Has rape outrage brought us to a dead end?

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We have seen this before – a surge of women, shaken by the rape and murder of a young woman, on a city’s streets.

In Delhi, 12 years ago, many women had turned up, in grief and shock at the gangrape of a young paramedic. Many were there to express their sense of injustice at the everyday sexism and injustice they encountered both at home and outside – and which had rarely found public space or expression. They were asking for a bekhauf azaadi.

In Kolkata, hundreds are similarly protesting, moved by the rape and murder of a doctor on August 9 in the RG Kar Medical College and government hospital where she worked, angered by the insensitivity of the principal of that medical college, who reportedly said “it was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night.”

There is something crushing about the thought that the 31-year-old was attacked as she slept, at her most...

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