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Aug 4, 20205 min read

How have women's rights in India been impeded on by the lockdown?

By: Gargi Rakhade


Trigger warning/content warning: sexual assault, rape, domestic abuse


In December of 2012, 23-year-old Jyoti Singh was gang-raped and horrifically beaten to death by four men in India’s capital city, New Delhi. When the news spread of this tragedy, Indian women lined the streets in protest. They gave Jyoti the name Nirbhaya or fearless women in Hindi, and she became a symbol of the women's rights movement in India. Seven years later, in November of 2019, in the Indian city, Hyderabad, 27-year-old doctor Priyanka Reddy was on her way home from work when she was gang-raped by four men, brutally strangled to death, and her body burned by the men. The striking similarity between the two horrific cases uncovers the shameful negligence of India in protecting their women in over seven years.


Rape culture has been prominent throughout India’s history, with very little progress in abolishing it. Women in India are told how to dress to “avoid inviting trouble”, sl*t-shamed, and victim-blamed. Predatory culture is unfortunately normalized in Indian society, and marital rape is common in many households, as men feel entitled to sex and believe they own their wives. Furthermore, Indian culture and media often take a single pronged approach to sexual violence. When the stories of Priyanka Reddy and Jyoti Singh, two successful women who lived in large cities, came to light, their stories were immediately publicized However, Indian society often ignores those living in the rural parts, who are disproportionately affected by sexual assault. Marginalized people in Indian are seven times more at risk of being sexually assaulted, and when they do come forward, these rural communities often rally around the accused and ostracize the accuser. This is because marginalized, transgender, and gender-nonconforming victims don't fit into the “ideal-victim” mold that has been ingrained in Indian rape culture. India’s patriarchal social norms and outward misogyny has fertilized a breeding ground for impunity, selective outrage, and victim shaming, lengthening the trauma these survivors already have to cope with. Deepa Narayan, a social activist and author of, Chup: breaking silence about India’s women, crystallizes the issue when she says “society here [India] devalues women systematically and makes them seem subhuman, and rape is the worst symptom of that.”


Without eradicating the numerous layers of silent rape culture embedded throughout Indian society, India will continue to hold the title of one of the world’s most dangerous places for women. The rape of minor girls was increased by 82% in 2016, and government data finds that nearly 4 women have been raped every hour, making that around 90 women a day who have reported their rape. Additionally, 90% of rapes go unreported in India, making the number of cases even higher. The worst part is that 95% of all perpetrators were not strangers to the victims, because Indian culture teaches women to be afraid of their bodies, denied their sexuality, and shamed for speaking up. Women are told to be quiet and submissive, serving a culture of creating “pleasers”, those who are violently forced into ‘fitting in’ by staying silent, doing what others want you to, and never saying no. This culture is cycled to generations and now is persistently degrading 650 million girls and women.


But it's not just Indian society that has failed women; the Indian Justice system has failed them as well. Not only are police in India frequently unwilling to register complaints, but only about a third of rape cases reported to the police have actually ended in a conviction. Furthermore, at the end of 2017, Indian courts had a backlog of around 100,000 rape cases, and the numbers just keep rising. There is a lack of witness protection, and victims from poor and marginalized communities continue to lack legal assistance needed to get justice. Not to mention the embarrassing lack of pressure put on the government and court systems to enforce strict sentences for the guilty, sometimes allowing perpetrators to bypass punishment altogether.. Take the case of Jyoti Singh: the four men responsible were sentenced to death, however, they still remain on death row more than seven years later And because the majority of survivors don't have access to proper therapy and undergo victim-blaming by defense lawyers and judges in the courtroom, their trauma is often multiplied

In 2012, shortly after the Jyoti Singh case, protests broke out across India to bring tangible change. In 2013, the Indian Government created the Nirbhaya fund, which contained $445 million, to boost women's security. The aim was to split the money amongst state governments so they could then work with NGOs and create initiatives to keep women safe. However, after the Priyanka Reddy case, it was brought to attention that 91% of the Nirbhaya fund was left untouched, and Delhi, which now bears the name, “rape capital of the world”, only spent 5% of its allocation. The Priyanka Reddy case reignited protests in India, but this time they focused on the key issue of prevention. This means to look towards the social issues behind the rape crises which, until recently, has been unaddressed, as the cultural impunity for sexual crimes remains firmly embedded in Indian culture. The brutal rape and murder of Dr. Reddy sparked protests to prevent sexual assault, and halt the normalization of rape culture in India, not just address it when it happens.


As progress was seemingly being achieved, the coronavirus has dampened plans once more, as the lockdown has placed women's rights as a severe risk. As protests have come to a halt, women aren't just figuratively off the streets, but literally as well. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has flagged a rise in domestic violence, noting 194 cases of rape and molestation in June, the highest ever this year. Moreover, the childline India helpline received nearly 92,000 SOS calls in a mere 11 days when lockdown measures were first put in place. The rise in domestic abuse cases during lockdown is because women are now quite literally locked in with their abuser. The problem is exacerbated when women are disproportionately unemployed, pushing them into economic corners, and forcing them to become more financially reliant on their potential abusers. The Wire conceptualizes the issue well when they write, “if domestic violence was a virus in itself, the lockdown not only increased its breeding rate but also morphed its DNA to make it a more tenacious variant.” When the Indian government takes a gender blind route to navigate the obstacles of coronavirus, they condemn millions of women.


Priyanka Reddy, and Jyoti Singh, represent a larger battle that Indian women have been facing for centuries. The violent sexual assault pandemic the country has been plagued with still has no cure to end, affecting women now more than ever. But as silence around sexual assaults is slowly broken when more victims come forward, and the rape culture is no longer ignored rather addressed, Indian women can finally start to see the light at the end of a very long tunnel, and Priyanka Reddy, Jyoti Singh, and millions of other Indian women and girls will finally, get justice.


Discussion Questions:

  • What steps should the Indian government take to ensure the protection of women during a lockdown?

  • What's next for the women's rights movement in India?

  • What is the best approach to specifically helping marginalized women in India?

  • How can India get abolish its deeply rooted rape culture?

  • Has the women's rights movement in India made substantial progress?


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