India Today

It matters to be out there

As the Internet becomes the primary site of protests for urban India, women activists need to look at new strategies of ground level mobilisation.

One hot summer day many years ago, I stepped out onto the balcony of our house in Delhi and saw a woman standing near a tree. In her hand she held a piece of paper. The woman's name was Satya Rani Chadda, whose daughter Kanchan had been killed by her in laws because she could not fulfil their repeated demands for dowry. Satya Rani went on to become a lifelong activist in the battle against dowry.

That day, she came to our house holding a leaflet that had been distributed in a large demonstration by women two days ago in Delhi's Model Town, protesting the death of another young woman, Tarvinder Kaur.

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