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From videos of molestation in Bihar’s Jamui to a gangrape in an uptown Delhi park, women are on the streets asking where can they be safe. The recent women students’ street marches in Delhi poses the question whether “encounter justice” and capital punishment can really make the streets safer for women.
Following the gangrape of a minor in Delhi’s Aastha Kunj Park on 21 September, women students have repeatedly taken to the streets in huge numbers. There has been a spate of sexual violence cases reported in the last few weeks, from videos of women being molested emerging from Jamui and Samastipur in Bihar, to more such reports in Delhi University itself.
One of the accused in the Astha Kunj case was shot in the leg in an alleged encounter with the Delhi Police the day after the incident, in the lane behind Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College (LSR). On 23 September, hundreds of women students marched demanding safer streets, rejecting “encounter justice” in the name of their safety.
In response to this incident, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) brought out a notice restricting entries to parks in the city after sunset. Following mass protests to break this “curfew” at the DDA park near Gargi and Kamla Nehru Colleges on 25 September, the DDA has revised this notice, instead proposing increased CCTV surveillance and police presence to ensure security in public spaces.
What changed after Nirbhaya?
A common refrain in the protests since 21 September has been that women feel secure in public when there are more women in public. Something as basic as more street lights and cheaper public transportation for women are some of the first steps to make our cities safer.
The marches near Kamla Nehru and Gargi College, along with the earlier protest at LSR, which are located in some of the poshest parts of Delhi, were also marked by the abysmal street lighting in these areas. While the Delhi Government spent Rs 1.83 crore to organise “bhajan clubbing” events in DU colleges, which Prime Minister Modi attended on his birthday, budgets for basic public infrastructure have seen cuts.
In response to the case last week, Delhi Police removed street vendors who put up food stalls outside the back gate of LSR, effectively doing away with the only point at which students gathered on that street and ensuring that it did not remain deserted after sunset. The Justice Verma Committee, set up after the Nirbhaya gangrape case of 2012, among its recommendations asked for encouragement of street vendors in our cities. It stated that the presence of vendors ensures greater numbers on the street, in addition to cheaper eating options, which translates to safety more than a police van.
Responses to cases of sexual violence often ask for harsher punishment, including death penalty, increased police presence and technological surveillance. Several Chief Ministers have boasted about staging fake “encounters” by the police to kill the rape accused without trial. In the latest such instance, Bihar CM Samrat Chaudhary revealed the identity of the minor survivor from Jamui, claiming credit for giving the police a free hand to shoot the accused.
Activists and feminist scholars have repeatedly argued that there is no proven connection between the death penalty and reduction in sexual violence. As per the National Crime Records Bureau’s data from 2024, 96.8% of those accused of rape were people known to the women, often a family member. Death penalty becomes a deterrent to victims from reporting such cases, who already face immense pressure and stigma from close quarters.
Increased police presence also acts against women in public spaces when law enforcement officials often reproduce the same patriarchal attitude in their actions. Moreover, sexual harassment and violence by police and security forces against women itself constitutes a significant number of cases with much lower rates of prosecution and conviction. Famously, it was the custodial rape of Mathura in 1972 inside the police station which catalyzed the women’s movement and introduced many changes in how laws deal with sexual violence.
Similarly, CCTVs and other surveillance mechanisms are often used to restrict and police women, questioning why they were out at a certain hour or who they were out with, instead of the stated objective of catching perpetrators. Police reform and training of personnel to ensure survivor-centric redressal and investigation has not been implemented 13 years since the Justice Verma Committee report. Statistics show that in the absence of these steps, cases of sexual violence remain massively underreported and have significantly lower conviction rates than other crimes even when they are reported.
In the last decade, some of the loudest betrayals of justice in cases of sexual harassment in India took place where the perpetrators were close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party regime, or to dominant communities who are politically powerful. From Kathua, Unnao and Hathras, to the serious allegations against Wrestling Federation of India chief Brijbhushan Singh and former CJI-turned-MP Ranjan Gogoi, the accused have been given complete immunity, making even the registering of a case impossible without sustained ground mobilizing. In these cases, law enforcement and the state have acted against the survivor and her family. Calls to increase police presence may in fact have a detrimental effect in the absence of police reform, sensitization and accountability, when cases are not being registered due to political or social coercion.
Impartial and sensitive investigation and enquiry remain unmet objectives in cases of sexual harassment. 13 years since the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act came into place, most workplaces, and even the educational institutions to which the protesting students belong, have defunct ICC bodies. In campuses where ICCs exist, elections are often a mere formality or tightly-controlled by the administration, sensitisation is non-existent, and the student body unaware of ICC procedures. The University Grants Commission’s Saksham Committee report (2013) had recommended that redressal bodies need to be independent of those with institutional authority, to ensure that more women are able report cases. Outside premier educational institutions like central and some state universities, these bodies do not even exist on paper. We have no public data about the functioning of ICCs, even though public and private workplaces with more than 10 employees are mandated to institute them under the 2013 Act.
It is important to note that the flood of videos and headlines of crimes against women in India is coming at a time when the very basis of what we call democracy is under the scanner. Allegations against the Chief Election Commissioner by his colleagues have raised serious questions about the way in which the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was conducted. The voter roll deletions under SIR is known to have disproportionately affected women. For example, the gender ratio of women voters fell from 907 to 892 for every thousand men after the SIR in Bihar. When some women are formally being treated as second class citizens, can they really trust the government to improve their safety?
Public expenditure cuts and rising sexual harassment
While redressal mechanisms and a functioning criminal justice system are necessary for dealing with cases, it is the increased access of women to the public sphere which has repeatedly been shown to be most effective in reducing sexual violence. Public infrastructure and social security spending has drastically reduced in the past few decades which directly impacts women’s mobility and autonomy. It also causes a proven rise in cases of domestic and sexual violence within homes. With metro fare hikes, irregular state transport buses, along with fee hikes in educational institutions and rising unemployment, the real conditions enabling more women to be out in the public domain remains unfulfilled.
In the years following the global financial crisis of 2008 which began with the collapse of major Wall Street banks, countries across the world responded with more “austerity” budget cuts, with state funding of social services being withdrawn and an upward redistribution of wealth to the financial elit. There has been a clear statistical increase in violence against women in countries which adopted austerity measures. From Poland to the US to countries across Latin America, women strikes took place around 2017-18 where crores of women took to the streets against rising violence and femicide, as well as demanding employment and increased public spending on housing, education and healthcare.
The dominant discourse under the current neoliberal order speaks of breaking the “glass ceilings” for women in the top positions of business, finance, governance and pubic offices as a symbol of women’s liberation. On the other hand, the current economic model pushes more women to bear the brunt of unpaid housework when states retreat from providing basic social services. More women are entering the workforce doing underpaid, hazardous and contractual work, as seen by recent strikes by women working in garment sweatshops, sanitation, ASHA kendras, tea gardens, or as domestic workers, who are demanding recognition as “workers”. This weakens the very basis on which women’s freedom can be ensured, making them vulnerable to violence in a society where conditions of life and livelihood have become more precarious and insecure.
In the long run, it is not enough to change the laws and the mindsets of people alone in a patriarchal society. The basis of women’s oppression lies in the denial of opportunities and non-ownership of resources. More women will be able to leave the kitchen when there are community messes, laundries, creches for babies and maternity homes. That is when streets will be safe. Only under conditions of full employment, ownership of land and equal pay for all genders, can women break the shackles of patriarchal oppression that has bound us for centuries.
