So perhaps at last India has woken up to the daily abuse that its girls and women face.
Sunday night’s horrific rape where a 23-year-old woman was beaten and gang-raped on a bus as it drove through the streets of New Delhi has rightly outraged the entire nation.
In a country where news reports of sexual violence against girls and women are commonplace, yet provoke little public reaction, the events over the last four days have been unusual but welcome.
Political parties, university students and women’s rights groups have taken to the streets in cities across the nation to criticise the police and government for not doing enough to stem increasing reports of rape in the capital. Blockading roads and, in some cases, breaking through police barricades to have water cannons fired upon them, they have demanded better protection for girls and women on the streets.
Broadcasting minute-by-minute coverage, 24/7 news channels have kept the country updated in the aftermath of the incident. No detail has been spared – from the condition of the victim who is now fighting for her life in hospital, to the arrests of five men, including the bus driver, to a variety of panel discussions with politicians, social activists and women who have faced sexual harassment in Delhi’s public spaces.
