Late at night, a posse of young Indian women walk down a dark city street wearing spaghetti-strap tops and body-hugging outfits, defying the stares of onlookers in a country where a woman is raped every 29 minutes. Around two dozen women took part in the demonstration to highlight the dangers for women walking on Indian streets by heeding organisers instructions to wear "something they always wanted to [wear] but could not" during their late night protest.
"If I was not in a group, God only knows what would have happened," Amrita Nandy Joshi, a 31-year-old Oxford graduate said as the group made its way down a dimly-lit New Delhi road after 10pm, a walk normally done only with a male escort, if at all.
"We call this direct public intervention against street sexual harassment," said Jasmeen Patheja, a gutsy 26-year-old photographer working in the southern IT hub of Bangalore who brought the novel protest to the capital. "I was fed up with being teased every day. One day I reached a threshold and decided to take action," she said.
Patheja formed Blank Noise, a movement that rallies for safer streets for Indian women. Since setting up Blank Noise about three years ago, Patheja has organised "night actions" in four other cities, inviting women through her blog (www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com) to meet at a designated place at night and then set out on a walk.
Along the route, they spray messages on the road that describe the abuse that many young Indian women encounter daily in the hope that they will be read the next morning by pedestrians and create awareness."Mansi, 14, 4.45pm - A stranger whispered continuously into my ear, asking me to sleep with him."
"Pinki, 11, 8am - A hand touch my behind. I was scared."
"Mohini, 19, 9am - A stranger rubbed his private parts against me." Patheja said that while the names had been changed, the incidents were real and reported by people through her blog.
According to the latest official figures, a woman is raped every half-hour in India. Last year, there were more than 18,000 rapes in the country, and these are only the reported cases. Activists suspect the number is much higher as many women don't report attacks to police, fearing harassment or social stigma. |