How the media coverage of the Nirbhaya case changed India
Four lasting impacts
The Delhi gang-rape of December 16, 2012, which came to be known as the Nirbhaya case, took over the national consciousness for months and became synonymous with India’s sexual violence problem. Rarely had the entire country come together to be glued to the TV, radio, newspapers and other forms of news dispensation as was the case here.
It is true there had been similar frenetic coverage during terrorist strikes across the country, such as 26/11 in Mumbai four years previously. However, this rape case seemed to strike as much, if not more, terror into the hearts of the masses because they felt personally concerned: women concerned for their own safety and men concerned for the safety of the women in their lives.
The case and the manner in which it was reported would lead to major systemic changes. The reportage would also leave a lasting impression and a ripple of reform on the life of Indians. Below are the four major changes that the case led to.
An iconic name
Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code bars news organisations — among others — from revealing the name of a victim of sexual assault. It was under these circumstances that the Times of India — the country’s most-read newspaper — decided to give the victim in this case a sobriquet to refer to during further reportage.
Other news organisations would try to give her different names, like Damini (after a 1993 film starring Meenakshi Seshadri) and Jagruti, but Nirbhaya — meaning ‘the fearless one’ — would stick.
The name has since been invoked often as a signalling device in sexual assault cases where the victim was subjected to extreme brutality (see for example, here and here) .
While we are now at a liberty to say her real name — Jyoti Singh — because her parents have uttered it in public, the Nirbhaya name prevails. We will explore that prevalence in a minute.
Zero FIR
One of the most harrowing details about the case was that the Delhi Police, when called to where the victim lay bleeding, spent several minutes arguing about under whose jurisdiction the crime was committed, and trying to determine where the first information report (FIR) would be lodged.
Many news reports put the blame squarely on the policemen for the delay in getting the victim medical attention, leading to an uproar among the public.
It was to solve this problem that the concept of Zero FIR was proposed by a committee led by JS Verma, a former Chief Justice of India. The Justice Verma Committee received more than 80,000 suggestions on various topics, and one of the recommendations it made was for the police to ensure that nobody who wants to lodge an FIR is turned away.
Thus was born the Zero FIR, named so because it is not assigned a number when it is lodged in a police station and is about a crime that occurred under the jurisdiction of another police station.
Several cases have hinged on the Zero FIR since its inception in 2013. Possibly the best-known is that of self-styled godman Asaram. He was named as an accused in an August 2013 Zero FIR filed in Delhi by a man who claimed his daughter was assaulted at Asaram’s ashram near Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
Asaram would in April 2018 be found guilty of rape under the country’s stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and end up in prison serving a life sentence, all because the parents of the victim had the option of lodging an FIR against the accused anywhere in the country.
Death penalty for rape
Formed just days after the Delhi gang-rape, the Justice Verma Committee in its report also called for severer punishment in cases of sexual assault.
The result was the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, also known as the Nirbhaya Act. It specifically recognised gender-based crimes such as acid attacks and stalking, and increased the punishment of aggravated rape and assault, including the application of the death penalty in cases where the victim dies or is left in a permanent vegetative state.
The change happened because there was a huge public outcry over the sufferings of the victim: people prayed for her recovery and followed every development about her health for close to a week. They hung on as news of her condition trickled in. They waited in anticipation for her recovery as news spread of her being shifted to Singapore 11 days after the assault. They reacted with anger when she died there two days later. The uproar forced the then government to act.
Change in law to try minors as adults
One other aspect of the rape that led to an outcry was that of the six people who assaulted Nirbhaya, one was a minor, and was tried as such. His name was never revealed, and he ended up getting the maximum possible sentence of three years’ imprisonment after being convicted. People, however, wanted harsher punishment for him because the then 17-year-old was, according to reports, the most brutal in his treatment of Nirbhaya on that fateful night (although such reportage has been contested by the Juvenile Justice Board).
Nirbhaya’s parents subsequently led a push that would ensure minors who commit heinous crimes would face more serious consequences. It was as a result of their efforts and the public sentiment against this convicted rapist that the Juvenile Justice Bill was passed in December 2015. The bill would let minors over 16 years of age be tried as adults if they were accused of heinous crimes.
Note: Less than half a year after the rape, then Union finance minister P Chidambaram announced the Nirbhaya Fund, a corpus of Rs 1000 crore to be used to make public places safer for women. However, a large portion of the money remains unused and the proposed schemes remain on paper.
