Indian Media Framings of

Rape and Sexual Violence in the

Aftermath of the 2012 Delhi Gang Rape

Pranavi Midathada

Aswin Punathambekar, PhD, Faculty Advisor

Senior Honors Thesis in the

Program in International and Comparative Studies

University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
April 24, 2015

Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault

Abstract

My thesis investigates media narratives that shape four high profile rape cases in the past three

years, beginning with the 2012 Delhi gang rape. Through a content analysis of English-language

print news articles, I examine trends that arise in the midst of intensifying national debates

surrounding women’s roles in India. Mass media is complicit in certain framings by finding

relevance in “rape exceptionalism”, constructions of the “victim” and the “rapist”, and politics of

the “blame game” surrounding these cases of sexual violence.

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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………2

Table of contents………………………………………………………………....................3

Introduction………………………………………………………………............................4

Literature Review………………………………………………………..............................15

Methodology………………………………………………………......................................22

Media Timelines……………………………………………………………………………24

Analysis……………………………………………………….............................................35

Conclusion……………………………………………………….........................................48

Appendix A: Archive of news articles…………………………..….…………...……………….50

References……………………………………………………….........................................55

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Introduction

“Our daughter’s name is Jyoti Singh,” a voice narrates in Hindi. A puja is performed on
the water. Among the yellow marigolds, flowers commonly used in prayer, a small flame
flickers in an oil lamp. “…Jytoi has become a symbol. In death, she has lit such a torch
not only in this country, but throughout the whole world.”
BBC, India’s Daughter

On the night of December 16th, 2012, 23-year old Jyoti Singh was returning home from a

movie with a male friend, when she was gang raped by five men on a private bus in New Delhi.

The attack was characterized by its brutality; the men beat her friend and then assaulted her,

impaling her internal organs with an iron rod, and leaving the two victims for dead on the side of

the highway. As media coverage erupted, people across the country expressed raw anger, fear

and confusion at how such a severe crime could be committed on the roads of the nation’s

capital. In the weeks following the event, there were large scale demonstrations, galvanizing the

young, middle class and urban citizens and integrating them into a larger activist public. Media

coverage reached its zenith the night the woman passed away in her hospital bed, two weeks

after the crime occurred, as the nation shared her parents’ grief. However, underneath a

widespread sense of disillusionment, there was a glimmer of optimism for this case to become a

“tipping point for change” due to the massive media response and the shattered complacency of

the urban, middle class (Bhandare).

Now, two years later, this case has been brought back to the national spotlight through

BBC documentary India’s Daughter, which captures the intense emotions that defined this rape

case. The film was set to release on March 8, 2015 – International Women’s Day – but was

banned from airing on national television because an interview with the one of the accomplices

4
of the crime violated stipulations set by the government (Bhatt). The documentary has been

hugely controversial, mainly due to allowing one of the accused to voice his sentiments. His lack

of remorse towards the crime, asserting that “a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,”

sent shockwaves throughout mass media and social networks (Udwin). Some activists believed

the film should not have been banned, but it was problematic for other reasons. Kavita Krishnan,

secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association and one of the interviewees in the

film, had qualms surrounding the “the ethical and legal implications of showing the interview

with one of the [convicted rapists] at a time when he and the others are appealing their sentences

in the Supreme Court,” (Ray). There were also feelings that the film was built around white

saviorism; scenes of urban poverty verged on voyeurism and the narrative completely ignored

the progress women’s organizations have done in terms of grassroots anti-rape movements

(Vohra). On the other hand, there were also those who thought the documentary helped raise

mainstream awareness surrounding sexual violence. Among those who supported the

documentary was screenwriter Javed Akhtar, stating “scores of men in India have come to know

that they think like a rapist,” (Roberts).

Widespread response both critiquing and defending this documentary across

governmental, media, activist, and public spheres reveals that people have not forgotten about

Jyoti Singh and demand justice. The 2012 Delhi gang rape has yet to fade away from relevance,

as new instances of gendered violence frequently refer to this case in the vein of martyrdom. In

her interview in India’s Daughter, Kavita Krishnan describes that, “immediately almost from

day one, it had stopped being about this case alone – it had become about rape culture and

women’s generalized anger against being told that they could do something to actually remain

safe.” (Udwin).Toward the end of the film, the narration picks up on a similar theme, “…[Jyoti]

5
posed a question. What is the meaning of a “woman”? How is she looked upon by society?”

(Udwin). This case has come to represent something bigger than the violence that occurred on

the night of December 16, 2012.

Some clarifications surrounding sexual violence are important to establish before further

analysis of this case. Rape is recognized as “sexual penetration of a person by force and/or

without that person's consent,” (Whisnant). There is a gender disparity concerning this crime, as

it affects women to a much greater degree where “91% of rape victims are female, while almost

99% of perpetrators are male.” (Whisnant). There is a range of physical and mental trauma that

can be associated with rape and sexual violence. In this study, where rhetorical techniques are a

part of the research process, it is necessary to understand there can be underlying, charged

language behind sexual violence. The use of the word “survivor” compared to “victim” is more

empowering, and the former term is encouraged in feminist scholarship. Victimization refers to

the further degradation of the autonomy of the survivor, which is carried out by social and

institutional actors. Rape is a crime with heavy handed stigma attached to it, which makes it

vastly underreported to authorities. This stigma is fueled by widespread misconceptions, which

can be propagated by Indian media. “Longstanding rape myths include the notion that rape is

sex, that the assailant was motivated by lust, that men have a natural predisposition to get sex

through force and that women provoke rape through their looks and behavior… Also propagated

is the notion that rape is deserved, only promiscuous women are victimized, women cry rape for

revenge, are lying and have ulterior motives. Further myths include the belief that sexual attacks

sully the victim,” (Drache and Velagic 18).

Gendered sexual violence is a grave public health concern. Sexual violence can take

many forms and rape is commonly regarded its most extreme manifestation. According to

6
national data, a woman in India is raped every 22 minutes, and there are concerns that the rates

of sexual violence are on the rise (Udwin). Along with rising rates of sexual crime is the

phenomenon of an increased media scrutiny on the issue of rape. Rape has been a commonly

addressed crime in news media since the 1980s, but the overall trend seems to hold that rape

reporting has intensified as increasing access and dissemination of news, online journalism and

social media have contributed to more informed middle class of Indians. The exact frequency of

media coverage is hard to pinpoint and requires further research, but the number of cases that are

reaching national and international levels of media are widely increasing.

Due to the abounding journalism surrounding rape, analyzing media sources gives one

insight into the way these topics these issues are dealt with and may be propagated within a

nation. The media becomes a useful way to understand dynamics behind sexual violence, due its

power of disseminating of information surrounding current events, facilitating discussions in a

national spotlight, and influencing public opinion. According to feminist scholar and journalist

Ammu Joseph’s (2008) analysis, the media reports on sexual violence occur in a calculable

manner:

“… ‘mainstream’ media coverage of rape (and many other forms of sexual violence against
women) over the past quarter century has generally conformed to a predictable pattern: long
spells of routine reports regularly, if randomly, culled from police handouts, broken by brief
periods of intensive and extensive coverage catalyzed by one or more cases that happen to
grab imagination of the media and the public – usually in that order.”

At first glance, the 2012 Delhi gang rape seems to follow this analysis. However, further

examination of rape cases following the Delhi case will demonstrate if this event falls into this

“routine”. Many scholars and journalists believed in this case’s transformative potential to

organize around and contribute to effective change for women in India. An exploration of these

7
timelines and patterns of reporting of high profile of cases can also reveal where there is room

for improvement and sensitization in the reporting of sexual violence.

My thesis aims to thoroughly investigate the following question: “What are the dominant

media narratives and patterns in high profile cases of rape and sexual violence against women,

following the 2012 Delhi gang rape?” Through a content analysis of English-language, print

media outlets, I will look at dominant framings of the cases and explore how these frames

contribute to national debates surrounding women’s roles in India. I will present my argument in

the following ways:

1. Contextualizing the 2012 gang rape within an understanding of South Asian feminist
movements
2. Establishing patterns that have emerged out of media coverage surrounding high profile
cases of rape within the last few years by piecing together media timelines of certain
cases
3. Analyzing frames that manifest in news content after December 16, 2012
4. Discussing the implications of these frames in the wider context of social change in a
neoliberal Indian society

In my analysis of these articles, I was able to establish some patterns in the way the India

media tries to make sense of these cases. I explain three major framings that emerged from my

research: rape exceptionalism, rising criminality in urban India and the construction of the

“rapist”. Furthermore, a major theme I identified that connects these framings is the politics of

blame. Many major Indian publications craft themselves around journalistic integrity and their

role as society’s watchdog. With reports of a growing number of rapes, the media is left to fill in

gaps of understanding in regards to the origins of this violence. An overarching trend that

develops from these investigative media techniques is addressing - explicitly and subtlety -

where the accountability lies in the aftermath of these crimes. These high profile cases of sexual

violence trigger loaded language in the media narrative, which plays into “finger pointing” of

8
who is to blame for this violence. I explore the way blame in encoded in these narratives in my

framing analysis.

My research engages with several theories within communication, looking at the way

frames are employed by the media in order to understand how media can shape public

understanding and opinions. Agenda setting theory is the idea that media sources filter what

information is being disseminated, and by doing so, they shape what is considered “newsworthy”

and how much space and attention are allowed for certain stories (Cissel 67). Framing theory is

concerned with the way these narratives drives the audience to think about the issue in a certain

way.

A frame is a “schema of interpretation, collection of anecdotes, and stereotypes that

individuals rely on to understand and respond to events,” (Cissel 67). Frames emerge as media

outlets begin to report on a story in a similar fashion or explain events using the same rhetoric

and ideas. Information can be channeled through certain frames, which influences the viewpoints

of the public. Frames are the patterns in which stories are relayed to the masses. The information

that is left out and kept in stories, the relevant facts that are included, stylistic Agenda setting and

media frames are inevitable results of mass communication. However, media sources can also

engage in priming and bias, which have more unethical implications in the sphere of information

dissemination. Priming is where outlets may use frames to consciously persuade audiences

towards an “intended effect,” (Cissel 68). Outlets engaging in priming would be broadcasting

skewed or unfair coverage (Cissel 68).

Frames within news stories can be analyzed by different methods. For the purposes of my

paper, I conducted a textual analysis of print newspaper articles. The articles from Indian news

outlets serve as the units, texts, which will provide meaning behind the interactions between

9
“media, culture and society,” (Brennen 193). A text may simply seem to be a “printed document”

but researchers use it as a “cultural artifact” that offers ways to understand the social

construction behind language and communication (Brennen 193). Textual analysis can be used

both to establish what the intention of the text is, and to speculate how the text is interpreted by

its audience (Brennen 201). Textual analysis deconstructs the process of encoding (where the

author instills meaning into the text) and decoding (where the audience understands it in a certain

way) (Brennen 203). A text can be decoded differently based on an individual’s background,

regardless of what the author’s original intent was. As far as all media analysis is concerned,

there can be room for a priori understandings to color the way the investigation takes shape. As a

researcher, I was cognizant of and detached myself from my own opinions surrounding issues of

sexual violence and my background as a first generation Indian-American, in order to be actively

objective while studying these frames.

In order to illustrate the concept of media framings, one can look to the extensive

international mass media coverage on the 2012 Delhi gang rape forming an association between

India and the specific crime of rape. Discussions surrounding “India’s rape problem” have

produced headlines like “Can Horror over Rape Change a Culture?” “It's not a 'universal rape

culture' - it's India”, “India's troubling culture of rape, torture” and “Yet another gang rape: What

has gone wrong with India?” (Nolen; Saunders; Kaur; Syed). Such headlines make it clear that

rape and gendered violence has been framed as an issue with India’s culture, traditions and

national identity. In the years following the Delhi gang rape case, there has been an overall

intensification in the reporting of rape in India. As these issues cross borders and enter an

international spotlight, the long history of India’s grassroots anti-rape movements and other

context is inevitably lost. This plays into scholar Uma Narayan’s discussion of “death by

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culture,” which is the tendency of international perspectives to perceive violence against non-

Western women as representative of their culture in its entirety (Narayan). These types of media

framings propagate harmful stereotypes about cultural identities and the type of people that are

prone to commit these crimes.

My analysis aims to delve into the nuances that emerge out of cases of rape that rise to a

national level of media coverage. Some background on the journalism industry is necessary to

establish the scope of their influence. Print media, while shrinking elsewhere, is growing as an

industry in India (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56). In terms of circulation, newspapers with the

highest numbers of readership are printed in Hindi. The most popular English language print

news outlet is The Times of India, with a reach of 13.6 million readers nationwide (Ranganathan

and Rodrigues 53). Indian news media has been described as something of a “family enterprise”

before the 1990s (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56). Media experienced a massive growth and

reinvention due to the introduction of neoliberal policies, which remapped industries across the

economy. The Times of India was one of the companies that drove these sorts of changes in the

industry (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 54). Some transformations were the “style of

management… offset printing and computing technologies, introduction of colour and entry of

young entrepreneurial managers … shorter deadlines and risky marketing strategies of price wars

and big discounts to increase circulation and under-cut competitors in the market,” (Ranganathan

and Rodrigues 54). Not only were print media outlets competing with each other, but also with a

rising influence of television news channels and more recently, online publications. In this way,

print newspapers made the transition into a booming corporate sector of the economy. This

growth was described to be aligned with other changes in India at this time; an increase in the

national literacy rate and purchasing power may have laid fertile ground for newspapers as well

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(Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56). Political factors, like the increased influence of the panchayat

raj (grassroots level governance), have helped the reach of newspapers into smaller towns and

villages because of a fresh “awareness and a hunger for news” (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 57).

The spread of newspapers into these areas has been achieved in part by the process of

localization of newspapers, where local editions of larger news organizations report on stories

more relevant to the specific community (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 60). Overall, the reach of

print news has spread throughout the country.

As the structure behind news media changed, so has the presentation and content of the

information being disseminated. With increasing localization, newspapers have added sections

that more widely cater to people's’ interests, including sections on education, job opportunities,

classified and women’s pages (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 60). However, there can be issues in

the scope of journalistic content. The burgeoning media industry is rooted, as neoliberal

industries are, in ensuring profitability. In these environments, advertising becomes a cornerstone

of news media. Especially with English language media, the potential for making profits is high.

Journalist Paranjoy Thakurta describes the tradeoff is that “the English print media and television

reach out to the more affluent sections of the population and therefore command a

disproportionate share of advertising revenue, but in terms of reach and circulation, in terms of

readership figures, the non-English newspapers are far bigger,” (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56).

The business model of the newspaper industry naturally allows for sensationalism to manifest to

a degree. However, print news has been established in the Indian mindset as a reliable source of

information, when compared to television which is considered to be more susceptible to

sensationalism (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56).

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 Overall, news outlets have made efforts to increase readership across India, especially in

rural areas (Ranganathan and Rodrigues 56). However, English-language news media industry

has shaped itself around the urban, middle-class reader. Much of the growth of the industry in the

1990s was due to “cash[ing] in” on a consumer base with increasing literacy and purchasing

power (Rodrigues, 56). Corporate offices are found in large cities and the majority of journalists

associated with these publications are coming from certain backgrounds and high education

levels. In some ways, this has both contributed to and fed off an intensification in the middle

class’s activism and awareness on social issues, especially among “upwardly mobile young men

and women,” (Rao 2). Following the Delhi gang rape, scholar and journalist Vipul Mudgal said,

“This case jolted the consciousness of middle-class India like never before… What’s different

[about this story] is that the media has given the middle-class a voice,” (Rao 2). Another

journalist, Paranjoy Guha, believes that the middle class is speaking out against the failings of

bureaucracy and that the mass media has become the tool for “articulating this anger,” (Rao 2).

There is a feeling that the print media now reflects the common man. However, the way print

news is presented and disseminated does have limitations in the scope of actually representing a

wider India. The print news outlets’ target audience is an important consideration in my

exploration of framings and possible biases that may exist in dominant narratives in these high

profile rape cases.

India has experienced a massive mobile boom in recent years, increasing the use of

smartphones across the country. Along with this rise in mobile technology, India is gaining a

greater online presence and rates of social media use. India has over “65 million Facebook users

and 35 million Twitter accounts,” (Rao 2). This trend is aligned with increasing information

dissemination among the middle-class in India, which is the widest section of society to be

13
associated with the mobile boom. News is readily available at the fingertips as every major news

outlet has a mobile component or a corresponding app. Social media has affected the ways news

stories are picked up and reported on. In general, mass media outlets have been widely

incorporating “netizen” (a frequent user of the internet) opinions into their reporting, as a gauge

of public responses to an issue. Attitudes expressed on Twitter are easily aggregated; hashtags

build upon common sentiments and can shape a movement through trending topics. However, a

survey of Twitter opinions by media sources may only incorporate a very specific perspective

due to the accessibility of Twitter on the larger scale of India’s population. This may be

problematic because of the growing notion that Twitter is seen as representative of the “common

man.” Additionally, social media has been associated with galvanizing a base for social

movements and online protest across the world (Ahmed and Jaika 28). A defining characteristic

of the Delhi gang rape was the outrage it sparked across social media platforms, especially

Twitter with variations of the hashtag #delhigangrape. An immense amount of grassroots

demonstrations and protests were organized through Twitter in the days following the December

16th incident (Ahmed and Jaidka 28).

As India has gained an international reputation as a country plagued by rape, within the

national media sphere the manifestation of these public debates surrounding rape have brought

forward wider discussions on the changes the country is going through at this time. Rampant

globalization, urbanization, migration and economic liberalization are continually changing the

landscapes of entire cities and villages across the country. There have been increased tensions

and in many ways, these discussions have played out through debates on women’s roles in

society. As India is changing, so are the identities of Indian women who are occupying new

spaces, demanding justice and gaining a voice through mass media outlets.

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Literature Review

The statement “the silence has been broken,” - which solemnly fades in and out in one of the

opening frames of India’s Daughter - is highly misleading since, as my review will show, there

have been longstanding movements against sexual violence. My thesis augments current

literature on the Delhi gang rape by contextualizing this case in the historical significance of the

women’s roles in India and anti-rape campaigns since the 1980s. I explore how theories in post-

colonial, South Asian feminism relate news media, women’s activism and high profile rape

cases.

Evolving gender roles and the discourse surrounding modernity

Through the course of history, there are common threads in the manner women’s issues

are navigated and become configured into discussions of wider societal change. A relevant theme

that is integral to a contemporary discussion of rape is the way in which women’s roles are

heavily tied to conceptions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity.’ During colonial rule, the British

influenced the reimagining of women’s roles as part of a “civilizing” mission, which aimed to

uplift women from the clutches of indigenous “barbarianism.” For instance, Sati - the practice of

a widow stepping into her husband’s funeral pyre - was occurring at an epidemic rate in colonial

Bengal. The colonial discourse made sense of sati as a part of Hindu tradition, which was further

substantiated by certain Indian public figures who used Bhramaic scripture to justify the

continuation of the practice. Though it had been practiced in the past, there was a sharp increase

in sati amongst many upper-caste Hindu communities, mainly concentrated around Calcutta

(Mani 119). Though the widespread popularity of sati was unique to that moment in history, the

discourse surrounding sati regarded it as a longstanding tradition; in this way, concepts of

15
tradition were being invented in contrast to a superior, imperial modernity (Mani 119). In the

early formations of this constructed tradition and modernity, the role of women became central

to these debates. Feminist scholar Lata Mani describes that through colonial trials, lawmaking

and public discussions on sati, “women became the site on which tradition was debated and

reformulated,” (Mani 118). This reimagining of women’s roles continued as independence

movements were taking shape. “[Indian] elites sought to define the nation via authentic cultural

identity and difference from the West, secured through the presence of women, ‘the embodiment

of that difference,’” (Roy 5). Women became more than their own person, representing

motherhood, community, the nation and the embodiment of “traditional” Indian values.  

Concepts of tradition and modernity have inevitably taken on different meanings in the

past decades, diverging from colonial implications and refers to modernization in the context of

neoliberalism. India has experienced considerable growth in its GDP, increased its industrial

sector and has widened its middle class (Sinha and Bhattacharya). Urbanization has become a

dominant pattern of development, facilitated through rural to urban migration due to the growing

private sector and perceived opportunities within cities. Recently elected Prime Minister

Narendra Modi embodies trend of development, announcing his vision for “a new Chicago to be

built every year,” (Ramachandran). However, inefficient efforts to allow for the sustainability of

expanding cities has led to “visibly tiered urbanism” (Hedge 184). Urbanization has been

correlated with increased urban poverty, commercialization of sex work, environmental pollution

and hikes in crime rates. Needless to say, India’s modernization campaign has divided people

over both the means by which development has been taking place and to what end this growth is

providing.

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 An echo of Lata Mani’s analysis on sati - women becoming the grounds for tradition -

remains relevant in a neoliberal India as the nation’s “progress” and national identity continues

to be defined by the role of its women. Many middle-class, urban, college-educated women are

becoming financially independent and achieving ideals of economic empowerment, thus

acquiring autonomy, privacy and are being seen as individuals that are more than extensions of

the state or extensions of a man (as his mother, daughter or wife). These changes have also

created this notion of the “new Indian woman”, who is an “object of desire, characterized as

young [and] financially independent,” (Roy 183). However, this “new Indian woman” still

carries the burden of representing Indian values. According to Maitrayee Chaudhuri’s analysis of

Indian online dating sites, men describe what they seek in a partner through representing both

traditional and modern aspects of Indian culture. “The ideal woman would be a judicious blend

of traditional qualities of domestic skills, knowledge of religious rituals and practices and

modern abilities acquired through education and employment opportunities,” (Chaudhuri 192).

The fact this “new Indian woman” is defined by men’s, and overall society’s, expectations for

women shows this modernization discourse is still rooted in patriarchy.

Evolving women’s roles has incited backlash that pits tradition against modernity.

“Changes in [women’s] attire and demeanor are… hastily condemned as threats to culture and

tradition,” (Chaudhuri 194). Additionally, feminist scholar Srila Roy contends, “globalization of

the region has renewed anxieties around the loss of cultural identity and sovereignty that are

routinely manifest in the increased and invariably violent regulation of women’s bodies,” (Roy,

6). This regulation of women’s bodies is evident in national debates surrounding women’s roles

as they are occupying new spaces, entering the workforce and the urban nightscape in greater

numbers than before. Resistance to these changes view young, urban Indians as “young free

17
spenders with questionable sexual mores and a worldview influenced by their mediated exposure

to the West,” (Hedge 182). Dating and pre-martial relationships have been characterized as

western inventions and imported attitudes. Roy contends that this archetypal woman “becomes

the easy target made eligible for violence,” due to her perceived sexual availability characterized

by more “modern” behaviors (Roy, 183). The characterization of Jyoti Singh plays into this

modern Indian woman narrative. In India’s Daughter, she was symbolic of “new aspirations” in

an increasingly upwardly mobile segment of society (Udwin). Additionally, her rape was

defended because she was out late with a male friend, illustrating attitudes of “putting women

back in their place” through enabling sexual violence.

Organized resistance against gendered violence through the Indian Women’s Movement

Rape has a specific historical significance as a means of terror and a weapon of war. The

rape of women defined the atrocities of the Partition and the Bangladesh War for Independence.

These acts of violence carried the weight of being more than a crime against women as

individuals, but an attack against a woman in their association with their nationalist identity:

assaults against Indian women, Pakistani women, Bangladeshi women were seen as assaults on

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

With the revitalization of the national Indian Women’s Movement in the 1970s, one of

the issues women protested against was the crime of rape. The coercive practices of the

Emergency Period - including forced sterilizations upon women of lower caste and lower class

backgrounds - influenced a new energy in the women’s question. Scholar Radha Kumar suggests

contemporary feminist movements latched onto the issue of rape because it is “one of the ugliest

and most brutal expressions of masculine violence towards women, secondly because rape and

the historical ‘discourse’ around it reveal a great deal about the social relations of reproduction,

18
and thirdly because of what it shows about the way in which the woman’s body is seen as

representing the community.” (Kumar, 128). Therefore, tackling the issue of rape was more than

addressing a crime, but ingrained societal attitudes about women. Police rape was one of the first

issues that were tackled because of its focus on institutional violence against women, especially

those of lower-caste and lower-class backgrounds (Kumar 128).

The media can be a dual edged sword in the context of social movements. In India, the

media is both a proponent of activism but it can also propagate rape culture and insensitivity

surrounding sexual violence. There have been many high profile rape cases in the scope of

India’s history which have brought together the role of media outlets and women’s rights groups

to address systemic problems and demand justice at a national level. As print journalism

expanded its scope, “newspapers reinvented themselves as rape reporting vehicles … many of

them across the country have been devoting much space, often several pages every day, to report

of rape gathered together in a way they never had been before,” (Dreze and Sen 227). The first

high profile rape case which garnered wide scale media coverage was the Marutha rape case in

1972. In this case, a teenaged girl in Marutha, Maharashtra was raped by two policemen, but the

rapists were not convicted until several years later when a group of lawyers demanded the

reopening of this case (Kumar 129). Women’s organizations campaigned and their protests took

a national stage in part through the utilization of the media to facilitate national discussions and

organize around this issue (Kumar 129).

The relationship between Indian journalism and women’s movements has become more

entangled over time. The entry of women journalists into the field (occurring in waves with the

largest influx of women journalists in the 1990s) has allowed for more feminist perspectives to

19
shape discussions surrounding rape and sexual violence (Joseph 20 - 25, 2000). Following the

Gajraula rape in 1990, where two nuns were assaulted in Delhi, journalist Usha Rai commented:

The women’s movement has come together on very important issues like the amendment
in the rape law. About six to seven organizations got together to protest against the
Gajraula rape incident and the Shah Bano case. National Perspective Plan
for  Women and the National Commission for Women - all are realities because of that.
And where there is a lot of discussion taking place at the women’s networking level, we
journalists cannot stay away from it. We necessarily become a part of it. We find it
almost obligatory to report it to the press. (Jha 95).
 
Riding the coattails of national outrage and nonstop news coverage has been an effective

tactic for activists to push institutional change. In April 2013, the Criminal Law [Amendment]

Act, 2013 was passed, which enacted stricter punishments for rapists (Nundy). Though this

amendment did not address the crime of marital rape, it has been seen as progress by some

activists and media outlets.

In recent years, the reporting on rape and sexual violence has increased even more

dramatically. One study found that in the months following the Delhi gang rape, media coverage

surrounding rape rose 30% (Drache and Velagic 2).

20
Methodology

I began by collecting articles that would serve as a sampling of the media response to

rape and sexual violence. After exploring different databases and adjusting my search terms, I

relied on ProQuest News & Current Events to find my news reports. I used the algorithm

jsu("General Interest Periodicals--India"), which narrowed the search to major, National

English-language media sources in India. There were 33 media outlets that fell under this

category; the newspapers with the most articles surrounding sexual violence were also the ones

with the highest readership rates. Most of the articles used in my analysis were published by the

Times of India, The Hindu, The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, DNA: Daily News &

Analysis, Asian News International, The Pioneer, IANS English, Indian Express, The Kashmir

Monitor and The New Indian Express.

I first conducted a very broad search through all these media outlets, just focusing on the

keywords: (rape OR "sexual violence"). I looked at articles that were published between

December 16, 2012 (the night of the Delhi gang rape) and December 31, 2014. I skimmed

through the database to find patterns in which stories received the most national media attention.

After assessing, I found that the 2012 Delhi gang rape, 2013 Mumbai gang rape, 2014 Badaun

case and 2014 Uber rape all stood out in garnering a high volume of media attention. These are

not the only cases that reached national and international levels of coverage, but serve as a

sampling for media analysis. As I established earlier, there is a lot of reporting on rape and

sexual violence in the scope of Indian media. When a crime is committed in a community, it is

reported on with details the journalist finds pertinent and the story usually quickly disappears in

the media timeline. However, certain cases stick around and are reported on very heavily for a

longer period of time. The scattered reports on incidents of rape may fuel the fire of mass

21
organizing and campaigning against rape, but its these high profile cases are what trigger a more

reactionary response from the public that brings people to demand change. I constructed media

timelines surrounding each of these cases. I looked at how many articles were published in the

days following the event to see when the media coverage reached a peak and when the reporting

began to decline. I gathered an archive of reporting surrounding these cases by adjusting my

search terms and date ranges specific to the individual events. (See Appendix A).

After compiling an archive of relevant sources, I selected 20-25 articles per case to focus

on through a textual analysis. One basis for analysis is ideological analysis, where ideology

means “the dominant ideas of an individual, group, class or society, the way meanings are

socially produced, or even as the false ideas upon which as social, political or economic system

is based,” (Brennen 201). Ideologies in a given society are “inscribed into virtually every aspect

of one’s life in that culture,” and news media is no exception to the internalization of certain

ideologies (Brennen 201). Additionally, dominant ideologies correspond with power dynamics,

especially in terms of how identities, like race, class, ethnicity, gender and so on, are encoded in

a text (Brennen 202). With a closer reading of these articles, I zoned in how certain beliefs and

social values manifest in public debates on rape and sexual violence.

Another type of analysis is paying particular attention to the rhetoric used in these

articles. Rhetorical analysis gives importance to the way. When persuasion plays a role in the

encoding of these pieces, word choice becomes very important (Brennen 205). Opinions or

articles from certain newspaper columns, DNA’s “Enough is Enough” campaign for example,

have persuasive components. There are three major mechanisms of persuading the reader - ethos,

pathos and logos. Ethos is concerned with the reputation and credibility of the journalist, pathos

is the use of emotion in order to make a point and logos is the use of logic and statistics to

22
persuade the reader (Brennen 205). Articles surrounding rape and sexual violence widely employ

these methods due to the intent of the media to bring attention and challenge existing ideas

surrounding rape. Rape reporting in Indian society is in a place where there is transformations

and women’s roles in society are being discussed, and the media helps control how those

conversations carry out. In terms of rhetoric, certain words carry weight and implications in these

arguments due to the frequency of their use and association with gender issues and power - like

victim, safety, blame. I go into further detail about rhetoric in my analysis section.

I let the following points shape the way I analyzed the news articles:  

• Emphasis on certain details (what is included earlier in stories, or what is the focus of the
headline)
• Absence of certain details (what is important but the journalist has chosen to leave out of
the article)
• Narratives and themes (what patterns exist in the way the stories are being told, and are
there other ways to present this information)
• Rhetorical clues (what are the implications of certain language choices)
(Sociology of News)

The next step after identifying frames that appear in media narratives is to explore what

motivations exist behind these patterns. Perhaps there is structural bias involved in the process of

these news reports. Given these patterns, one can explore what these frames “imply is

important… and what do they take for granted?” (Sociology of News). What is included and not

included in these national debates? What other conversations do these topics start? I also looked

at how these frames get decoded by supplementing my research with other scholar’s

ethnographies related to sexual violence in India and social media reactions of Indian news

outlets.

23
Media Timelines

I established patterns that emerged out of media coverage surrounding high profile cases of rape

within the last few years by piecing together media timelines of each case. I assembled these timelines

with close attention to how the media presented the details of each case and how the narratives

may have changed over time. Using the database Proquest News & Current Events, I collected

the number of articles published each day for three months following each incident and charted

the data onto a time series. I was able to compare at what points the cases gained traction,

reached a peak and faded away from mass media consciousness. I summarized how the stories

took shape, revealing certain frames, which I will analyze in further detail in the next section.

Figure 1: Timeline of Indian national, English-language print media coverage for several high

profile rape cases

Source: Proquest News & Current Events

24
2012 Delhi Gang Rape
The 2012 Delhi gang rape serves as the point of departure in my analysis. Figure 1

demonstrates just how dominating the coverage of this particular case was. The response dwarfs

the media attention surrounding the following cases even though these were also very widely

discussed incidents on India’s media radar. The incident occurred on Dec. 16, 2012. Around 9

pm, the 23-year old woman was going home after a movie that she attended with a male friend.

The two boarded a private bus departing from Munirka, in the south-east part of the city. On the

bus, a group of five men assaulted the male friend then proceeded to assault and rape the woman.

The woman and her friend were thrown off the bus and left on the roadside in Mahipalpur. Close

to 11 pm, they were found by a passerby and taken to Safdarjung Hospital.

An investigation by the Delhi police discovered the suspects the next day. Using CCTV

footage, the assailants were tracked down using the license plate of their suspected vehicle. Their

names were included in reports by Dec. 19. They were identified as Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh,

Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur. The last assailant remained unnamed, for legal

reasons, but was broadly dubbed in the media as the “juvenile”.  

The story had gained widespread national media coverage by Dec.18. The response on

social media sites like Facebook and Twitter played an important role in the organizing of

protests and drawing media attention to the case (Ahmed and Jaidka 34). The media used several

pseudonyms when referring to the female victim, such as Nirbhaya, Jyoti, and the Delhi

braveheart. The media narratives immediately following the case were highly emotional,

capturing shock, anger, fear and, most prominently, helplessness in the aftermath of the crime.

Many articles demanded the death penalty for the accused and for the case to be assessed through

a fast track court. The victim, widespread protests and demands for justice were portrayed in a

sympathetic and admirable light. Accounts of the sheer violence of the assault and detailed

25
reports on the woman’s injuries and medical status veered into sensationalism. The gang rape

also prompted articles that publicized the rise in sexual violence against women across India and

emphasizing Delhi’s grisly reputation as the “rape capital”.

Figure 2: Number of articles mentioning 2012 Delhi gang rape over 3 month period after

incident

Search terms: jsu("General Interest Periodicals--India") AND Delhi AND (“gang rape” OR “gangrape” OR gang-
rape OR (rape AND (physiotherapist OR Nirbhaya OR "physiotherapy intern" OR Jyoti OR Jagruti OR Amanat OR
Damini)))

Source: Proquest News & Current Events

National media coverage reached a peak on Dec. 30, the day after the woman passed

away. On Jan. 3, 2013 the assailants were arrested on charges of “murder, gang rape, attempt to

murder, kidnapping, unnatural offenses, dacoit, hurting in committing robbery, destruction of

evidence, criminal conspiracy and common intention under the Indian Penal Code,” (Ahmed and

26
Jaidka 34). The coverage steadily declined, but still remained a prominent topic in the months

following the incidents. There were spikes in coverage as the story progressed. The peak in

reporting on March 12 reflected the suicide of one of the assailants, Ram Singh, who was found

dead in his jail cell. As of yet, this case has not fully disappeared from mass media consciousness

and is often referenced in relation to other cases of sexual violence.

2013 Mumbai Gang Rape

On the evening of Aug. 22, 2013 a female photojournalist and her male colleague visited

the Shakti Mills compound near the Mahalaxmi railway station in Mumbai at around 5 pm. They

had visited the site to take pictures for a story. They made acquaintance with two men who gave

them advice on which path in the mill would be the safest for them to walk. While further into

the mill, three more men appeared and started threatening the photojournalists. The

photojournalists were assaulted and the woman was gang raped. Under the threat of releasing

pictures they had taken of the sexual assault, the assailants led the two back to the railway station

and departed. The photojournalists were then taken to Jaslok Hospital and the hospital informed

the police of the situation by 8 pm. The story gained a lot of traction on social media and

composite sketches of the suspects were widely spread across facebook and twitter. Police

attained some leads in the case using these sketches, questioning those who worked around the

mill and within the week they identified the assailants as Mohammad Qasim Shaikh, Mohammad

Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, Siraj Khan and Mohammad Ashfaque Shaikh. As this case gained

media attention, another woman reported to the police that she was also assaulted by the

assailants at the Shakti Mill compound last July, revealing the men had been involved in a series

of gang rapes in the area.

27
Figure 3: Composite sketches of suspects, widely shared on social media

Source: tehelka.com

Discussions surrounding this case challenged Mumbai’s reputation as progressive and

safe for women, since a crime of such magnitude could be committed in the middle of the busiest

part of town. There were very detailed accounts of the interactions between the accused and the

photojournalist and how she was deceived by the men. After the identities of the accused were

known to the public, they were characterized by interviews by family members and neighbors,

who explained one of the men unsuspectingly came home and ate pav bauji after the crime and

another watched cartoons, unfazed. There were also narratives that established the role of Shakti

Mill in the city, describing it as “spooky” and surrounded by “shady figures”, but overall, was an

anomaly in the city that captured the interest of many journalists, like the woman involved in this

case (Ramaswamy). There were inevitable comparisons to the 2012 Delhi case, producing

headlines such as, “8 months after Nirbhaya, where do we stand?” (S. Chatterjee).

28
Figure 4: Number of articles mentioning 2013 Mumbai gang rape over 3 month period after

incident

Search terms: jsu("General Interest Periodicals--India") AND Mumbai AND (gang-rape OR "gang rape" OR
gangrape OR rape) AND ("photo-journalist" OR photojournalist OR "photo journalist" OR "shakti mill" OR "shakti
mills")
Source: Proquest News & Current Events

The story peaked on Aug. 24, two days following the incident. Media attention declined

rapidly after a week. The coverage was nowhere near as widespread or sustained as the Delhi

case. In the following months, articles were written in response to updates in the trial and

criminal proceedings of the case.

2014 Badaun Case

The incident took place in Katra village in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. Two girls from the

village, ages 14 and 15, had been missing since the night before; they had left their home to

relieve themselves in a nearby field. The local police had been notified of their disappearance,

29
but did not initially respond to the report. The next morning, the girls were found dead, hanging

from a tree. Their injuries and torn clothes pointed towards physical assault. Residents of the

village gathered at the spot the girls were found. The suspects were two brothers in the village;

four other men and two constables were believed to be involved as well. Photos of the girls

hanging from the tree were widely circulated on social media as national and international

awareness intensified over next few days. Police investigation of the case took many turns and

the media spun it many different ways - a possible honor killing, caste rivalries, political

conspiracy, etc. After a several months long probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, they

concluded that the girls had not been sexually assaulted but rather, they had committed suicide.

The media was not satisfied with the results of the probe, which is reflected in headlines such as

this Hindustan Times article – “Badaun case: More questions than answers.”

Figure 3 – One of the many images circulating around this case (censored due to graphic content)

Source: newsreporter.in

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 In making sense of this tragedy, the media jumped to many conclusions in filling in the

details, allowing for far more inconsistencies in reporting compared to the cases I previously

explored. Early stories identified the girls as being Dalit, while later articles refuted this and

substantiated they were from the other backward caste (OBC) Shakyas community. Yet,

prominent media outlets continued to report incorrect details throughout their coverage of the

story. Articles related to this story also were more prone to sensationalism as well through their

language surrounding “feudal lords” and focus on caste, politics, victimization and

powerlessness of those involved.

Figure 4: Number of articles mentioning 2014 Badaun case over 3 month period after incident

Search terms: jsu("General Interest Periodicals--India") AND (Badaun OR Budaun) AND (rape OR "gang rape"
OR gangrape OR murder)

Source: Proquest News & Current Events

31
 Coverage remained consistent from May 31st to June 8th. The pattern of media coverage is

drawn out due to the nature of the police and governmental investigation. Even at the peak, the

attention given to this event was quite low compared to the coverage afforded to the other cases.

2014 Uber Rape Case

On the night of Dec. 5, 2014, a 25-year old woman boarded a cab in Delhi that was

associated with the San Francisco based company Uber. During the ride, the woman had fallen

asleep briefly and was woken up to the driver sexually assaulting her. The case gained more

media attention after the Delhi Transportation department banned Uber from operating in the

city. After a police investigation, it was revealed the assailant had a history of rape charges. Uber

received backlash in that they were not taking their operations in India seriously and were not

committed to women’s safety.

In terms of the narratives surrounding this case, there was a lot of backlash in regards to

Uber’s lack of background checks on drivers. There was also debate surrounding if the ban on

Uber in Delhi was necessary or if it was stalling modernization. Many outlets placed much of the

accountability of the crime upon the company itself, since background checks were an essential

part of their operations in other parts of the world. There was also a series of stories that

characterized the rapist as a “sex maniac” and explored his criminal background (“Uber probe

blows the lid off a sex maniac”). Like the other cases that took place in metropolitan areas, there

was a flood of articles that focused on the rise of sexual violence, persuading the reader with

many statistics and nationally procured data. Another reoccurring narrative was acknowledging

the Nirbhaya case. One article opens with the disheartening sentiment, “So it’s another

December, and there’s another rape in Delhi…” (Chowdhury).

32
Table 4: Number of articles mentioning 2014 Delhi Uber rape over 3 month period after incident

Search terms: jsu("General Interest Periodicals--India") AND uber AND rape AND delhi

Source: Proquest News & Current Events

The media pattern for this case is almost identical to the response following the 2013

Mumbai case. There is a sharp peak in media interest in days following the assault and as the

Delhi transport department banned Uber in the city. The blips in media coverage in the following

months indicate a progression in the trial and criminal proceedings of the case.

Overall, media timelines of these cases following the Nirbhaya case have been fairly

consistent with Ammu Joseph’s breakdown of rape coverage (steady reporting about sexual

violence with intermittent high profile cases that eventually fade from mass media

consciousness). High profile cases like the 2013 Mumbai case and the 2014 Uber case have a

strikingly similar pattern of reporting; there was a very quick peak in coverage and then the story

33
faded away from relevance within a week. However, the 2012 Delhi case considerably

overshadows these other cases in terms of sustained coverage and declines from the media

timeline very slowly, confirming it is very notable in terms of media response and national

engagement.

34
Analysis

Extremity of Cases

In an NPR interview following the release of India’s Daughter, activist Kavita Krishan

remarked, “the horror of rape doesn't just lie in graphic details of how the rape was committed,”

(Ray). However, contradicting her hopes, each of these events were highlighted as crimes with

great shock value and became defined by this sense of exceptionalism. There is a pattern of

establishing early on in the media timeline that these cases of rape are outside the realm of

“ordinary” sexual violence.

In the reporting surrounding the Delhi gang rape, this exceptionalism (even from

reputable news outlets) was derived from several factors. The area the assault took place was

known to be an affluent part of town, so a crime of this nature was deemed surprising. Another

layer of this exceptionalism was due to the sheer violence involved. Stories devoted a lot of

space to the lurid details of the incident, which were usually included in the first few paragraphs.

The most intimate details of sexual violence were frequently used as part of the “hook” of the

story to draw readers in. As the woman was taken into Safdarjung hospital, several articles were

dedicated to the details surrounding her injuries.

Describing it as “probably the most grievous” rape case they have handled at the hospital,
doctors said the victim, a paramedic student, was subjected extensive torture before she
was raped, leading to several injuries that could be life threatening.
(P Chatterjee).

...doctors claiming they had never seen a victim of sexual assault subjected to “such
brutality”... “She was in a pool of blood but conscious. There was blood all over her face.
I cannot even imagine the agonizing pain she must be in,” said a nursing student.
(“Two arrested in Delhi gangrape case, doctors say ‘never seen such brutality’” ).

The imagery surrounding the case was defined by its extremity. The violence involved

was not a secondary detail added to the stories but the integral point many reports wanted to get

35
across. The narratives reflected the high emotions of the public and reporting did not shy away

from using emotionally charged language.

What followed was unthinkable and can be bracketed as the most brutal rape ever
committed on the roads of the National Capital.
(“Prowling rapists had set out for gruesome deed”).

Rather than simply award death penalty, we need to beat this demon out of our culture,
value and belief system. Nothing worse than solitary confinement, flogging and
castration needs to be considered. Something so inhumane, so debilitating, that it’s
humiliating and shameful, that it permanently scars the soul, and instills a stern warning.
(“Delhi, please stop raping your women”).

Rape has been established under this narrative as a crime of the utmost severity against a

woman, worse than death due to the emotional trauma and shame the victim has to live with.

This brings the 2012 Delhi gang rape into a dimension of extreme sexual violence that extends

beyond even perceived conventional standards of crime. The case is crafted into something that

is considered “more than rape.”  

The brutality and savagery inflicted on the bus gangrape victim reveals how low demonic
frustration and brutal crime in the city has plunged to. This wasn’t just a rape case. It was
a cold, insane and blood thirsty act of crime.
(“Delhi, please stop raping your women”).

This is more than rape, probably most grievous case here: Safdarjung docs
(P. Chatterjee).

When viewed from a feminist perspective, describing something as “more than rape”

adds to further the victimization of the woman who experienced the assault. This phrase serves to

spell out the extremism of the crime. This is not a particularly helpful narrative and may

invalidate women who have experienced different levels of sexual violence. Also, this illustrates

how nebulous the definition of rape is in India.

In the Mumbai gang rape, media brought to attention that the place where the crime

occurred; Shakti Mills is an abandoned compound in the middle of Mumbai, an anomaly in a

36
large, populated city. Reports expressed the feeling that the crime happened right under people’s

noses. There was also surprise in the fact that such a crime happened in Mumbai, a city with a

reputation being a safer climate for women than Delhi. Some words that are used to bring

attention to the case were “brutal, shocking and unbelievable” (Times of India, 8/25/2013).

“I don’t know how to react to this incident. This is so shocking. The girl wasn’t targeted
in the middle of the night. There was still daylight and she wasn’t even alone. Every girl
should now be extra cautious when they are out for work, or on the road” - Sonam Nair
(“Mumbai: (Un)Safe for Women”).

Mobilization in the Badaun case was also initiated by its shocking nature, with the

circulation of the picture of the two girls hanging lifeless from a tree. In the Uber case, shock

was expressed how the perceived security of the mobile app has led to women feeling betrayed

that this breach of safety occurred (“Uber Betrayal”).

There is something to be said about a focus on the most extreme details of a crime and

using such a frame to combat complacency. These cases have elicited responses from journalists

to use the platform to compel changes in society through the use of strongly worded editorials.

The newspaper DNA has a section devoted to their Enough is Enough campaign that takes a look

at sexual violence cases specifically.

The wide number of articles focusing on extremism of these cases also reflects the

amount of coverage on rape that already exists. Reporting on rape is quite common in print news.

The commonly quoted statistic is that a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes. When a case

of a more violent nature comes along, a lot of the framing does naturally turn to highlighting the

extreme aspects and shock this case provokes. If this is the sort of pattern that persists, it may set

precedents that cases of this nature are the ones that get talked about and break complacency.

These cases are all shocking in somewhat similar ways; they happened at night, in public spaces

37
and involved strangers. It reveals that there is a type of story people are more likely to pick up on

in terms of discussions and types of sexual violence that illicit more fear and anger than others.

An Increase in Crime
Rape and sexual violence are framed as part of the overall tensions that surround a rising

crime rate. There is a feeling that rape is a result of a rising criminality and something particular

is going on in this moment in India’s history is spurring this change: “These are dangerous times;

the nation is undergoing a bitter transition, the future looks bleaker with each passing day.”

(“Delhi, please stop raping your women”). In the aftermath of each of these high profile cases,

there are articles published solely with the report how rates of sexual violence is increasing,

crime rates are increasing, rape by juveniles is increasing, and so forth. These articles convince

the reader through illustrating the situation with many statistics and comparing rates between

different areas in India, weighing the parts of nation that are carrying the brunt of sexual violence

against women. This framing can be seen in discussions of the Mumbai gang rape and how rising

crime rates are changing the atmosphere for women’s safety in the city.

This wasn’t the familiar Mumbai where women assume a minimum degree of security.
This was a mutating and uncertain Mumbai that women are being made aware of every
passing day.
(“Give us a safe city, not police protection”).

Once upon a time in Mumbai, women could walk the streets long after midnight looking
for ice cream in Colaba or vada paso in Sivaji Park. They could take a taxi home at dawn
in Bandra or Juhu when the partying crowd spilled out of Mumbai’s many discotheques
and bars where young professional women liked to let her hair down on weekends. No
more. Is the financial capital of India rapidly becoming the country’s rape capital instead?
(“Gang rape mire sucks glitter off maximum city”).

There is this feeling that the rise in sexual violence is new and is spreading like an

epidemic. Framing around the Shakti Mills case maintained that this was not a phenomenon

women had to deal with even 10 years ago, unlike in Delhi. Articles consistently made

38
references to questionable standards of safety in the capital city, reporting that Mumbai is

becoming more like the “rape capital”, Delhi. Through an increasing crime rate, there is a

reimagining of Mumbai’s identity. This also plays into narratives of modernity, where rising

crime rates are seen as backwards. To a city that is shaped around its identity as a cosmopolitan,

bustling, safe haven for working women, these framings are especially significant because it

instills fear. With the abundance of reports like these, it makes women reconsider their safety.

With the focus on rising crime rates, it becomes of particular importance in how media

outlets describe criminality. Common words to refer to assailants of sexual violence are

“miscreants”, “pervert”, “brute”, and “savage”. Their criminality is validated in these narratives

by outlets including details of their behaviors before or after crimes or what their reputation was.

Criminal activities often cited in these reports are smoking, doing drugs, drinking alcohol,

gambling and overall “uncouth” behavior. This plays into the idea that there is a certain type of

man who is more likely to commit acts of sexual violence.

But as the Delhi rape case of December 2012, the many that followed, and the recent rape
of a photojournalist in Mumbai have proved, even good men are forced to bow before
maniacs … “You cannot be a hero, fighting somebody who has been on the streets,
fighting for work, or probably doing no work. He just finds his desire and he will do
anything. If there is a group, the worse the scenario becomes. Even if we as normal guys
are in equal numbers with the ‘insane’ opponents, we cannot match them, because have
an evil will and we are not prepared to tackle evil in normal lives,” says Chandrashekar
Kopposwai, a chartered accountant,
(“When evil crushes a few good men”).

These quotes illustrate the type of men that more likely to commit sexual violence. This

attitude turns sexual violence into a problem where the cause can be defined by the actions who

deviate from the “norm”. Further of defining criminality is explored through the concept of

blame.

39
Politics of Blame

Journalism surrounding sexual violence is heavily invested in uncovering where the

accountability lies behind a crime. Many articles emerged out of these rape cases looking for the

root causes of increasing crime rates and hikes in sexual violence. This promotes a national

“blame game” that follows after a high profile rape case. Many non-media actors, like public

officials or celebrities, take this moment to express their own conclusions of who is accountable

for the brunt of these issues. For example, following the Delhi rape case, the Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh stated, “We have a large number of footloose young men who come to urban

areas from rural areas in search of jobs, in search of livelihood strategies and if they do not get

well absorbed in the process of development in rural areas, they can become a menace to

society,” (“PM warns of ‘footloose migrants’ from rural areas”). This extremely candid remark

reveals how associations surrounding such a charged topic can be made quite casually. This

specific quote captures how those who have less access to defend themselves in the public eye

become easy targets. The media is also complicit in placing blame, sometimes by directly

expressing opinions in op-eds and other times by implying it through rhetoric and attention to

certain details in their framing of the case. The media consistently relies on this finger-pointing

narrative and can shape the public’s opinions on where the blame lies in society. As one explores

the concept of blame, one can see the construction of certain concepts - like “the rapist” and “the

victim” - which stereotypes large groups of people and can have downstream consequences like

increasing already tense social relationships in a rapidly growing India.

40
Blaming the Victim

Victim blaming is the pervasive attitude that women who have experienced sexual

violence were “asking for it” or “deserved it” because of their actions. The dominant narrative in

English-language print media seems to rejects victim blaming or finding women at fault for

assault inflicting upon them. Many articles spelled the point out further; “rape is not a parenting

or law and order failure, it is a human failure… Being raped is not a woman’s fault, it’s a man’s

fault.” (“Being raped is not a woman’s fault”). However, there is a tendency of needing to

legitimize a victim in the eyes of the Indian public. In the Nirbhaya case, the young woman was

an aspiring doctor and portrayed across the board as a courageous, model citizen. A few articles

mentioned different victims passing a list of “checkmarks” that should have ensured their safety -

like she was accompanied by a male, she was not out too late at night, etc. This constant framing

of the victim as only participating in innocent behaviors makes her less prone to getting blame

shifted on her. An additional note is that there was a trend of the word victim is blatantly

gendered. When articles use the word victim, it is in the context of the woman who endured the

sexual assault even if the male accompanying her was also assaulted. Here, the word “victim”

becomes equated with “victim of sexual violence” rather than a greater subset of violence. The

“victim” is always the woman and if she was accompanied by someone, it is the “male friend

who was beaten” rather than the narrative referring to a “male victim” and a “female victim”.

Again, this heightens the extremity of rape as a tool of violence in relation to the “rape is worse

than death” narrative. The English-language media narrative may not reflect the opinions of the

general public in terms of being generally anti-victim blaming. Overall the victim is portrayed in

a sympathetic, but not necessarily empowering, light by the media. The narrative of highlighting

extreme violence furthers victimization, as the woman is made to be pitied.

41
Blaming the Subaltern

There is also a construction of the “rapist” through association with a subaltern identity.

The term subaltern is explored in post-colonial theory, referring to those who are left to exist

outside of the hegemonic power structure. In India, this power structure could be seen as

neoliberalism, and subaltern groups would include rural, lower class, lower caste and migrant

workers. Subaltern refers to multiple identities, that may or may not overlap, but are lumped into

the same conglomerated media stereotype.

Problems stemming from urbanization and overpopulation have been blamed on

individuals of rural backgrounds migrating to bigger cities. Migration is a highly debated topic,

so the media coverage surrounding migrants has multiple dominant perspectives. There is an

overwhelming feeling that cities are getting too crowded, which is an unwelcoming atmosphere

for rural to urban migrants. Internal migration in India is not a new phenomenon and has a

history of being equating with sexual deviance as well. Sexual violence being tied to rural

migrant identities is not something new. In the coverage surrounding the Delhi gang rape case,

there were also some feelings that the “English media narrative reflects middle and upper-class

fears,” surrounding migrants (“Why you shouldn’t call Delhi our ‘rape capital’.”). This leaves

room for journalistic biases to color the way rape and sexual violence is discussed. The narrative

behind blaming migration is that attitudes surrounding rape and poor treatment of women are

also coming from villages, making rural areas these sinks of sexual depravity that are spilling

into urban zones. The use of certain quotes and framing of an article can show how the media

plays into certain tropes people are comfortable reading about.

42
 Many stories find importance in these men’s backgrounds and characterize them through

their lack of education and poverty. Another way these subaltern identities are filtered through

the media is through youth, making linkages to rising juvenile crime rates.

The five men, all school dropouts, were jobless and often visited the mill to drink and
use drugs, [a Mumbai police commissioner] said. Two even have robbery cases against
them.
(“Delhi horror visits Mumbai”).

If a young man rapes a girl, should his parents be blamed for it? Most of the women,
police and psychologists think so… According to [Dr. Zia Nadeem of Oxygen Institute
of Psychology], a majority of rapists come from disturbed or broken families with no
proper values or morals.
(“It all boils down to family”).

A lot of men, especially uneducated ones, tend to behave strangely with women; and it
does make you uncomfortable. You feel scared at such times and in such situations.
(“Mumbai: (Un)Safe for Women”).

In further characterization, examples of how women feel unsafe in cities usually

references the same type of men - how that fruit vender stares, or examples that illustrate

perpetrator of sexual violence as the construction worker, rickshaw driver or the juvenile on the

bus. Furthermore, in character profiles, there is an emphasis on how remorseless the accused are

in the severity of their crime. The narrative stands that rapists are monsters.

According to many, when there is a maniac out on to get his nasty desires fulfilled, there
is not much normal guys can do.
(“When evil crushes a few good men”).

Two hours after brutally raping a young woman, accused Chand Abdul attar calmly
polished off a plate of pav-bhaji at home. His grandmother, who shared the meal, never
suspected anything was amiss.
(“Mumbai gang-rape suspect ‘feasted’ after crime”).

The probe has revealed that the accused was a leacher who was all the time looking for
prey. He even offered women waiting for transport during nights to drop them home in
lieu of sexual favors.
(“Uber probe blows the lid off a sex maniac.”)

43
 This narrative creates a distinction between “normal guys” who do not rape, and the type

of men who do. It creates a class of men who are above being discussed in issues of sexual

violence. Due to the extreme nature of high profile rape cases, rapes becomes a crime that is

carried out by “monsters” that happens in a dark alley at night. It removes a lot of responsibility

of sexual crime from the “urbane genteel”, ignoring very prevalent issues like marital rape or

intimate partner rape. Statistically, it is far more likely for a woman to be raped by someone she

knows, rather than a stranger. Also, according to the UN, women in urban areas are more likely

to experience violence compared to women in rural areas (“Facts and Figures: Ending Violence

against Women”).

Blame also extends to non-individuals, finding accountability within institutions and the

state. Women journalists took this platform to express that women cannot look to the state for

their safety: “The problem of underestimation of the gender based crime is compounded by

failure of the justice system of the country in securing convictions,” (Himabindu 2). Women at

times are expected to operate outside of state actors to guarantee their own safety. There are

several articles emerging from these stories that encourage women to learn karate, in order

manage their own self-defense. These articles, not only play into notions of women’s own

responsibility for sexual violence, but veers into incredulousness in expectations for women in

order for them simply have safe access to public spaces.

With anti-rape movements in the 1980s emerging out of anger against police rape, there

is a long history of women distrusting constables in terms of sexual violence. Many believe rapes

are underreported in part due to the scrutiny and insensitive handling of rape victims at the hands

of the police. Demanding rape sensitization training has been an important request of women’s

movements and was often mentioned in the media narrative.

44
 “The idea that the police exist to protect the public was lost long ago and the sight of a
Mumbai policeman no longer promotes the awe it once used to. Most people reach for
their wallets rather than have a sense of respect.”
(Banerji).

“Hating the policeman is easy. He provides enough reasons. But it is unlikely that even a
single educated urban newspaper reader would become a beat constable. Most cops
come from the dark side of rural India, where khaps rule, women are treated like chattel,
denied the use of cellphones and the freedom to choose their own clothes, and where it is
the feudal right of powerful landlords to rape, maim and murder. Cities like Delhi are
bursting with such migrants who become vote banks for the most urbane politicians.”
(“Hating the Obvious”).

This second quote finds blame in rural attitudes and makes a mass generalization about

the backgrounds of the police force. It is blatantly condescending and offensive, and ignores

these are ways women face discrimination in urban settings as well. This description plays into

these stereotypes of rural social stratification, which are thinly veiled cinematic tropes that do not

allow for a whole picture of rural life. This quote also mentions the political power of migrants,

treating them as a like-minded, homogenous group. It slanders them and questions their access or

authority to make political decisions, highlighting their subaltern identities and interrogates their

place within the political system.

“Otherization” of Rural India

Rape sensationalism, though incorporated into these other cases, is even more prevalent

in the coverage surrounding rural India. The reporting surrounding the Badaun case especially

shows that the media still deals with sensitization issues. Badaun departs from the “common

man” storyline, where the victims are not seen as representing a wider India, which invites

guesswork by the media to color the story through familiar tropes, in order for the reader to

connect with the story. The manner in which blame played out in these stories encompasses

entirely different narratives, which is expected to a degree. However, the extent to which rural

45
narratives differ from urban cases suggests that journalists perceive rural sexual violence to be of

a very unique variety which may get encoded into how these cases are framed.

There is a lot of blame placed on rural police. Caste issues are also brought up and are

found only in these rural contexts of rape rather than urban ones. Another frame that

characterized the blame in the Badaun case was the lack of access to toilets. The sisters were out

at night because they were relieving themselves in a nearby field. However, it is not clear that if

installing toilets or outhouses for these families would decrease sexual violence. NGOs have

built accessible toilets in villages in India before, with the result of these facilities going

completely unused (“Unused rural toilets to face public scrutiny”). Furthermore, there is an

underlying emphasis placed on rural backwardness which can contribute to rape.

It was a February morning in 1988 when a horrified India woke up to pictures of three
sisters hanging in their home in Kanpur. In a chilling recall 26 years on, two sisters, this
time cousins, were found hanging from a mango tree in Badaun, also in Uttar Pradesh,
just a short distance away from Kanpur. Then, it was dowry and suicide; now, it is rape
and murder. But the underlying story is the same — of oppression, extreme violence and
societal acceptance of gender biases that go back generations and show no signs of
ending.The grainy black-and-white photographs of the 1980s blur into an uneasy haze
with the sharp, digitalised colour pictures of today, the overlapping realities telling you
that the story of India’s women while different from each other is also an unchanging one
in a changing India. The decades between the deaths of the urban literate women and the
young Dalit teens fuse into one single reality. Society failed them all. (Jain).

The point of this article, by characterizing villages as “unchanging”, plays into narratives

of modernity and how sexual violence is intimately infused with these discussions. The narrow

focus on the rural identities in constant comparison to urban life contributes to an “otherization”

of rural India at the hand of the media. Compounding identities – young, rural, lower caste

women – furthers the victimization narrative where rural victims are made out to be pitied

through a focus on their severe powerlessness. In terms of sexual violence, one report states “...

what happened in the moving bus in Delhi is a feature of daily life in rural India,” (Naqvi).

Overall, this corresponds with the previously established narratives of the construct of the
46
“rapist.” Sexual violence is constructed as a rural issue that is spilling into cities through

migration. There is no research supporting this idea that more sexual violence is carried through

the hands of migrant or rural men and this simply propagates stereotypes of subaltern sexual

depravity.

47
Conclusion

In terms of further research, studies should be done to explore exact reasons why sexual

violence rates are rising. Many news articles have cited annual police reports in major cities or

national data. However, many confounding variables – for instance, a reduction in

underreporting of rape – can throw off these statistics. Therefore, it should established if rapes

are actually increasing or if it is a media driven phenomenon. Other assumptions that are

highlighted in the media, such as the associations between rural-urban migrants and high rates of

sexual violence in these communities, are important areas of research. It would also be

interesting to further dissect media coverage between rural and urban cases of sexual violence

and how these frames pan out. My sample size was small – 3 urban cases and 1 rural case – so I

cannot draw too many conclusions comparing how sexual violence is portrayed in these two

settings. This kind of study may be difficult to carry out because rural cases rarely receive

national media coverage in the first place, which may explain why the framings of the Badaun

case were blatantly out of touch with life in rural India and relied on various stereotypes.

With more frenzied media attention to rape, the implications of how these stories are

framed are important and telling of related societal issues. While rates of crime and sexual

violence appear to be on the rise, increasing media coverage on rape may have a larger impact in

the scope of public safety. Women’s safety is being remapped through the frames of rape

extremity and an archetypal rapist-monster. The goals of the media may be to activize the common

man and extract an emotional response from the public in order invoke societal change around rape.

Yet, this can promote sensationalist tactics in coverage on sexual violence, which is a discouraging

trend that could increase tensions and blame that is thrown around in terms of responsibility for

societal ills. Sentiments across print journalism, social media and comments on online articles

48
associate India with extreme sexual violence. On an international front, rape has been

inextricably tied to India’s national identity as rape reporting has intensified. This contributes to

rape exceptionalism becoming a major trend in news reporting today.

The more violent the case, the more likely it is to be reported on - which sets a very

dangerous precedent. The construction of a “high profile rape” is framed in particular ways to

incite anger and trigger media response, with a focus on extreme violence, extreme innocence of

the woman involved and the extreme guilt of the perpetrator.

49
Appendix A – Archive of news articles used in framing analysis

Article Title News outlet Date Case Frames/Theme

This is more than rape, probably
2012 Delhi
most grievous case here: Indian Express 12/18/2012 Rape extremism
Gang Rape
Safdarjung docs
Two arrested in Delhi gangrape
The Hindustan 2012 Delhi
case, doctors say ‘never seen such 12/18/2012 Rape extremism
Times Gang Rape
brutality’
Being raped is not a woman's Punjab 2012 Delhi Deflecting victim blaming; self-
12/18/2012
fault Newsline Gang Rape defense
2012 Delhi
Dramatic rise in rape cases The Pioneer 12/18/2012 Rise in crime
Gang Rape
Delhi is the rape capital;
Delhi please stop raping your The Hindustan 2012 Delhi
12/18/2012 helplessness; more than rape
women Times Gang Rape
narrative
Prowling rapists had set out for 2012 Delhi Character profiles; rape extremism;
The Pioneer 12/19/2012
deed Gang Rape construction of criminality
Why you shouldn't call Delhi our 2012 Delhi Describes rape-exceptionalism
Mint 12/20/2012
'rape capital' Gang Rape problem
What ails rape investigation in The New 2012 Delhi
12/20/2012 Institutional blame
India Indian Express Gang Rape
Delhi gang rape case: shaken The Times of 2012 Delhi
12/20/2012 Poverty; character profiles
slum says hang them if guilty India Gang Rape
Kashmir 2012 Delhi
A colonial view of rape 12/21/2012 Vulnerability of rural India
Monitor Gang Rape
2012 Delhi
The Delhi rape and beyond Mint 12/21/2012 Blaming migrants from middle east
Gang Rape
The Hindustan 2012 Delhi
A tipping point for change 12/22/2012 Anger; helplessness; activism
Times Gang Rape
2012 Delhi
Who are these men? Indian Express 12/22/2012 Character profiles
Gang Rape
The New 2012 Delhi
Hating the obvious 12/23/2012 Institutional blame; rural blame
Indian Express Gang Rape
Crime against women: Hyderabad The Times of 2012 Delhi
12/23/2012 Delhi is the rape capital narrative
not far from Delhi India Gang Rape
The New 2012 Delhi
It all boils down to family 12/24/2012 Family blame
Indian Express Gang Rape
PM warns of 'footloose migrants' The Hindustan 2012 Delhi Politicians; development; migrant
12/27/2012
from rural areas Times Gang Rape blame
Raj Thackeray blames rising The Times of 2012 Delhi
1/8/2013 Politicians; migrant blame
crime on migrants; Lalu retaliates India Gang Rape
Article Title News outlet Date Case Frames/Theme
When rape by juveniles becomes 2012 Delhi
Indian Express 1/11/2013 Rise in crime; juvenile blame
a trend Gang Rape
23-year old photo journalist gang- DNA: Daily 2013 Mumbai
8/23/2013 Safety
raped in Mahalaxmi News Analysis Gang Rape
Delhi journalists protest Mumbai 2013 Mumbai
IANS English 8/23/2013 Safety; protests; activism
gang rape Gang Rape
Photojournalist gangraped in The Hindustan 8/23/2013 2013 Mumbai Rise in crime; safety

50
Mumbai while on assignment Times Gang Rape
Statistics of shame: Delhi, The New 2013 Mumbai
8/23/2013 Safety
Mumbai most unsafe Metros Indian Express Gang Rape
Talks of reinvention when DNA: Daily 2013 Mumbai Safety; rape as an outside force;
8/24/2013
Mumbai is already dead News Analysis Gang Rape modernity
Mumbai gang-rape suspect The Hindustan 2013 Mumbai
8/24/2013 Character profiles; rape extremism
'feasted' after crime Times Gang Rape
Youth held from slum, names 4 The Times of 2013 Mumbai Construction of criminality;
8/24/2013
others India Gang Rape character profiles
The Hindustan 2013 Mumbai
Delhi horror visits Mumbai 8/24/2013 Delhi is the rape capital narrative
Times Gang Rape
Netizens express shock, collect DNA: Daily 2013 Mumbai
8/24/2013 Twitter; safety
info to map unsafe places News Analysis Gang Rape
Dilapidated, isolated and eerie, DNA: Daily 2013 Mumbai
8/24/2013 Construction of criminality
Shakti Mills is a spooky fortress News Analysis Gang Rape
143% spurt in rape by juveniles inThe Times of 2013 Mumbai
8/25/2013 Juvenile blame; rise of criminality
past decade, record shows India Gang Rape
8 Months after Nirbhaya case, The Times of 2013 Mumbai Activism; 2012 Delhi gang rape
8/25/2013
where do we stand? India Gang Rape comparisons
The Hindustan 2013 Mumbai
Mumbai: (Un)safe for women 8/25/2013 Safety
Times Gang Rape
Main suspect 'watched cartoons 2013 Mumbai
Indian Express 8/25/2013 Character profiles; rape extremism
on TV' after returning home Gang Rape
Mumbai gang rape case will be Asian News 2013 Mumbai
8/25/2013 Fast track courts
fast tracked International Gang Rape
Women call for stringent DNA: Daily 2013 Mumbai
8/25/2013 Rise in crime
punishment for rapists News Analysis Gang Rape
Article Title News outlet Date Case Frames/Theme
Gang-rape mire sucks glitter off The New 2013 Mumbai Safety; rise in crime; Delhi is the
8/25/2013
maximum city Indian Express Gang Rape rape capital narrative
Girls, here's how you can fight The Times of 2013 Mumbai
8/25/2013 Safety; self-defense
that pervert India Gang Rape
When evil crushes a few good The New 2013 Mumbai
8/26/2013 Normal men vs. monsters narrative
men Indian Express Gang Rape
Give us a safe city, not police The Hindustan 2013 Mumbai Safety; rise in crime; institutional
8/26/2013
protection Times Gang Rape blame
Photojournalist gangrape: Those 2013 Mumbai
Indian Express 8/26/2013 Exhaustive report of details of crime
3 hours Gang Rape
Mumbai: Raj blames migrants for The Hindustan 2013 Mumbai Politicians; rise in crime; blaming
8/31/2013
rising crime rate Times Gang Rape migrants
Police draw new roadmap for 2012 Delhi
Indian Express 1/14/2014 Rise in crime; migrant blame
women's safety Gang Rape

Minor sisters raped, killed, The Times of 2014 Badaun

5/30/2014 Institutional blame
hanged from tree India case
Minors gang-raped, hanged in The Times of 2014 Badaun Backwardsness of rural India;
5/30/2014
Badaun India case institutional blame
Autopsy confirms assault on teens The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
5/30/2014 Protests
found dead in UP Times case
Badaun gang-rape: Does Uttar DNA: Daily 2014 Badaun Institutional blame; backwardsness
5/31/2014
Pradesh deserve its women? News Analysis case of rural India

51
Tweeples trash Akhilesh's The Times of 2014 Badaun
5/31/2014 Politicians; twitter
remarks on rape, lawlessness India case
Vulnerability of rural India;
Sulabh to build toilets in all 2014 Badaun
The Pioneer 6/2/2014 sanitation; backwardsness of rural
Badaun houses case
India
DNA: Daily 2014 Badaun
A tale of two hangings 6/3/2014 Caste; vulnerability of rural India
News Analysis case
Badaun gang-rape highlights dire
DNA: Daily 2014 Badaun
necessity of sanitation and police 6/3/2014 Institutional blame; caste; sanitation
News Analysis case
reforms
2014 Badaun
Victims not Dalits: UP tells MHA Indian Express 6/3/2014 Caste; vulnerability of rural India
case
Growing incidents of violence Kashmir 2014 Badaun
6/4/2014 Caste; rise in crime
against women Observer case
Caste rules the roost in this The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
6/4/2014 Caste; backwardsness of rural India
village Times case
Article Title News outlet Date Case Frames/Theme
One in four Dalit women face
DNA: Daily 2014 Badaun Sanitation; caste; vulnerability and
harassment due to lack of toilets: 6/4/2014
News Analysis case backwardsness of rural India
Report
2014 Badaun Caste; vulnerabilityand
A feudal lord in Lucknow The Pioneer 6/6/2014
case backwardsness of rural India
Caste adds another layer to the 2014 Badaun
Indian Express 6/6/2014 Caste
double rape, murder in Badaun case
Case of gangrape of Badaun United News 2014 Badaun Backtracking ealier claims made in
6/7/2014
sisters takes new twist of India case case
Backwardsness of rural India;
The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
Badaun horror stalks Delhi too 6/8/2014 institutional blame; sanitation
Times case
reform
Failing to get any vital lead into
2014 Badaun
the alleged rape and murder of The Pioneer 6/22/2014 Institutional blame
case
two cousins in Badaun
Badaun gang-rape accused clear The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
8/7/2014 Investigation details
lie-detection test Times case
Badaun story gets curiouser:
2014 Badaun
Forensics lab finds no 'proof' of Indian Express 8/21/2014 Investigation details
case
sexual assault
Badaun girls committed suicide, The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
11/26/2014 Institutional blame
CBI says after five month probe Times case
Badaun case: More questions than The Hindustan 2014 Badaun
11/30/2014 Institutional blame
answers Times case
Uber cab rape case: Are our cities The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/7/2014 Safety
unsafe for women? Times rape case
Delhi woman raped: Uber
Asian News 2014 Uber
apologizes, says safety is highest 12/7/2014 Blaming Uber; safety
International rape case
priority
Uber shame: Outrage on Twitter The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/7/2014 Twitter; safety; protests
over Delhi cab rape Times rape case
Delhi cab rape case: Not 'safest
The Hindustan 2014 Uber
ride in the world', Uber's image 12/7/2014 Blaming Uber
Times rape case
takes a big hit
Delhi govt bans Uber cab The Hindustan 12/8/2014 2014 Uber Blaming Uber; Nirbhaya case
services, says company's app Times rape case

52
misleading
Uber has no right to operate in 2014 Uber Blaming Uber; Nirbhaya case;
IANS English 12/8/2014
India: Women activists rape case protests

Uber's 'global safety standard' not 2014 Uber

IANS English 12/8/2014 Blaming Uber; institutional blame
applied in India rape case
2014 Uber
Why capital is Uber unsafe? The Pioneer 12/8/2014 Delhi is the rape capital narrative
rape case
Article Title News outlet Date Case Frames/Theme
Social activist condemns Delhi
Asian News 2014 Uber
rape, salutes victim for fighting 12/8/2014 Institutional blame
International rape case
back
Uber outrage: Why a lynch mob
DNA: Daily 2014 Uber
mentality cannot eliminate 12/8/2014 Institutional blame; protests
News Analysis rape case
complex problems like rape
How safe is your late night cab The New 2014 Uber
12/9/2014 Safety; blaming Uber
ride? Indian Express rape case
Rape puts spotlight on DNA: Daily 2014 Uber
12/9/2014 Institutional blame; poverty
callousness of authorities News Analysis rape case
A myth shattered: Pvt cabs no The Times of 2014 Uber
12/9/2014 Safety
longer seen as 'safe' India rape case
2014 Uber
Uber illusion Indian Express 12/9/2014 Blaming Uber; safety
rape case
Casual and chilling: 'I made a 2014 Uber Institutional blame; character
Indian Express 12/9/2014
mistake, what can I do now?' rape case profiles
DNA: Daily 2014 Uber Institutional blame; blaming Uber;
Uber betrayal 12/10/2014
News Analysis rape case "new Indian woman"
The ride had to stop: Uber The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/10/2014 Blaming Uber; modernization
banned, stop outraging Times rape case
Uber probe blows the lid off a sex 2014 Uber Character profiles; normal men vs.
The Pioneer 12/11/2014
maniac rape case monsters narrative
Women fall for me: Uber cabbie The Hindustan 2014 Uber Character profiles; normal men vs.
12/12/2014
reveals sick fantasy Times rape case monsters narrative
Uber driver tells cops he's raped The Hindustan 2014 Uber Character profiles; institutional
12/12/2014
many women Times rape case blame
Uber effect: Cab drivers to
2014 Uber
undergo gender sensitisation IANS English 12/15/2014 Gender sensitization
rape case
program
A lot has changed since 16/12, The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/15/2014 Nirbhaya case; protests
but we must fight on Times rape case
Dec 16 and now Uber: Has
2014 Uber Police sensitization; institutional
anything changed, any lessons IANS English 12/15/2014
rape case blame
learnt?
Delhi women still feel unsafe, The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/16/2014 Safety; institutional blame
blame Uber: HT survey Times rape case
Sex crimes in city grow The Hindustan 2014 Uber
12/18/2014 Rise in crime; institutional blame
unfettered Times rape case

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