2012 Delhi gang rape and murder

Of course, there's no doubt that his articulation has improved greatly, but his beliefs have remained the same.

Remember, Rahul Gandhi has quietly been helping out Nirbhaya's family for all these years without making it public.

It seems that he does things because he believes it's the right thing to do and not for publicity.

This is important.

One is not just the intensity of punishment, but it's the certainty of punishment.

And in India, what ends up happening is that, for example, let's take Nirbhaya.

After the Nirbhaya situation that happened, people, the intensity increased, the severity of punishment increased with the Nirbhaya Act.

But the problem still is that there is no certainty of punishment.

And both needs to go hand in hand.

It is equally important to recruit the right kind of police personnel and appoint judges who have a gender progressive understanding that is crucial for erasing the culture of impunity enjoyed by aggressive and violent masculinity, even today in the conservative country.

The Nirbhaya gang rape of 2012 in Delhi triggered even bigger protests and demonstrations than what India's capital city is currently witnessing.

One positive fallout of that infamous case was the government's promise to set up 2,600 fast-track courts across India by 2026 for the expeditious trial of sexual crimes.

But until today, only 755 such courts have been set up, revealing that governments of all political cues make promises but don't keep them, leaving women, who comprise around 48% of India's population, at the mercy of vultures, especially in Delhi.

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they, they, they came over here, the Nirbhaya protests, et cetera.

So some very important issues, one nation, one pension sort of protest also happened over here.

So these very important germane issues, I think adds to the history.

A decade ago, the women students of Delhi University had rallied behind Pinjra Tod movement, calling for an end to discriminatory curfews and moral policing.

A couple of years after that, Delhi streets had been swollen with crowds seeking justice in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case.

And now in 2026, young women are forced to once again take to the streets, raising decades old demands for safety and condemning efforts to once again shut them in the pinjras that their predecessors had strived to break free of.

No wonder women are so angry.

And that's what they're focusing on.

Now, it's been 14 years since the rape case, which was called Nirbhaya, when a woman was gang raped on a bus and died from her injuries.

And that horrendous incident received worldwide attention.

But despite reforms, talks of change, women are saying that they still don't feel safe anymore.

Yeah, that was a watershed moment for India in 2012 because it was such a brutal attack.

And there were protests on a scale that were much larger than you'll see today.

And Nirbhaya actually means fearless.

It was the moniker they gave the victim because her name wasn't public at the time.

And so people say despite years of reforms and different initiatives, they haven't made a difference in women's own experiences, uh, out on the streets.

Yeah, I mean, Azadeh, it's some 15 years since, uh, I covered the protests after that gang rape of Nirbhaya.

And of course, again, as you say, these allegations have been denied, but it, uh, does tap into this wider issue about the strength of feeling on issues now.

You've covered those recent cockroach protests as well.