What’s In a Name: Why We Shouldn’t Call Her ‘Nirbhaya’

Calling the December 16 victim ‘Nirbhaya’ takes away from a more important conversation about rape.

(16 December 2015 will mark the third anniversary of the Delhi gang-rape that has etched itself into the nation’s memory. As part of our #NoMoreNirbhaya campaign, we rethink the rationale behind calling the survivor ‘the fearless one’.)

On the night of 16 December, 2012, Jyoti Singh Pandey was brutally raped and fatally assaulted by six men in a bus. Her male friend, who was travelling with her, was beaten when he tried to intervene. Two weeks later, amid frenzied media coverage of the incident, 23-year-old Jyoti succumbed to her injuries. The event precipitated outrage and protest on a national scale, hitherto unseen. Protestors clashed violently with the police, instigating a prolonged engagement with the issue of violence against women.

‘Nirbhaya’, the name with which the media anointed Jyoti, became the rallying point for public outrage. Nir-bhay, or one without fear, is how the nation chose to remember Jyoti. This served a twofold purpose. Not only did it comply with the law that decrees a victim’s identity be concealed until judgment is passed, it also gave the country a martyr figure in whose name people could unite.

Humankind Cannot Bear Too Much Reality

However, the problem with calling her ‘Nirbhaya’ and not Jyoti is that it is ultimately in service of our guilt as a nation and not a call for revolution. When we call Jyoti ‘Nirbhaya’, we choose to imbue her story with a heroism that obscures the ugly reality of rape in India – its frequency and its pervasiveness. We call her ‘the fearless one’ because it makes it easier for us to forget our complicity in maintaining structures that allow for the persistence of gender violence.

Moreover, creating a campaign for change behind an individual figure detracts from the fact that we need to address a diseased system.

India’s Daughter

Leslie Udwin immortalised Jyoti as India’s Daughter, capturing on film the events of December 16 and the aftermath. The moment Jyoti becomes India’s daughter, we have invoked the Ma-Beti discourse. We’re fighting for the ‘honour’ and ‘sullied virtue’ of a sister/mother/daughter who is helpless without male protection. We are essentially saying that the only value women derive is from the roles they play in men’s lives. We are, paradoxically, reinforcing the very patriarchal structures we are trying to dismantle.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape

The social stigma attached to rape, engendered by patriarchal notions of ‘purity’ and ‘honour’, means that the ‘shame’ lies at the victim’s doorstep. When we are not scrutinising the victim’s clothing or why she was out so late, we conceal her identity, as if to say that she is somehow complicit in the crime and tarnished by it. This perception is so ingrained in us that it finds legal sanction. So much so, that naming the victim is obstruction of justice, because she may no longer testify for fear of stigma.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We must address rape for what it is. To believe that we are guardians of the dignity of women is counterproductive – we internalise the notion that women are voiceless. Further, we propagate the idea that a woman is a commodity, whose worth is intrinsically tied to her chastity. 

Rape is not an unfortunate, remote occurrence; it is an inevitable outcome of an entrenched gender bias and misogyny. Any true attempt at tackling it must address these underlying issues instead of latching onto sensationalist media-driven narratives.