Exactly one year ago tomorrow, a 23-year-old student boarded a bus in South Delhi with her friend, intending to travel home after seeing a movie. What then happened to her is the stuff of nightmares, and has haunted many of us since. This innocent young woman was subjected to a gang rape of such sustained and horrendous brutality by her six attackers that she died 13 days later of her appalling internal injuries.
Tragically, news of a rape was not news to most people: recent statistics suggest there are 66 rapes committed per day in India, with Delhi known as the rape capital of the country; incidences of rape have doubled between 1990 and 2008, and that is only the reported cases.
But this one was different: maybe it was the casual brutality of the attackers who had taken over a private bus prowling for some fun and who then tried to run over their victims after they dumped them like rubbish on the roadside; maybe it was the image of the dying woman and her injured companion lying half naked and ignored by passing cars until a passer-by came to their aid; maybe it was the depressing realisation that this case would end like so many other rape cases - another statistic buried in an inefficient maze of bureaucracy and a legal system which still often assumes it’s the woman’s fault: if she’s dressed like that, if she laughs too loud, if she’s out so late, what does she expect?
But I remember how I felt that day: sick to my stomach, shocked to the core, and so enraged I wanted to rip up the sky. And I wasn’t the only one. As the news of this appalling attack became public, it was as if the simmering embers of so many people’s anger burst into furious flame, and they took to the streets. Thousands of women and men - ordinary people sickened by the never ending roll call of shame of rape and violence against women and girls - took to the streets, in Delhi and in many other Indian cities, in London and Paris.
In so many places around the world, the fate of this young woman became a symbol for all the women who suffer brutality and sexual violence, simply because of their gender. For legal reasons this young woman could not be named, so the protesters and media gave her one: Nirbhaya, meaning Fearless One. As Nirbhaya hung between life and death, the anger grew into a movement, an uprising where questions so long suppressed or ignored were now being shouted out, demanding answers.
Questions about why rape is so often ignored and mishandled by the legal system, endured and hidden by women themselves out of shame or the knowledge justice will never be done; questions about female infanticide, honour killings, dowry and patriarchy - and how they feed the subjugation of women.
When Nirbhaya, tragically, finally died, my grief was mixed with shame: I am proud of my heritage, I want to be proud of my Motherland; but how can a country which prides itself on mother devotion and goddess worship, a culture with thousands of years of glorious history and civilisation - how can it be truly civilised when it allows its women and girls be systematically brutalised like this? And before any other countries get too smug, rape is every country’s shame - violence against women and girls is a truly international disease. One in three women around the world will experience rape or some form of violence in their lives.
This keeps hundreds of millions of women and girls trapped in poverty, which is why I’m speaking out alongside ActionAid and other organisations who are working tirelessly to provide long-term support programmes for survivors and campaigns to put a stop to violence for good. The fact that women around the world came together to mourn Nirbhaya tells us it is all our shame, and all our anger shouts the same message: enough is enough.
In a final act of courage, Nirbhaya’s family waived their right to anonymity and came forward, because they wanted the world to know about the beloved daughter they had lost. She was born and raised in Delhi; her family were from a village in Uttar Pradesh. She was the first in her family to attend college: her proud father sold his agricultural land to fund her education as a trainee physiotherapist. And her name was Jyoti Singh.
I spoke today at a public memorial event organised by ActionAid to honour and remember Jyoti, our Nirbhaya. We hold onto our anger, and demand that the Indian Government enforces all the promised changes of its recent Criminal Law Amendment Act (which changed laws to expand the definition of rape and incorporated new offences including acid attack, sexual harassment, voyeurism and stalking).
We reach out in solidarity to all the other organisations around the world working to stop violence against women and girls in every country. And in Jyoti’s name, we can all work for a world where we, our daughters and mothers and sisters can grow and thrive in safety, dignity and equality.
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Guest posts
Meera Syal on the Delhi rape-murder: one year on, what is really being done to protect women?
18 replies
MumsnetGuestBlogs · 16/12/2013 11:27
OP posts:
JakeBullet ·
17/12/2013 11:32
"...in a country which prides itself on mother worship and goddess devotion".
That really resonated with me.....in a country with those ideals how did it all go so wrong? 
I will never forget Joyti's case or what she experienced at the hands of these men.
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