‘Everything is political’: The anger driving India’s young women to hit the streets

On October 10, the Delhi Police detained a group of people near INA Market for protesting against the controversial Special Intensive Revision of India’s voter rolls.

One of them was 22-year-old Ananya, who climbed onto the bonnet of the detention bus. A video shows that as the crowds closed in, a policeman shoved his pelvis against Ananya as she clung to the vehicle, while other women tried to push him away.

Ananya, a member of the Left-aligned All India Students Union, was undeterred by the incident, and was back on the streets the next day. “They think that if they hurt and traumatise us, we women won’t return to protest. But they can’t scare us off like this,” she said. “It is our right to have fair elections and protest peacefully.”

Like Ananya, many women protestors have been subjected to violence on the streets this year, both in July and October. Photos and videos from the recent agitations show police dragging and bodily hauling away protesters, many of them young women. Some women told Scroll they were groped and even beaten by the police.

Despite facing immense risks to their safety, women protestors have joined the protests in large numbers. In October, many had already been participating in ongoing agitations focused on violence against...

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