Vol. 77/No. 1      January 14, 2013

Six men raped the young woman, whose name has not been released, in a bus in New Delhi Dec. 16. Using an iron rod they beat her and a male friend, a software engineer. The assault went on for an hour before the two were dumped in a ditch. The woman, suffering massive internal injuries and brain damage, died Dec. 29.

In the days following the assault, thousands of people took to the streets, protesting in front of parliament and police headquarters. University students set up roadblocks across the city, causing massive traffic jams.

“There has been a huge reaction, almost like an eruption,” Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, told the Militant in a phone interview from New Delhi. “I think the sheer brutality of the assault was one of the reasons people reacted. It was barbaric.” Her group has been one of the organizers of the demonstrations.

Organizers of the protests demanded that the courts speed up the progress of some 100,000 rape cases; that the police register rape complaints promptly; that parliament hold a special session on laws against rape, sexual harassment and child abuse; and that the Delhi police commissioner be fired for his handling of the protests.

Reactionary calls for making rape punishable by death and beefing up police patrols have also been part of the protests.

Prem Shankar Jha, former editor of Hindustan Times, told the New York Times Dec. 23 that there are more than 80,000 human rights complaints filed in India against police officers every year. That represents a small fraction of the actual number of crimes committed by officers, most of which are sexual assaults against women, he said.

Indian police arrested six people in connection with the attack, five men and a youth.

A police source told Reuters Jan. 1 that the cops are seeking the death penalty for murder against four of the accused men, and that they likely will also be charged with gang rape, abduction and destruction of evidence.

The young woman had her roots in a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, but lived in New Delhi, where she was studying to become a physical therapist. “This is one of the few options for our young women to better their situation in life,” Sundararaman said. “Her family had made big economic sacrifices to make this possible for her.”

City authorities responded with a ban on protests. Government officials pleaded on national TV for people to stay away from the streets. Demonstrations, especially in middle-class areas, continued despite the ban and peaked Dec. 23. Police fired tear gas and water cannons, beat protesters with bamboo sticks and arrested dozens.

“This is how they are responding,” Kulsoom Rashid, 27, said to the New York Times Dec. 23 after being tear-gassed. “Hundreds of rapists are running scot-free, and the entire Delhi police is standing here to stop people like me.” By late afternoon, political parties had joined the crowd and clashes with police intensified.

After the woman’s death, authorities deployed thousands of cops, closed 10 subway stations and banned vehicles from the main roads in the heart of Delhi to stop further protests. Despite the cordoning off of the city center, more than 1,000 people gathered at two locations. Marches also took place in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and other cities around the country.

Sundararaman said the anger has been building up over a period. “When this happened it all came together, it became too much. Earlier we organized a big protest in Haryana, a state bordering Delhi, after there were 17 rapes within three weeks in October.”

Reported crimes against women are on the rise as many leave their homes and villages to join the workforce. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a woman is raped every 20 minutes across the nation. The reported number has increased 10 percent in the last 10 years, with a great proportion going unreported.

According to Sundararaman women are stepping forward, especially young women. “They demand their rights, they don’t accept being blamed for abuses done to them. They demand their place in public life without victimization.”

Four of the accused live in Ravi Das Camp, one of New Delhi’s working-class slums. Area residents told Reuters they joined in speaking out against the brutal attack. Meena, a 45-year-old neighbor of one of the accused youth, said she wanted to join the street protests, but was too scared to do so.  
 
 
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