Women’s Day feels hollow when safety is still a privilege

"Don't tell me to celebrate Women’s Day. Tell me when it’s safe to be a woman every day"

March 8 - that one day in the calendar when suddenly all I see around me is grand speeches, bold hashtags, and big offers by beauty brands wrapped in pink themes.

But while I write this sitting in India's capital (often called rape capital), I ask myself - what exactly are we celebrating? The tokenism of representation? The performative activism that fades once the day is over? Or simply our survival in a world that still refuses to grant us safety, respect, and dignity?

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Being a woman in India - and that too in Delhi - the most thrilling thing I can do is walk alone at night and see if I escape a rape attempt.

As per India's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), more than 31,000 women were raped in 2022, a figure that has remained alarmingly consistent since the 2012 reforms.

The same data claims that a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. But who's counting when the conviction rate is barely 27%? This simply means that if a woman gets raped, there's a 73% chance the abuser will walk free.

And this is just the recorded data. There must be hundreds (if not thousands) of such cases that never made it to the government records.

On August 9, 2024—when India was busy preparing to celebrate its 78th Independence Day—a female doctor was brutally raped and killed in West Bengal's Kolkata. The media termed the case "Nirbhaya 2.0," making a comparison to the brutal 2012 rape case in Delhi. What I asked myself after watching the coverage was - "Is it a movie sequel?"

How many more such cases do we have to witness before it gets over forever?

The recent data revealed by the government in India's parliament said that rape cases rose by 8% in 2024, with total cases registered going up by 7%.

The data on dowry deaths

If you got furious just by seeing the data on rapes, hold on. There's something called dowry death.

In 2012, at least 8,233 women were registered as being murdered for dowry across India. In some cases, these married women were caught up in an "accidental fire" at their homes, and in some, they "committed suicide".

I can continue and talk about the data on female foeticide, marital rapes, domestic violence - and the list will go on. But what's the point? How long will we keep talking about the rising numbers? How long will we keep monitoring the crimes against women?

What does a woman want on Women's Day?

We don't want your discounts on spa treatments, cheesy WhatsApp forwards, and hollow promises of empowerment—we want just to exist: fear-free, threats-free, and just free.

I will celebrate Women’s Day when I no longer wake up to headlines of brutal rapes, acid attacks, and domestic violence cases in my country.

I will celebrate Women’s Day when cases like RG Kar, Nirbhaya, Hathras, and Kathua are no longer reduced to hashtags but serve as reminders that justice was swift and fair.

I will celebrate Women's Day when Indian women don’t have to carry pepper sprays, fake phone calls, and recite silent prayers while walking home.

Till then, happy Women's Day.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)