Six years ago, one incident suddenly woke India up with a sudden realization, “Oh shit! There are immense brutality and violence against women in India!”. The Nirbhaya gangrape made the country erupt and the consequences were highly poignant. As the immediate aftermath, India saw a marked rise in the reporting of sexual violence. In the long term aftermath, bills were passed aimed at making the loopholes through which predators escaped the system, or, more often, never actually entered it, smaller.
But honestly, has anything changed? I don’t think so. Not really.
I wasn’t in Delhi when I heard about the Nirbhaya case, nor was I there when all the protests and subsequent lathi charges happened. I was desperate to be a part of them, fight for women and survivors everywhere. But I was also highly triggered. Reading about Nirbhaya, seeing the outcry everywhere unblocked some memories of my own abuse. I remember sitting on a stairwell, crying because that was the moment I had realised that my ex wasn’t the only one who abused me, that there were two other men. I remember being almost catatonic for a few hours afterwards trying to associate myself with the victim of gangrape. Even six years later, when I try to accept that I was also gang-raped, I start shaking. My fingers are trembling as I write this.
How many women across the country had similar reactions? How many women went and hid the way I did, to make sure that no one saw how they were affected? How many women channelled their terror to anger for Nirbhaya the way no one had ever even known enough to be angry for them?
The gangrape of Nirbhaya was about her, and I don’t want to take that away from her. At the same time, the aftermath of the gangrape brought the country in with it. And the impact resounded everywhere. The country’s reaction was split between angry, triggered, defensive and ambivalent. What’s worse, I wonder: defensive or ambivalent? Do you know what’s one of the things I heard WAY TOO OFTEN after Nirbhaya died in the hospital? That it’s good she died, because what life would she have had after being raped?
Amidst the outcry, there were also so many people saying the usual ‘boys will be boys’, and ‘why was she out late at night, especially with a boy’ and all those words we’ve heard all too often. And I was triggered. All my friends who are also survivors were triggered.
Six years later, has anything changed? I really don’t think so.
Earlier this year, I realised that India does not give women the space to be vulnerable. Ever. Some of us are lucky enough to have safe spaces with friends or family, but none of us can ever be vulnerable in public and not have that moment taken advantage of. I’ve developed this resting bitch face in life, and I walk like, I will get through whatever comes my way, but not change my gait. I’ve never had another choice. I either walk by cat callers (also known as sexual harassers) without a glance, or a couple of middle fingers. It helps that I’m not a short, petite woman. And honestly, I think that protects me on the streets because I look like I’ll fight for myself. But every time the guard dropped, every single time, without fail, there would be a man or men who tried to molest, or follow or, on my lucky days, just catcall me. I remember one time I was mind numbingly exhausted as I was leaving a shady metro station, and I was too tired to put my bitch face on. The next thing I know, I was dragged to a dark underpass by two men. It took me a moment to unfreeze, and in that moment, they had my sweater pulled up with their hands down my pants. I let myself be exhausted one day, and I was almost raped. Sure, I unfroze and screamed, fought and overall scared them off and saved myself, but what does that incident and the thousands of similar ones say about our city, our country? What about all the women who aren’t as lucky as I was that night?
Six years later, can women be emotional or exhausted or anything but defensive on the street? Six years later, do you think the minds of the country have changed? Sometimes I think they have, but for the worse.
The 2012 gangrape incited a lot of change at that moment, some of which is still doing the rounds. I’ve had a chance to talk to a lot of men about violence against women in one of my jobs, and every single time the top reasons they gave were women wearing short ‘western’ clothes, going out late at night, the terrible influence of the internet (mostly on women, though sometimes on men as well), the education system, and the failing law and order system we have. That shit is still happening. Look at what is not mentioned– MEN and gender inequality. On a positive note, my job also allowed me to help change some minds, and I did see some men consider that maybe, just maybe, it was time to look at the commonality of perpetrators, rather than victims and survivors. I even saw some of them change not just their beliefs, but also their actions. So maybe a teeny tiny number of people are ready to change.
But six years later, is that at all enough? Or are we just looking at raindrops and deluding ourselves to believe that they are diamonds?
I’ve also seen governments pointedly ignore violence against women, especially minority women and girls. I’ve seen men accused of rape and other gender-based violence take high positions of power in the country, and I’ve heard other men use those men as idols which explain away their behaviour. As far as I know, there hasn’t been an obvious support for perpetrators from the government, but the air has changed and the momentum which the country had gained after Nirbhaya has been lost. It’s more than clear how little this government cares about women, especially survivors. They’re not going to advocate for us, or change things to make our lives slightly less horrifying. And honestly, the movement to make India safer for women has reduced, partially because there are so many things to fight for under this government.
So six years later, has anything really changed for the better? I’m going with a resounding NOPE. What about six years from now? Six years from now, would we be able to find just one woman in our lives who doesn’t bear the scars of harassment? Six years from now, would it be possible for women to have a moment of vulnerability on the street and not have men seeing that as their chance to exert their power? Honestly, I’m not optimistic.
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