him by the angry protestors. However, a protestor named Yogendra had earlier said on national TV that he “saw him running towards the protestors and then collapsing suddenly on his own.” Yet another controversy over the death of a police man,  with a familiar  clash of State vs People’s versions has now begun.

Continue reading This Truth Will Never Be Televised: Saiyed Danish →

Genders, Movements, Politics

Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

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Statement by Men for Gender Justice, Bangalore

Public Protest on December 30th


Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

As men, we are ashamed over the continuing domination of men over women!!

Women and men are Equal. Men should understand and accept this!!

Men should become responsible, humane and non-violent!!

As protesters are pouring into the streets all across the country and demanding justice for the recent brutal gang-rape of a 23 year old woman in Delhi, we as men who stand for justice and equality are ashamed, as a large section of men in our country are committing abuses against women – rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, economic and legal discrimination.

Continue reading Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice →