First verdict in Delhi gang rape case imminent, but the fight continues

New Delhi: The gang rape and subsequent death of a young medical student seven months ago sparked outrage in India and prompted promises from the country’s leaders to curb attacks on women. But it has not made New Delhi any safer.

On the eve of the first verdict in the trial of five men accused of an alleged drunken assault on a bus in the capital in December, the outpouring of emotion has subsided. The number of reported rapes in the capital has more than doubled, police say. While willingness to report such crimes to potentially hostile authorities may have increased, the rise also reflects deep-rooted sexual violence.

“Women are simply not safe in India,” said 20-year-old Shreya Sharma near the scene of the Dec. 16 attack, when the naked and beaten student and her male friend, who had accompanied her to the movies, were left on the side of the road. “I make sure not to be out late at night.”

Preliminary police reports reveal the predatory nature of last month’s attacks: two women were raped for over 90 minutes by up to seven men after renting a car outside a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city; a woman was abducted along with her two-year-old son and gang-raped in a moving car; three truck drivers are accused of raping a 13-year-old deaf-mute girl near her home.

Against this backdrop, a New Delhi juvenile court judge is scheduled to pronounce his verdict on July 25 on one of the accused in the bus rape case, who was under 18 at the time of the attack and cannot be named. A separate trial of four adult men is scheduled to end in about a month. A fifth man, Ram Singh, committed suicide in prison in March, according to an official inquiry.

While the verdicts respond to demands for swift justice, the fight for women’s safety and equality is progressing slowly, said Indu Agnihotri, director of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in the capital.

“We are not back to where we started,” she said. But many of the demands that the women’s movement had made before the attack remained unfulfilled – such as the demand for fair treatment by the justice system and for police accountability.

Even in a country accustomed to violence against women, the death of the 23-year-old student – whose name cannot be published due to a law prohibiting the identification of rape victims – sparked angry reactions.

Her life story – a journey from a small Indian town to the big city in search of education and opportunity – touched millions of people who wanted to overcome the barriers to social progress and escape the gender roles that contribute to a third of the country’s women being illiterate and a rise in child marriages around the world.

Protests and vigils followed, while politicians promised action. Official New Year celebrations were scaled back. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the woman’s family and called on them to reflect.

“I want to tell them and the nation that although she lost her fight for life, it is up to all of us to ensure that her death was not in vain,” Singh said.

The government tightened laws against sexual harassment, criminalized stalking and voyeurism, and made the death penalty possible if the victim is put into a vegetative state after an attack.

Delhi Police announced plans to set up a desk with female officers at every station to encourage women to report assaults. It became a criminal offence if the police failed to register a common rape complaint.

The city has twice as many rape reports as Mumbai, where it ranks second. According to police, the number of sexual assaults has increased by over 47 percent in the last five years.

In the first six months of 2013, the number of reported rapes in New Delhi rose from 330 in the same period last year to 806, according to Deepak Mishra, special commissioner of police. The number of cases of sexual abuse increased sixfold to 1,780.

“Our response systems have improved and if that has led to an increase in registration, we don’t mind,” Neeraj Kumar, Delhi Police Commissioner, told CNN-IBN on July 22. Offenders would be brought to justice, he said.

“More and more women are becoming aware of their rights,” says Jyotsna Chatterjee, director of the Joint Women’s Programme, an advocacy group in New Delhi. Yet society’s mindset has not really changed, she says, and there is a struggle to be fought in every household.

Chauvinism runs deep. MPs debating in parliament in March blamed reality TV, mixed-gender classes and erotic cultural statues for the attacks.

“They say girls should not be followed,” said Sharad Yadav, a leader of the fifth-largest political party Janata Dal (United). “Who among us has not followed girls? If you want to talk to a woman, she doesn’t give you a chance at first. You have to make a lot of effort for that.”

Anisha Kumar, a 29-year-old teacher who joined the protests after the December attack, said her optimism that this would mark a turning point has evaporated. Every day, she is harassed by men and jokes full of sexual innuendo, she said. She dresses conservatively and does not travel at night.

“I am not an isolated case,” Kumar said while shopping in New Delhi. “This is the story of every Indian woman.”