ABSTRACT
On 16 December 2012, a 23-year-old college student, a higher education pioneer in her working-class family, went with a male companion to watch the popular movie Life of Pi in a suburb of New Delhi, India. On their way back, the young couple boarded a bus that took the straight route to hell. Six young men, including the bus driver, took turns raping the young woman and brutalising her while the young man was beaten with an iron rod and thrown off the moving vehicle. The injuries to the young woman were so severe and gruesome that she died twelve days later (Desai 2013; Pokharel et al. 2013). The incident, neither the first in an increasingly violent-towards-women India nor the only death due to sexual assault, sparked angry protests all around the country. Crowds of students, members of political parties, women’s organisations and the general public came out in the streets of nearly every Indian city and town to protest against the worsening safety conditions for girls and women, as well as the general breakdown of law and order. The young woman was dubbed ‘Nirbhaya’ (‘the fearless’), a ‘martyr’ to men’s violence against women.
