{"id":178,"date":"2019-05-29T21:23:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T21:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/?p=178"},"modified":"2019-05-29T21:23:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T21:23:13","slug":"was-delhi-gang-rape-indias-metoo-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/2019\/05\/29\/was-delhi-gang-rape-indias-metoo-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Delhi gang rape India’s #Metoo moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-india-42236752<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five years after the notorious gang \nrape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on a bus in \nDelhi, the BBC’s Geeta Pandey asks if India is a better place for women \ntoday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, a recap of the horrific crime – the young woman and \nher male friend had boarded the bus just after 9pm on 16 December 2012. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\n was then gang-raped by the driver and five other men on the bus while \nher friend was badly beaten up. Naked and bloodied, the couple were \nthrown by the roadside to die. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were taken to hospital after \nsome passers-by found them and called the police. She clung to life for a\n fortnight before succumbing to her injuries. Her friend lives, scarred \nfor life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brutality of the assault stunned India and the press dubbed her Nirbhaya – the fearless one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I had met my own Nirbhaya a decade before that, while I was producing a BBC radio feature on rape in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\n met her at a shelter for women run by an NGO in central Delhi. She was \nfrom a poor family in Gujarat, a member of a travelling tribe that has \nno fixed address. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman had come to the capital along with her husband and young child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a few months the couple had worked as day wage labourers and were returning to Gujarat for a visit.\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Image copyright\n Getty Images\n \n \n \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the railway station, in the melee, she was \nseparated from her family. They boarded the train as it moved and she \ngot left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she sat on the platform weeping, a kindly \nlooking Sikh man offered help. He told her he was a truck driver and \nwould take her home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She took him up on his offer since she had no money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next four days, she was driven around on the truck, brutally gang-raped by the driver and three other men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Believing that she was about to die, they threw her by the roadside which is where she was found and taken to hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I went to meet her, she had just been brought in from the hospital after months of treatment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her\n body resembled a war zone. Her insides were so badly damaged that she \nhad to walk around with a pipe that came out of her abdomen and was \nattached to a bag. She showed me burn marks on her breasts where her \nrapists had branded her with cigarettes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had no idea where her family was. The NGO said their attempts to track them down had failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent more than an hour talking to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made me sick just to hear what she had been through, about the brutality human beings can be capable of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\n was traumatised and, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. And I \nprojected my fears onto two women closest to me – my sister and my best \nfriend, who was also a BBC colleague, two very independent and feisty \nwomen.\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Image copyright\n Getty Images\n \n \n \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time they would visit me, I would insist as they left that they messaged me once they reached home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\n humoured me initially, sometimes they would get irritated because if \nthey forgot, I’d call them in the morning and harangue them. Sometimes \nthey made fun of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then 16 December 2012 happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Indian press gave out gory details of the brutal assault, the trauma was brought alive for a horrified nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\n a fortnight, as Nirbhaya lay in her hospital bed fighting for life, \ntelevision channels and newspapers reported every little detail of what \nhad been done to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sister and my friend no longer made fun of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n that was not the only change. Giving in to the demands of protesters \nwho took to the streets across India, the government brought in a \ntougher new law to deal with crimes against women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the biggest\n change has been the one in attitudes – sexual attacks and rapes have \nbecome topics of living room conversations and that is a huge deal in a \ncountry where sex and sex crimes are a taboo, something to be brushed \nunder the carpet, not discussed at length.\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Image copyright\n Getty Images\n \n \n \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking control of the conversation is the first step\n to India becoming a better place for women. And this conversation has \nspilt on to social media and India is in the grip of, to borrow a phrase\n from Nobel laureate VS Naipaul, a “million mutinies now”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every \nincident, big or small, is being discussed and written about, and \nwomen’s rights to safe living and equality have been under much greater \nscrutiny. In recent years, we’ve written about many of these campaigns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n