InDepth | The Irony of Protection: Women Want Safety, Not A Smaller World

On September 26, more than 50 women gathered outside the Kalkaji metro station in Delhi and began walking towards the Moolchand metro station. There were no slogans or posters. They were walking in solidarity with one another and with survivors of sexual violence, following a series of recent rape cases in the capital.

They started at around 9.30 pm and walked until midnight. It was pouring. Some carried umbrellas, others wore raincoats; a few simply got drenched and kept walking. The idea was not new. For nearly a decade, Women Walk at Midnight—an all-women collective—has organised late-night walks across cities to reclaim public spaces where women should be able to walk and spend time together, spaces that can be still difficult to occupy alone.

But this time, the women were accompanied by nearly 90 to 100 police personnel, including women constables. Officers walked alongside them at points, disrupting both traffic and the walk itself. Five police vans remained stationed along the route.

“This has been the most chaotic walk we have ever had in the past 10 years. We never took permission for our walks, nor were we ever accompanied by the police,” said theatre artist Mallika Taneja, who started the collective in 2016.

The police presence was meant as protection. Yet, somewhere along the walk, that protection became part of the question.

At midnight, as the women prepared to leave in different directions, many towards Gurgaon and Noida, some asked the police officers who would ensure their safety now. “Aaj to aapne haath pakad pakad ke pahuncha diya, roz roz kaun pahunchaega jab hum akele honge?” one woman asked (Today, you brought us here holding our hands. Who will do that every day when we are alone?).

As Taneja says, we don’t require policing, we require the police to co-exist with us. The distinction matters. There is a difference between making public spaces safer and making women’s movements more closely monitored or restricted. In India, that line is repeatedly blurred.

When a woman is assaulted in a park, the park becomes the problem. When a girl is followed on public transport, the question becomes why she was travelling alone. When a crime happens after dark, darkness itself becomes suspect. The question of safety quietly shifts from ‘How do we make this place safe?’ to ‘How do we make women avoid this place?’

When Safety Becomes A Restriction

That question has gained renewed urgency in Delhi. On September 21, a 17-year-old girl entered Aastha Kunj Park near Kalkaji Temple with a male friend. Three men allegedly approached them, claiming to be policemen, and accused them of “doing wrong”, separated them and allegedly raped the girl in turns.

The case triggered protests across Delhi, with students and women demanding safer public spaces, better policing and accountability for sexual violence. But what followed was also familiar: controlled entry through selected gates and restrictions on access to parks after sunset.

It is not the first time a sexual assault has been followed by restrictions on women’s movement. After the 2021 gang rape of a medical student in Mysuru, the University of Mysore advised women students not to move alone after 6.30 pm and restricted access to the Kukkarahalli Lake area after 6 pm. The order was later withdrawn following criticism. At Anna University in Chennai, following a sexual assault case in December 2024, a women’s hostel advanced its curfew from 8.30 pm to 7 pm, with students saying the restriction would affect access to the library, sports facilities and other parts of the campus. Women students at the Jamia Millia Islamia have also historically faced earlier hostel curfews than male students.

The pattern is familiar: when a public space becomes unsafe, women’s access to it becomes the thing that is negotiated. But the recent cases in Delhi make it difficult to argue that the problem is simply women being outside at night, something that is not an unknown fact.

On the same day as the Aastha Kunj assault, a six-year-old girl was allegedly raped near Desh Bandhu Gupta Road. On September 16, a class-six student who had stepped out to buy stationery was allegedly tied up and raped inside a shop in Sadar Bazar. On September 10, a 17-year-old in Swaroop Nagar went to meet someone she knew and was allegedly gang-raped, stabbed and dumped; her body was recovered three days later. This means, four minors were reportedly raped in Delhi within 12 days.

Even more cases followed in the days after Aastha Kunj, including allegations involving a minor who was sexually assaulted over several months and blackmailed with recordings, and another who was allegedly raped in a hotel after being befriended online.

Not all survivors were attacked at midnight or in deserted spaces—one was a six-year-old who gone to buy stationery; the other had gone to meet a male friend in a public park. The danger cannot be reduced to a particular hour, park or route that women can simply be instructed to avoid. If safety depends on women making themselves less visible, less mobile and less free, it is worth asking whose safety we are really protecting.

Ananya, who not only attended the midnight walk but also organised it, rejects the idea that surveillance or closure can address the problem. “Surveillance doesn’t ensure safety. Closing down gardens or parks won’t put an end to rape. And confining us to our homes won’t make our issues disappear. It simply reminds us that the measures currently in place are insufficient, or that the approach is flawed. If they were effective, the rape culture would have stopped years ago.”

Living With Curfew

For 18-year-old Khushi, who actively participated in the recent protests, the fear is no longer confined to isolated incidents. Her friend was recently followed by a group of men while travelling in the metro. Khushi was on call with her constantly. They repeatedly moved in and out of the women’s compartment, staring and laughing. When she got off at Sikandarpur metro station, they followed her. She eventually ran towards a police booth, where a woman police officer intervened and apprehended the men. This happened around 4 pm.

The fear does not necessarily stop women from going out. It changes the calculations they make before they do. Khushi has skipped events because they ended after 7 or 8 pm, to avoid a particular metro station and being careful as to what she is wearing.

Eventually, this fear becomes routine. She knows where she can go, how late she can stay, which route she should take, whether she should travel alone and whether there will be enough people around when she reaches her destination.

“It’s ingrained in us,” she says. “I can never relax when I am in public. If a man doesn’t have to think twice before stepping out, why should I have to do that?”That is how restriction works even when nobody formally imposes it. A girl does not need a curfew if she has already internalised one.

Smriti, Khushi’s mother says that the recent incidents have left her with not just fear, but regret that she cannot promise her children something as basic as safety. “At times, I tell my elder daughter, I am sorry that I brought you into this world where I cannot even assure you your basic right.”

According to the recent National Crime Records Bureau data, India registered 428,278 crimes against women in 2021, 445,256 in 2022 and 448,211 in 2023. About 29,670 cases of rape were reported in 2023. Delhi recorded 14,277 of the total crimes against women in 2021, 14,247 in 2022 and 13,439 in 2023.

A 2026 working paper, “The City Through Her Eyes”, based on more than 4,000 women surveyed in Delhi and Bengaluru, found that 65 per cent of women surveyed in Delhi had experienced harassment in a public space in the previous year. Forty-one per cent reported more serious forms of harassment, including groping, stalking and sexual assault. Nearly half said they were extremely anxious about sexual assault in public spaces.

About 70 per cent of women surveyed in both cities said fear of harassment had affected their employment decisions. That last number changes the meaning of safety. Fear can end in a decision of not taking up a job, not to stay late in college, not to attend an event, not to travel alone or not to live in another city.

Nearly 14 years After Nirbhaya

Delhi is not witnessing the wave of protest against rape in India for the first time. There was one, a much larger one, in December 2012, when the gang rape and the brutal assault of a young woman in a moving bus in Delhi brought thousands of people on to the streets and forced sexual violence into the centre of national politics.

On December 23, 2012, the government constituted the Justice J. S. Verma Committee to examine changes needed in criminal law and the handling of sexual assault. Its report, submitted in January 2013, went far beyond increasing punishment. It made recommendations on rape, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, police reform, medical procedures, electoral reform and education. It called for better police training, an increase in police personnel and greater institutional accountability. It also recommended education on sex, gender and empowerment.

There were legal changes too. There was the Nirbhaya Fund. There were fast-track courts and new institutional mechanisms. Yet years later, women protest on the streets for the same issues, asking for the same basic rights. They are still asking for safe public transport. Students are still asking for lighting and patrolling. Women are still being told that the answer to danger is to reduce their movement.

According to a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, about 16 per cent of the Rs 7,990.85 crore allocated under the Nirbhaya Fund are yet to be utilised.

On September 28, the Supreme Court, taking suo motu cognisance of the recent national capital region cases, noted that the Aastha Kunj assault had brought to light earlier complaints of sexual harassment faced by students of Lady Shri Ram College. The court said that those complaints had failed to prompt the police or the local administration to correct security lapses. It also pointed to poor illumination, inadequate surveillance and lax patrolling in public spaces, drawing a painful parallel with the 2012 Nirbhaya case. That parallel may be the most uncomfortable part of the present moment. The question after Nirbhaya was how to change the system. The question now is why so many of the same failures are still visible.

Yogita Bhayana, a women’s-rights activist and founder of the People Against Rape in India, says that the changes happened “only on paper and on the periphery, on the superficial level”. What she wants is not another announcement after another crime, but concrete action that addresses the conditions that allow sexual violence to persist.

That means starting with boys, she says, not imposing more restrictions on women. “We want focus on the boys,” says Bhayana. She has repeatedly called for and written to various chief ministers to bring changes to the school curricula, include gender sensitisation and sexual-health education so that young people learn about equality and healthy relationships before pornography, music videos or the internet become their primary sources of information.

“We have been asking to change the curriculum, start moral education in terms of gender sensitisation,” she says. She stresses that this cannot be reduced to a demand directed at one government or a political party.

The focus, she argues, has instead remained on disciplining women after an assault. She also points to the physical infrastructure of safety. After participating in a protest at Gargi College in New Delhi, Bhayana says she waited for 45 minutes for an auto in a dark spot amid confusion over transport and parking. For her, such experiences expose the gap between announcements about women’s safety and the reality of moving through public spaces.

“What has changed?” she asks. The question takes her back to Nirbhaya. The bus in that case had a thick curtain. Years later, Bhayana asks whether the physical curtains may have been removed while the mental ones remain. “Aap dimaag ke parde khol pa rahe ho na? Aap bus ke parde khol pa rahe ho?”

At the heart of the problem, she argues, is a fundamental misdirection of responsibility. “The problem is women, not men,” she says, describing the logic behind restrictions imposed in the name of safety. Until the state recognises that the problem is the men who rape, rather than the women who are raped, the response will continue to restrict women instead of making public spaces safer.

Ordinary citizens, Bhayana says, do not have the power, authority or budget to redesign the system. They can protest and demand change. “The government has to do the rest.”

The Right to Stay

Taneja started Women Walk at Midnight because she wanted to experience walking at night. The first walk, in February 2016, was a mixed group. It gradually became clear to her that an all-women space was necessary because women were the ones who needed the group, the visibility and the sense of security. When men are present, she says, women can suddenly appear “chaperoned”; their presence in public becomes more acceptable.

“Women simply being outside at night remains unfamiliar. The only way to make it familiar, she says, is to keep doing it. Again and again,” she says.

That is why she calls Women Walk at Midnight a “practice”, not a campaign, movement or project. The goal is not simply to get women from one metro station to another. It is to make women’s presence in public ordinary. Taneja is careful, however, about romanticising the walk.

“Being able to walk is a privilege,” she says, particularly for a particular kind of woman. Some women cannot join because they work at night or because their families will not allow them or because they do not feel safe enough to claim the space. The women walking together, therefore, cannot be mistaken for proof that the city has become safe.

They are proof that women continue to insist on being in it. Taneja does not know whether she will see the day when every woman can walk alone without looking over her shoulder. But she continues the practice.

“Safety cannot mean making the city smaller for women. It has to mean making the city more available to them.”

As Ananya points, it is about reclaiming the ordinary freedoms women learn to surrender long before a crime actually happens: walking without looking over their shoulders, lingering instead of rushing, taking a longer route because they feel like it, or simply being outside without calculating the risks.

For many women and young girls, safety means being able to dress as she wants and still feel as safe as the men walking around her. It means not having to make every decision around the possibility of being grabbed, followed or harassed.

“Any time a woman is raped it feels like there’s a huge line and that somebody taken off that line so the next turn could be mine.”

Mrinalini Dhyani is senior correspondent, Outlook