NEW DELHI — When the first SlutWalk demonstration was held in India last year, bringing together several hundred young women protesting the everyday violence that they or their friends had faced, the response from some in the news media — and a few veteran feminists — was prickly and defensive.
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Wasn’t SlutWalk an imported idea, more suited to foreign countries than to India? A debate erupted over the word itself. Few Indians use the word ‘‘slut,’’ and the organizers of the march had attempted to translate it as ‘‘Besharami Morcha.’’ Besharami means ‘‘shameless woman.’’
Since then, more and more women have found other ways of protesting.
Flash mobs took to the Delhi Metro to demand greater safety for women on public transport. After officials in Gurgaon responded to a rape by ordering shopping malls to close early, Richa Dubey started Girlcott, urging women not to shop in the mall-heavy city on weekends.
The Girlcott slogan was simple but effective: ‘‘No safety, no money.’’ Gurgaon officials backtracked on their order.
But the public and media response to the recent sexual assault of a teenage girl in the city of Guwahati suggests a small but significant shift, as I write in my latest Page Two column. This time, critical attention has focused on the assailants, not on the victim.
Could these protests, as varied as they are, signal real changes in the way Indians perceive and address sexual assault?