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Cover News trainee reporter Li Qinhua

A 31-year-old Indian female intern was raped and killed while taking a break in a seminar room at a long-established public hospital in Kolkata after finishing a 36-hour shift.

Indian police subsequently arrested the 33-year-old suspect Sanjoy Roy, who had close ties with several local senior police officers. He had previously been stationed at the police post of the hospital where the incident occurred as a "citizen volunteer" to maintain order among patients.

This vicious incident on August 9 ignited the anger of Indian society. So far, tens of thousands of women have taken to the streets to hold a "Take Back the Night" march. Subsequently, the Indian medical community joined the march to protest. According to a statement issued by the Indian Medical Association, more than 1 million medical professionals held a 24-hour strike protest. Except for emergency cases, hospitals and clinics across India refused to receive patients that day, paralyzing the country's medical services.

Doctors and nurses held a candlelight procession in Noida, India on August 16. Image source: Internet

On August 17, the outpatient department of a hospital in Kolkata, India was empty. Source: AFP

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at an event marking India's Independence Day, saying that as a society, Indians should "think seriously about the atrocities against our mothers, sisters and daughters."

Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau of India, the police recorded 31,516 rape cases in 2022, an increase of 20% from 2021. This also means that on average, nearly 90 rapes are registered in India every day.

On August 22, Zhang Wenjuan, professor and vice president of the Jindal Global Law School in India, said in an exclusive interview with Cover News that when we discuss the situation of Indian women, it is easy to directly associate them with some exotic labels. Indian women are highly oppressed, but they choose to unite and resist, and their "sense of resistance is also strong." We have not paid enough attention to the Indian women's rights movement and the judicial reforms it has promoted.

Professor Zhang Wenjuan is considered the first Chinese teacher to hold a full-time position in an Indian university and engage in legal education. She founded the first India-China Research Center led by a Chinese in an Indian university. In 2014, when Zhang Wenjuan first arrived in India, it was only two years after the 2012 Delhi bus mass rape case (the "black bus" incident). After seven years in India, she could clearly feel the mainstreaming of discussions on sexual awareness, workplace sexual harassment and sexual violence in Indian society. She believes that India is in a state of awakening of women's rights, and the large-scale protests fermented by the death of the female intern doctor are actually the explosion of social education accumulated to a certain extent.

"Diversity and contradiction are India's cultural genes and background. There is always a time lag between rule shifting and culture shifting. Both attempts to change rules through legislation and thus culture, or vice versa, exist simultaneously in India," said Zhang Wenjuan.

Cover News: The victim's identity as a medical student is the source of public anger and a symbol of India's rising middle-class modern women. Compared with previous protests triggered by rape cases, what are the similarities and differences between this march and protest?

Zhang Wenjuan: After the Delhi rape case in 2012, the issue of sexual violence has become very sensitive in India. First, children who can study medicine are the elite among the elites. In India, the elite group will touch the sensitive points of society more than those from low castes and poor families, and it is easier to be magnified; secondly, the duty of a doctor is to save the dying and the wounded, and ensuring the basic safety of the hospital environment is very basic, but a doctor encountered brutal sexual assault and murder in the environment where she worked. The nature of the case is very bad. Specifically on the issue of the region of women's protection, compared with North India, West Bengal where the case occurred is a place where women's rights are better protected, so the impact of such incidents will be stronger.

The incident itself is not complicated. The crux of the matter lies more in the fairness of the police investigation. The protesters are mostly women's rights organizations and doctors, which means that there is a professional division among the protesters. At present, the appeals include a thorough investigation of the case, the most severe punishment for the murderer, and the protection of the workplace safety of female medical workers, which are all limited to the case itself.

Compared to the 2012 Delhi rape case, which was called India's "Arab Spring", it made the entire Indian society realize that the issue of sexual violence is not just a women's rights issue, but a basic security issue for the entire society. It transformed the women's rights protection movement into a social movement and promoted it from the level of social awareness. I believe that the scale of the protests caused by this incident is smaller, and it is the influence of previous protests.

Cover News: In other words, if the victims did not have elite status as a symbol, other similar atrocities would not have aroused such strong protests even if they had existed for many years. Large-scale collective marches and protests actually showed an organized trend of "middle-class action"? How did the lower-class women in India participate in the struggle for women's rights?

Zhang Wenjuan: In India’s highly educated or elite circles, gender is actually a very sensitive topic that requires political correctness. The role of the elite is to promote the concept of gender equality and form a social consensus. However, considering India’s long history of feminist movements, the most influential is the bottom-up push from the grassroots, including the women’s forest protection movement in the 1970s, the anti-alcohol and anti-domestic violence movement in the 1990s, and the “pink sari” revolution in the 2010s. The grassroots women have taken resolute actions. I have observed that the street movement at the grassroots level in India is developed because Indian social organizations are relatively mature, with strong mobilization and organizational capabilities, and are not easily divided or out of control by political forces. They have learned to gather women’s power and get what they want through negotiation, which is very smart.

Cover News: The West Bengal government has introduced measures to protect the safety of women working night shifts, such as setting up rest rooms, installing additional surveillance and the "night shift companion" program. Will these measures have any practical effect?

Zhang Wenjuan: The government often just responds to social pressure to complete a problem reaction, rather than achieving problem solving. Whether the government's measures can truly solve the problem depends on the supervision of various aspects of society and non-governmental organizations.

Cover News: Judging from the results of past research on women, protectionists will demand that the state provide more protection for women, including punishing rapists through the death penalty or even castration; liberal camps such as Kavita Krishnan believe that women should not be restricted and monitored in the name of "ensuring safety." Is there a contradiction between the two? How likely is it to use the death penalty to severely punish sexual violence offenders?

Zhang Wenjuan: I don’t think protection and freedom should be in opposition. It is wrong to keep women at home in the name of protection. I think that when India calls for women’s protection, it should not retreat to restricting freedom. Because the basic logic of women’s rights in India is still the caste issue. In this regard, the constitution and social cognition both agree on caste equality, so I think the struggle for women’s safety protection will not limit their opportunities and ability to fight for freedom.

Regarding the death penalty, after the Delhi rape case, the Indian government adjusted the judicial trial system and passed a resolution to impose the death penalty (hanging) on ​​rapists. However, in the actual law enforcement process, the Indian judiciary is seriously delayed, and there are many controversies in the abolition of the death penalty. The last four defendants in the Delhi case were all sentenced to hanging, which is very rare in Indian history and is inseparable from the continuous promotion of social organizations and public opinion. Although this case triggered a strike of more than one million medical staff, it was limited to the medical community. The government's current response, including the intervention of the Supreme Court of India and the signature petition of the female chief minister, are relatively appropriate responses. Compared with the Delhi rape case, the inducing factor of the current case is mainly the partiality of the local police, and the participants are mainly women and doctors. It has not become a movement for the whole society like the Delhi rape case.

Cover News: After the Delhi bus rape case, the Indian government made a series of landmark legal reforms in 2013, including expanding the definition of rape, setting up fast-track courts, establishing a nationwide database of sexual offenders, and promoting youth sex education programs. But why has the number of gender-based violence crimes in India increased instead of decreased over the past decade?

Zhang Wenjuan: In any society, no matter how strong the reform is, there may still be cases of sexual violence. There is also debate in the academic community about the number of such cases, which mainly involves the issue of hidden crime numbers, that is, whether the increase in the number of cases is due to increased awareness and reporting, or because of the increase in actual cases? Take Delhi as an example. After the Delhi rape case, it triggered a social movement and a series of legislative and judicial reforms. The number of rape reports in 2013 more than doubled that of 2012. But according to the law of crime, the number of cases will not develop so fast in a short period of time. A very likely explanation is that after the whole society has awakened to consciousness, more people may no longer hide and are willing to report the crime, and the police will pay more attention to this issue, which may also lead to an increase in the number of cases. Therefore, it is very likely the result of a decrease in the number of hidden crimes.

Cover News: Behind the large-scale collective marches and protests, there are actually internal contradictions of the new political forces in contemporary India. When the Modi government first came to power, it promised to solve the problem of sexual violence and improve the status of women. In recent years, the proportion of Indian women who have become parliamentarians and entered the upper ruling class has indeed increased. However, on fundamental issues such as women's employment opportunities, maternity leave and women's safety, Indian women are facing a worse situation. Why has the increase in women's political power not brought about progress in the protection of women's rights?

Zhang Wenjuan: In general, under Modi's leadership, the BJP seems to attach importance to the protection of the interests of Indian women. For example, women hold many important positions in its cabinet, including the finance minister and the home minister. On the other hand, after Modi came to power, he promoted Hindu nationalism as a strategy for national cohesion, and there is no lack of very conservative and aggressive ideologies in nationalism. Although Modi will also promote the modernization of Hindu nationalism, when the grassroots embrace Hindu nationalism, they will unconsciously bring in traditional concepts, including gender bias and preference for boys over girls. But it should be pointed out that the fundamental characteristic of Indian culture is diversity, and it is difficult for a single value to become the absolute mainstream of society.

Social progress is achieved through spiral adaptation. In India, even illiterate women at the bottom of society and women who have no influence for the time being can promote changes in phenomena through behind-the-scenes decision-making. We talk about the transformation of rules and culture. Especially in the context of India's deep-rooted traditional culture, there is always a time lag in the realization of transformation. By changing the culture and then enforcing the rules, it is also possible that the change of rules will drive people to change the culture. I think both of these may be happening at the same time in India.

Cover News: This incident has also attracted widespread attention on Chinese social media. In recent years, the discussion on the protection of women's rights in my country has also been very heated. Scholars such as the well-known Japanese professor Chizuko Ueno have become the enlighteners of women's rights for the general public. Does India have such a feminist leader?

Zhang Wenjuan: India is very contradictory and diverse, and may even exceed our Chinese imagination. In India, "difference" is the background, and "sameness" is the exception. I think it is difficult for India to have a leader who can command the support of all. In the atmosphere of confrontational politics, among various schools, thoughts and religions, India will not unreservedly recognize a certain person as the authority. This is very different.