Rape Protests in India and the Birth of a New Repertoire

Abstract

The gang rape of a young physiotherapy student on a moving bus in December of 2012, in Delhi, India, brought forward a series of countrywide protests. These protests were unique compared with prior protests in India, leading to a need to re-examine the political importance of social movements in the subcontinent. Using data from 748 newspaper reports on the demonstrations that took place from December 2012 to April 2013, this paper examines the unique characteristics of the rape protests and their implications on the birth of a new repertoire in social movements. For the first time in Indian history, women's rights and violence against women occupied the forefront of national politics, and was no longer limited to agendas of feminists and women's groups. The protests were not led by a specific interest group, but were spontaneous and horizontal in nature, with participants from various social and political backgrounds. This paper argues that with the help of technology and new social media that a new repertoire of protests emerged: a horizontal, spontaneous, mass movement across interest groups.

Keywords:

• Delhi rape protests
• spontaneous protests
• Indian women's movement
• new repertoire
• violence against women

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kevin Gillan, Jaita Talukdar, and two anonymous reviewers for their extensive comments on various editions of the manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Kathleen Fallon and Rukmini Sen for generously sharing their works in progress that helped shape key arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. For pre-independence movements, see Ray, 1999. After independence, the ‘heyday of development decades’ took place in the 1950s and 1960s, and the women's movement placed trust in the constitutional claims for gender inequality, and declined in their role as a pressure group (John, 2005, p. 109)

^2. Aruna Shanbaug was raped in the hospital where she worked in 1973. The rapist was never charged with rape and was given a light sentence for attempted murder. Mathura was a 16-year-old tribal woman who was raped by policemen in 1973. The policemen had their sentences reversed in 1979.

^3. The new law was also criticized by various women's groups as it ignored many recommendations of JVC on marital rape, prosecution of India soldiers charged with the rape under civilian law, barring individuals accused of rape from contesting elections. The Government responded a few days later saying that the law is open to revisions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soma Chaudhuri

Soma Chaudhuri is Assistant Professor of Sociology and School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She is the author of Witches, Tea Plantations and Lives of Migrant laborers in India (Lexington 2013). Her research broadly concentrates around violence against women, social movements, gender and witch hunts.

Sarah Fitzgerald

Sarah Fitzgerald is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her main research interests include cybercrime, domestic terrorism and social movements.