Look Back in Anger: Visuality and Violence in Contemporary Women’s Movement in India

Speaker: Mallarika Sinha Roy (Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Suddenly, women – of different ages, castes, classes, from diverse regions, and with various religious affiliations – are everywhere in India. From the power corridors of policy-making, to media platforms, to the entertainment industry, to student organisations – women are making their presence felt. The question remains, how do we make sense of this new visibility? Are we experiencing resurgence in Women’s Movement? Is it a result of the nation-wide shockwave after the Delhi Gang rape in December 2012 when middle-class India came down to the streets? Is it a feminist solidarity with the new movements sweeping through university campuses and new Dalit mobilisations for social justice? Is it connected to the visibility of protesting bodies on streets along with virtual solidarities in social media platforms, indicating debates on the layers of inequality and discrimination that accrue at this juncture of economic liberalisation and consumer culture? Probably it is all of them and more. This is an effort to engage with different ways of seeing women, different genealogies of vision vis-à-vis gendered bodies in both public and private domains and explore the collective mobilisations around ‘violence against women’ in contemporary India.