There are two Indias that we live in. One where the men live freely, move through public spaces without having to account for every possible threat. The other India, where a moment doesn’t go by without a woman living in fear. Who controls this? Why do we live in a society with split realities? Who is responsible for bridging that divide? When will this end?
If it ever will-
What does it mean when the country’s capital and the city you were born in is repeatedly labelled as the “Rape Capital” of the country? A place of pride for every Indian to behold, but every parent’s nightmare to risk their daughter living defenceless in a place where laws and reforms can’t assure their safety.
Do you remember what happened about a month ago? Gang rape of a minor in a park near Delhi University, which sparked protests by women students demanding safer campuses and more accountability, rather than taking temporary and restrictive measures like online classes or curfews.
In India, once in a while a rape case becomes a national crisis, while thousands of them go unreported or unnoticed. We post on social media, take it to the streets, and demand accountability. Petty promises are made by those in power, committees are formed, and laws are amended. Slowly, by the day, this outrage subsides, and the news headlines disappear, while women return to the reality where they continue living in fear. The news cycle moves on while the structural failures remain, and then the next case arrives.
When we hear stories about women and children facing the brutality of rape or even worse, sometimes, the first instinct of people in positions of power is to prevent it by curbing the freedom of women. It’s a natural line of thought, of course, that these incidents happen to a certain kind of woman– alone, at night, on an empty street, wearing something revealing – hence if we want to stay safe from rape, we need to ensure we don’t make ourselves a target by doing any of these. Be safe, carry pepper spray, don’t go there alone, and don’t go anywhere after dark. Take the long route. Don’t walk, take the cab. Oh, she took the cab? Why was she out at night? If she had worn respectable clothes, then nothing would have happened to her. Maybe it’s because she always hangs out with a lot of men, so she gave off the wrong idea. I want to know why victim-blaming is the first line of thought here? A question on the girl’s character, but is that all we deserve? The country that worshipped women for their supreme power in society for centuries has come down to this?
Let’s say we live in a society where the woman is not blamed for what happened to her. But you will still hear comments like: “You never know what may happen.” Be on the safer side. Don’t go out of the house. Switch to online classes. Why is it that our freedom is stolen when it is not our fault? Why is it that even today, there are many hostels in higher education institutions that have stricter in-time rules for girls? Let’s say we listen and stay at home. Does this mean we are safe? What about the incident where a delivery guy forcefully entered the girl’s house, used the washroom, and showed his privates without her consent? She did not step out.
Recently, there was a case of a 20-year-old woman returning to her hometown, and, on short notice, she could only get a general ticket. She called her friend within a couple of hours of the train leaving to say that some boys were harassing her. She was later found dead on the tracks. What happened to her was horrifying, but it also shows that women have to pay a premium for safety.
The fear of unfortunate turn of events is so ingrained in the brains of every woman that many of us, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds, can’t help but be paralysed by factors like not having enough money to guarantee safety or not having a companion to protect us in case things go wrong. The fear is a cage. And when someone decides not to let the cage dictate their choices, they are blamed for not being careful enough or for bringing it on themselves.
There have been more than eight such cases in the past fifteen years, leading to widespread protests across the country. Has anything changed since? What did successive governments promise after major cases of sexual violence, which commitments were implemented, and which failures continued to surface in later cases?
The Nirbhaya Fund was announced in the 2013 Union Budget with a budget of ₹ 1,000 crore. The need for this fund was highlighted after the gruesome 2012 Nirbhaya Delhi gang rape and murder case, which shook the country over women’s safety. The Fund has built service infrastructure at scale, with lakhs of women reaching OSCs and helplines, however, the evidence on the outcomes remains thin after a decade. In 2022, a parliamentary panel noted that violence against women had not reduced despite legal frameworks and institutions. In 2022, vehicles bought by the Mumbai Police were reportedly used as escort vehicles to provide Y-plus security to MPs and MLAs instead of deploying the funds to combat crimes against women.
This is where the money allocated for the safety of women goes to – Providing extra security for the men in power. Who ensures that money allocated for women’s safety is actually used for that purpose?
It’s been thirteen years since the announcement of the Nirbhaya Fund, but the mitigation needs to be judged by whether women actually feel safer. Not by how much money has been spent or how many centres exist. The way forward is to rebuild the Fund around accountability and survivors’ experiences.
The Kathua case from 2018 in Jammu & Kashmir, where an eight-year-old girl was brutally molested and murdered. Three police officers were accused of destroying evidence in the case to let the guilty go, one of whom was also granted bail soon after serving only 2 years of imprisonment.
The Hyderabad rape and murder of a veterinarian in 2019 led to the passing of the Disha bill 16 days after the incident in the Legislative Assembly of Andhra Pradesh. The Bill had been sent to the President for assent. The Ministry of Home Affairs reviewed it and sought clarifications on several provisions, and further advised the State to withdraw the existing legislation and submit a revised Bill incorporating the Centre’s recommendations.
Did that mean nothing happened in Andhra Pradesh? No. The state separately introduced initiatives under the Disha name, including women police stations, an SOS app, designated courts and One-Stop Crisis Centres. But these administrative initiatives were not equivalent to the Disha Bill becoming law.
At the national level, the Indian Penal Code, 1860 remained in force until the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita took effect on 1 July 2024. A bill’s passage, a state’s administrative initiatives, and the commencement of enforceable legislation are three different things. The public deserves clarity about each one of them.
Why should a proposal for legal reform remain unresolved for years without a clear, publicly communicated outcome? And who is accountable for ensuring that the safety measures announced in the meantime actually work?
Did the government need four years to look into what’s needed to merely decide the safety of women? Was the brutal rape and murder of so many every day not worth the urgency to look into it with utmost priority and emergency?
The Hathras case from Uttar Pradesh in 2020 involved a 19-year-old woman, dragged into the field and brutally murdered by four “upper caste” men. In March 2023, a special court convicted one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and offences under the SC/ST Act, while acquitting the other three. None was convicted of rape. How did the court assess the survivor’s statements and the other evidence? And what did the investigation reveal about the ability of the authorities to gather and preserve reliable evidence? Is this the country we live in? Where your scars can be dismissed as proof of an assault.
The Bilkis Bano convicts from 2002, where a pregnant woman was gang raped, and 14 of her family members were murdered. The 11 convicts were released by the Gujarat government in 2022 on the grounds of “good behaviour”.
It took the Supreme Court two years to put them back in jail in 2024. What considerations justified the decision to release men convicted of such grave crimes?
The sexual violence in Manipur in 2023, two women were stripped and paraded publicly. The survivors testified that police personnel were present but did not help them, leaving them alone with the mob. Isn’t it the responsibility of people in the uniform, bound by an oath, to “Protect the country and its people”? It took 14 days to file the preliminary FIR, and action was taken only after the horrific video went viral in July 2023. The delay between the incident, the investigation, and the arrests raises serious questions about the authorities’ response. Three years on, the case demands more than a record of arrests. It demands scrutiny of the investigation, the status of the accused, the protection and rehabilitation afforded to the survivors, and whether accountability has reached those whose duty was to protect them.
For the survivors, accountability must include protection, rehabilitation, alongside the passage of the legal process.
The RG Kar Medical College Case, from Kolkata in 2024, after which the government promised to install CCTV cameras. The state government wired panic buttons and distress alarms connected to central security rooms.
Has it been done? Is it being actively monitored? Subsequent reporting and doctors’ accounts indicated that implementation remained incomplete, with alleged failures of panic-button functionality in some high-risk areas.
Hardware can be installed and still fail to protect anyone if it is not operational, monitored and supported by an effective response system. The real measure of safety is not a checklist of equipment delivered but whether staff can use it when they need it and whether those responsible for maintaining it are held accountable.
And the most recently reported Astha Kunj case from September 2026, where a girl was abused on her 17th birthday in a public park. What did the officials have to say as mitigation steps? They must plan 250 women-only parks in the city, well, atrocities will still happen outside the borders of those parks and elsewhere. The civic body said that it is “Strengthening fencing and boundary walls, improving lighting and access control, and carrying out regular pruning of trees and plants to prevent creation of dark or blind spots in parks”.
Not like it was the first time this city witnessed a rape case after having the media tags of the most unsafe city for women 4th year in a row (Hindustan Times), India’s rape capital based on NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data (The Hindu), City suggested unsafe backed by government survey in 2010 (BBC), City suggested to be more unsafe based on Delhi police data in 2026 (Times of India).
More than a decade of warnings, and the response is still being measured in walls, lights and trimmed trees.
“There is a saying that when rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it.” These were the words of an opposition party MLA in Karnataka in 2021, in response to another lawmaker expressing his helplessness at being unable to control lawmakers to unite on a topic under discussion.
Well, if this is the justice given to women by the government, where convoys can be provided for ministers who have failed to bring justice to the miserable ending to the lives of these women. Should we or should we not let it go when women take the matter into their own hands to punish the perpetrator, going beyond law and order? Like when Akku Yadav from Nagpur in 2004 was accused of raping more than 40 women, including minors, over a span of 13 years, but despite numerous complaints, he kept evading charges due to corruption. What state of mind would 200 women have been through in 2004, to march from the slum into the courtroom hearing, armed with kitchen knives, stones, and chilli powder? They attacked and killed him on the courtroom floor. And then, a decade later, when the community collectively claimed responsibility for their actions, authorities could not single out individuals for conviction.
The killing cannot simply be called justice. Vigilante violence raises its own questions of accountability. But the case leaves us with another disturbing question — what happens when a community loses faith that the law will protect it? The answer cannot be to accept mob violence as an alternative. It must be to ensure that complaints are investigated, accused persons are brought to trial, and those responsible for obstructing justice are held accountable.
India has repeatedly responded to sexual violence by asking for legal reforms, investigations and promises of improved safety. Several interventions, including legal convictions and protections, as well as the establishment of safety schemes, have produced meaningful changes. But why does this happen only after the entire country has erupted in outrage? Isn’t it the responsibility of the system to protect women by enforcing the laws laid out for them?
Despite all this, subsequent cases have continued to expose failures in policing, survivor protection, workplace security, and the implementation of the said measures. We failed as a country when we couldn’t ensure that lessons learned from one tragedy became safeguards before the next.
Another day, another article, a woman is killed or a survivor left to speak of the failure of the institution meant to protect her. The flaws in the system remain, the fear in the heart remains, those who control it in silence won’t see it. But another woman always will. Our lives remain fragile behind the door and beyond it. So does the responsibility to act on it.
A law passed is not the end of the work. A promise made is not its fulfilment. And a country cannot call itself safer simply because it has learned how to mourn the same tragedy again.
This article is based on the news sources, government statements and data, to the best of our knowledge. Any claims in interpreting information are to be distinguished from judicial findings.
References:
https://www.impriindia.com/insights/policy-update/nirbhayafund2026/#google_vignette
https://www.deccanherald.com/india/panel-notes-gross-underutilisation-of-nirbhaya-fund-1092237.html
https://sansad.in/getFile/lsapps/loksabhaquestions/annex/188/AU3294_m3Btys.pdf
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64820721
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-the-bilkis-case-remissions-8094290
https://www.statista.com/statistics/632493/reported-rape-cases-india
https://www.bbc.com/news/10567761
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/16/india.gender
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/173892948
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59694671
https://forumias.com/blog/women-safety-in-india-challenges-impact-explained-pointwise/
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