Subhasree Nayak
“Who will answer?” And “We cheered because the courts made us wait!”
Every rape case begins with a person: a daughter, a sister, a mother who trusted the road home. The numbers can feel cold, but they are made of lives, and any honest conversation has to carry both the data and the grief.
In November 2025, the World Health Organization and its UN partners released their most comprehensive estimates yet on violence against women (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240116962). Approximately 840 million women, nearly one in three, have experienced partner or sexual violence in their lifetime, and the rate has barely changed in 25 years (https://www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2025-lifetime-toll–840-million-women-faced-partner-or-sexual-violence). For the first time the report also estimated sexual violence by someone other than a partner: approximately 263 million women have experienced it since age 15 (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women). Experts caution that this figure is significantly under-reported because of stigma and fear (https://www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2025-lifetime-toll–840-million-women-faced-partner-or-sexual-violence).
Behind “under-reported” are women who stayed silent because they feared blame, and families who chose “honour” over justice. Prevention gets almost nothing. Only 0.2% of global development aid in 2022 went to programmes that prevent violence against women, and funding has fallen further since 2025.
What Daayra Shows?
Daayra is a 2026 crime thriller co-written and directed by Meghna Gulzar, released in theatres on 18 September 2026, inspired by true events in which a young woman disappears from a highway. Her family goes to the police, but they do not take the case seriously. The next day, her body is found on a deserted stretch, and the case dominates the headlines. The four accused, including one juvenile, are arrested and shot dead before they can be produced in court. The country rejoices, while others allege the encounter was staged.
Reviewers describe two philosophies at the centre:
One believes capital punishment is the best solution.
The other believes in social upliftment, teaching people consent and boundaries.
Some critics felt the film plays it safe and takes no clear stand, though they credit it with the potential to generate discussion.
When people cheer the deaths of the accused, the easy reading is bloodlust. The harder and more honest reading is exhaustion.
While Daayra plays in theatres, Delhi is living its own version. On September 21, 2026, a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped at a park near Delhi’s Kalkaji area. (https://www.newsgram.com/delhi/2026/09/28/miranda-house-students-protest-ground-report-kalkaji-rape-case-1). A birthday, a temple, a walk in a park turn into something worse than a nightmare. The case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the POCSO Act, and the police arrested all three accused. Followed by a march on September 28th organized by Miranda House students.
Why should the classroom go online?
Why should the campus be emptied, the gate avoided, the evening cancelled, the dupatta pulled tighter, and the phone kept in hand?
Why is it always her world that gets smaller after a crime that was never hers?
We tell our daughters, sisters, mothers….to be careful. We never ask anyone to teach their progeny to be safe, irrespective of gender. We call it “protection,” but it is a curfew placed on the wrong people.
One protester said the country has endured this for years because we keep saying, “Koi Baat Nahi” it’s alright, it’s just one case. But a single case is a girl who will flinch at a temple bell, a mother who will never let go of her hand again, and a family that has to explain to an entire city why it must keep going.
In 2024, Indian courts had 206,777 rape cases for trial, but only 20,587 trials were completed, a pendency of 89.8%. Of those, 185,785 were still pending when the year ended, more than nine times the number of trials completed. The 24.4% conviction rate is measured only against trials that finished. (https://www.thestatesman.com/india/thousands-of-rape-cases-reach-indias-courts-but-how-many-end-in-conviction-what-ncrb-data-show-1503633430.html)
For girls, the picture is the same. In 2024, the conviction rate in rape cases involving girls was around 30%, with 86% of cases still pending, and in 97% of cases, the accused was known to the victim. (https://www.thedailyjagran.com/india/news/rape-cases-against-minor-girls-went-up-4-times-in-last-10-years-97-accused-were-known-to-victims-ncrb-data-10330481)
“In the real world, it comes with years of hearings, adjournments, and cross-examination, with the family reliving the worst day of their lives in a corridor, waiting. Ask a mother whether she can wait that long.
Here is where I stand, and I say it plainly. When the system takes a decade to answer a crime that took one night, people stop believing in the system. I understand why the crowd cheered. I would be lying if I said I felt nothing but grief for the men who brutalised and burned a young woman. Justice that arrives in time is better than justice that arrives in a file number.
But the same exhaustion that makes us cheer should make us demand the courtroom. An encounter answers one night. A working court answers every night. And an encounter can never be undone if the police get it wrong.
The court should not need to be shamed into action by a gun. If Judges and Governments want the public to trust the courtroom over the bullet, the courtroom has to work: fast-track trials that actually finish, investigations that stand up to scrutiny, and no survivor left waiting for her turn.
The same question applies to the juvenile law. The law exists to protect children who err, and I accept that. But what protection does a 16 or 17-year-old need when he plans, overpowers, and rapes a woman?
The victim was not given a lesser injury because her attacker was younger. Her trauma does not carry an age discount.
The Juvenile Justice Act already allows 16- to 18-year-old accused of heinous offences to be assessed and tried as adults.
My argument is simple. A child who knows exactly what rape means, and does it anyway, has stepped out of the category of children the law was built to shelter. Juvenile protection must not become a shield for a rapist, and the assessment must not become a loophole.
Fast-track courts with fixed timelines and dedicated judges.
Accountability for police who refuse or delay an FIR.
Lessons on consent and boundaries in schools, starting early, for boys as much as girls.
Every woman you know has sent that message.
“Reached?” “Text me when you get home.” “Share your live location.”
We call it caring. But look at what it really is: a whole country of mothers, sisters and friends holding their breath until a small blue tick appears on a phone.
A girl learns early which road is safe and which is not. She learns to hold her keys between her fingers, to walk faster when footsteps match hers, and to lie about the time she’ll be back so her mother won’t worry. Nobody sits her down and teaches these things. She simply absorbs them; the way she absorbs the language of her home.
According to the WHO, nearly one in three women in the world has faced partner or sexual violence, and that number has barely moved in 25 years. Behind the 263 million women who have faced sexual violence from someone other than a partner, there is a face at a kitchen table trying to look normal for her family. (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women) Many never say a word, because they fear being blamed, and the silence is part of the crime.
And those who do speak find a long corridor. In 2024, Indian courts had 206,777 rape cases before them, and only 20,587 trials were completed. Behind each number is someone told to be patient, someone retelling the worst day of her life to strangers, someone who has aged years while a file waited for a date.
Her wound does not heal with a headline, a candle, or a hashtag. But we can decide what kind of country she lives in. One where the police believe her the first time. One where a trial ends while she is still able to hope. One where her mother’s first words to her at the door are “enjoy your day”, not “be careful”. And one where every boy is taught, long before it matters, what the word “no” means.
This is not really an essay about a crime. It is a promise we owe every girl who has ever held her keys between her fingers on the walk alone. Someday I want the blue tick to be the smallest thing in a woman’s day, a message she sends because she wants to share her evening, not because someone is afraid.
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Dr. Subhasree Nayak is a public health researcher and an artist with a Master’s degree in Public Health from Dayananda Sagar University.
