Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
role in the protests, providing unorganized angry middle-class people with the opportun-
ity to air views that previously would not have been heard. Television channels escalated
the protests with round-the-clock and overhyped coverage of seemingly endless discussion
groups and on-the-spot interviews. I saw TV interviewers from leading channels virtually
screaming into their cameras at India Gate as if they were in the middle of a war zone,
whereas they were mostly surrounded by quiet, curious crowds. As with the Hazare anti-
corruption movement, the women's rape protests would never have been so large were it
not for television, plus the social media and, of course, mobile phone text messaging - a
potent weapon in a country with nearly 900m mobile subscribers.
The government had certainly got the message from the women's demonstrations that
some display of change was required. No doubt spurred by the imminence of a general elec-
tion, due in just over a year (April-May 2014), it showed media-oriented and overhyped
mohan Singh went to Delhi airport around 3.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning to meet Pandey's
body with her family when she was flown back from Singapore. Two other political leaders
went to the heavily guarded private cremation - one was Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi chief
minister who, with assembly elections approaching, was trying to improve her image after
playing politics over poor police handling of the issue. She had even been booed when she
visited the protestors. Sonia Gandhi unusually led from the front, reflecting the nation's
horror and grief, despite her own poor health.
Five weeks after the rape, Pranab Mukherjee, the country's president, said in his eve of
Republic Day address: 'The brutal rape and murder of a young woman, a woman who was
a symbol of all that new India strives to be, has left our hearts empty and our minds in
turmoil. We lost more than a valuable life; we lost a dream. If today young Indians feel
become a rather crude media blitzkrieg, Sonia Gandhi again went to visit the family of the
gang-rape victim and took Rahul Gandhi, who characteristically had been virtually invis-
ible during the mass protests but was by then slightly more active because he had become
the Congress vice-president.
Wave of Protests
These were the latest - and socially and politically the most significant - of a wave of
protests that had swept India in recent years. They were historically important because they
brought middle class and professional people out onto the streets, whereas earlier protests
had mostly involved the rural poor opposing the conversion of agricultural and tribal land
for industrial, mining and real estate development.
