• Dipanvita Sehgal

  Author

We witnessed yet another disturbing incident of brutal gang rape and murder on
16th December 2012. The pent up anger of a million such disasters found vent. People were out
on the streets, there was halla bol, a revolution of sorts was born. This is not to say that any of
the things that happened was happening for the first time. But the level of participation and
oneness of opinion against the establishment’s apathetic and insensitive take on every serious
issue was spectacular. All efforts during the December 2012 movement and since were to widen
the canvas, make a shift from the idea of just a few animals who perpetrated violence on a
woman on 16th December and to make a platform of action and debate against a more systemic
rape culture and “denial of autonomy to women in homes, schools, by the state machinery, by
the caste system, by communal violence.” What started with a peaceful protest, ended on an ugly
and shameful note with violence perpetrated by authorities in power robbing us of many rights
all in one go. Women and men were engaged in high scale mass protests of a level never
witnessed before and establishments were visibly shaken. All of this came undone with a
‘saviour’ documentary film, that was made and released three years after the gang rape. A film
that screams ‘patriarchy’ from its very title, Leslie Udwin’s, “India’s Daughter”.

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