Abstract
Research has revealed how antiviolence activism can become entangled with the state's punitive agenda, leading to what some have called “carceral feminism.” However, this scholarship focuses primarily on the U.S. context. Additionally, few studies examine the cultural battles about gender-based violence that emerge in television media, a site of cultural struggle and meaning making. This study conducts a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 46 Indian television panel broadcasts following a highly publicized rape in New Delhi in 2012. I find that elite state actors pursue punitive agendas, but feminists and other panelists engage in discursive resistance to this approach.
Introduction
Researchers have critically analyzed antiviolence activism that relies on the state's punitive powers to address gender-based violence (Agnes, 1992; Bernstein, 2012; Bevacqua, 2001; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance, 2008; Menon, 2004; Richie, 2012). However, much of this scholarship focuses primarily on the U.S. context. The term “carceral feminism” describes antiviolence activism in the United States that became entangled with the state's punitive agenda and fed into the growing “law and order” political climate of the late 20th century (Bernstein, 2010, 2012; Bumiller, 2008). Some scholars (e.g., Whittier, 2016, 2018) point out that feminists' focus on crime and punishment was politically strategic and the result of opportunity structures available to them. In India, where pushes for legal reform have become central to feminist activism, some feminist scholars have also challenged the state-centered approach as being ineffective and vesting more power in the state enforcement apparatus (Agnes, 1992; Menon, 2004). These debates raise questions about the extent to which activists and other public figures in different contexts embrace or resist state-centered punitive approaches to gender-based violence.
The rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey in December 2012 in New Delhi, India prompted a global discussion about gender-based violence and a discursive struggle in the Indian media between powerful state actors (e.g., police and politicians), activists, members of women's organizations, and many others. Widespread calls for the death penalty among protesters on the streets led to debates about the role of the state in confronting gender-based violence. This unprecedented moment provides a unique opportunity to observe how different actors talk about gender-based violence and engage with one another in public discourse and debate, contending for various interpretations of this issue and debating the appropriate ways to address it. The media is a site where meaning making and cultural battles over how to define social issues take place. It can also serve as a valuable tool for social movement activists to advocate for their interpretations of these issues. These discussions in the media are a window into a cultural struggle that can ultimately have consequences for how people think about gender-based violence and how to confront it.
This article analyzes a unique dataset of television broadcasts from a prominent Indian news outlet to explore how activists, state actors, and other public figures interact with one another, contending for a variety of interpretations and understandings of gender-based violence. I conduct a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of discourse that emerged on NDTV, a prominent Indian television news station, following the 2012 Delhi gang rape. I find that elite figures on NDTV (i.e., political figures and people affiliated with the police) adopt a punitive, crime-centered, and gender-blind approach to sexual violence, sometimes blaming marginalized groups for these crimes. However, the structure of NDTV discourse, its selection of panelists, and framing of the discussions, provides ample space for and even invites resistance to this framing of the issue. I find that many panelists, including feminist activists, progressive authors or journalists, and sometimes the NDTV hosts themselves, do not accept this punitive, crime-centered approach and instead engage in various forms of discursive resistance. For example, in response to the statements of elites, some panelists infuse the discourse with gendered interpretations of sexual violence, calling attention to rape culture that permeates the police, courts, and society at large. They call for a functioning legal system, condemning the impunity with which perpetrators of sexual violence commit these crimes. Others shift the focus towards more fundamental causes of gender-based violence, such as ingrained patriarchal attitudes. Finally, some panelists directly challenge the reliance on the state's punitive powers and point out the dangers such an approach can have. However, panelists rarely provide an alternative vision for addressing sexual violence and ending impunity that does not include the criminal justice apparatus, deferring instead to existing laws. These findings complicate existing research on carceral feminism and feminist engagement with the state, revealing the complex and nuanced ways in which activists and other public figures participating in mainstream media discourse resist state actors' attempts to appropriate feminist issues and pursue punitive agendas.
In this article, I first bring together Indian and U.S. scholarship on feminist engagement with the state, in particular regarding gender-based violence. Next, I introduce scholarship on media representations of sexual violence and the importance of the media as a site of meaning making and cultural battles over how to address social issues. Following this review of the literature, I provide an overview of the methodology for this study. Then, I analyze the media discourse that emerges on NDTV in the months following the 2012 Delhi gang rape. I conclude with some reflections on the contributions and limitations of this study and the implications of these findings for future research.
Feminism and the State: A Contentious Relationship
Indian feminists have been part of a global feminist debate about the appropriate role of the state in addressing gender-based violence. The state is seen by some as essential for protecting women, by others as inherently dangerous, and by still others as a site for strategic intervention. The emergence of “governance feminism,” defined as the insertion of feminists and feminist ideas into state legal and institutional power, is part of a profound turn in feminism towards criminal/social control visions of the law that emphasize criminal enforcement (Halley et al., 2006). Feminists in India have also come to increasingly rely on criminal law as the site for social change (Menon, 2004; Naqvi, 2010) and have won significant victories, including the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1983 against “cruelty” from a husband or their family and, more recently, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 (Gangoli, 2007; Kotiswaran, 2018; Mehta, 2008). 1 Similarly, feminists in the United States lobbied for the Violence Against Women Act using a gendered crime frame, which incorporates law enforcement as a remedy (Whittier, 2016). Feminists in some countries have used human rights discourse to pressure states to prosecute perpetrators of rape and other crimes against women (Merry, 2009; Thompson, 2002; Tripp et al., 2013), most notably Mexican feminists strategically framed the murder of women as feminicidio to place responsibility for these killings on the Mexican state (García-Del Moral, 2016). Engagement with the state, therefore, has become central to antiviolence activism in India and across the globe.
Some scholars argue that this state-focused strategy of antiviolence activists fed into the punitive, “law and order” politics that emerged in many countries at the close of the 20th century. “Carceral feminism” is a term coined by Bernstein (2010, 2012) to critique antiviolence activism in the United States that relies on the punitive state to advance women's liberation. The rising politics of antiviolence efforts in the United States, in fact, intersected with the tough-on-crime political climate that prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s (Bevacqua, 2001; Garland, 2001; Gottschalk, 2006; Simon, 2007; Wacquant, 2009). Feminist antiviolence activists initially called for an end to impunity and shelters for victims of violence, drawing attention to the state's failure to address this issue (Bumiller, 2008). However, many scholars describe how activists strayed from these initial values and increasingly turned to the state enforcement apparatus, bolstering conservative ideologies of punishment and crime control (e.g., Bernstein, 2010, 2012; Bumiller, 2008; Corrigan, 2013; Garland, 2001; Gruber, 2007, 2009; Halley et al., 2006). The antirape movement's reliance on criminal law undermined the movement's goals because the site of reform was in the hands of state actors, such as police and prosecutors (Corrigan, 2013). This law-and-order political climate has extended well beyond the United States (Wacquant, 2014, 2009). Bernstein (2010, 2012) and Bumiller (2008, 2013a, 2013b) criticize human rights discourse about violence against women for spreading carceral feminism globally.
Many Black feminists have argued that the mainstream antiviolence movement in the United States failed to address the needs of women of color and marginalized communities (Bierria, 2009; Crenshaw, 1991; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance, 2008; Richie, 2012; Richie & Martensen, 2020). Narratives of rape are often highly racialized, with dark-skinned male perpetrators, and white, innocent victims (Bumiller, 2008). The Central Park jogger case in the U.S. context illustrates how public stereotypes and fear of Black men can fuel anxieties of sexual violence (Bumiller, 2013; Crenshaw, 1991; Smith, 1990). Together, these scholars reveal how antiviolence activism sometimes fed into racialized fears of sexual violence and was complicit in mass incarceration, which disproportionately impacted poor Black communities.
Beyond the criminal justice-oriented aspects of the antiviolence movement, there are also pockets of activism that oppose a state-centered approach and instead engage in creative projects to challenge gender-based violence by addressing its underlying causes (Baker & Bevacqua, 2018; Bierria, 2009; Gotell, 2012; Rentschler, 2017, 2017). INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is one such community-based initiative, which adopts an intersectional, grassroots, and antistate approach to addressing gender-based violence (Bierria, 2009). This and other, similar initiatives (e.g., Rentschler, 2017) reveal how some activists within the antiviolence movement explicitly embrace an antistate and intersectional approach. These examples highlight the importance of acknowledging the diversity within feminist movements and exploring the complex ways in which activists engage with and sometimes resist state-centered approaches to gender-based violence.
Some scholars have argued that feminist engagement with the state is sometimes strategic and context-dependent (García-Del Moral, 2016; Whittier, 2016). Whittier (2016) argues that feminists participating in congressional hearings that shaped the Violence Against Women Act embraced an intersectional approach, but they invoked the criminal justice system to address sexual violence in order to garner a broad base of support for the bill from conservatives as well as progressives. Importantly, however, her analysis reveals that the structure of congressional committees served as a barrier for activists to address issues through an intersectional lens. These findings illustrate how the context within which these discourses take place is important to understand feminist engagement and the framing of social issues.
While research on antiviolence activism focuses primarily on the U.S. context, feminists in India have also long debated the role of the state in addressing sexual violence. The women's movement in India initially remained cautious in its engagement with the state, particularly after the “Emergency” period in the late 1970s, for fear that increased state power could be used to suppress political dissent (Kotiswaran, 2018). The first successful agitations against rape were specifically against “custodial” rape, such as rape by police officers or the army (Gangoli, 2007). Yet, feminism in India has increasingly turned to the state and criminal law. Gangoli and Rew (2014) argue that activists' efforts to pass legal reforms to prevent domestic violence in India resulted in a “strategic co-optation,” as feminist organizations used the law while remaining critical of it. However, other feminist scholars have critiqued the movement's focus on legal reform. Agnes (1992) argues that new laws in India that strengthen the state enforcement apparatus fail to change the “anti-poor, anti-minority, and anti-women” attitudes of the powers that be and are at best an “eye-wash” and at worst “a weapon of state co-option and manipulation.” Menon (2004) echoes Agnes's concerns, claiming that new laws do not change the social and systemic conditions from which gender violence emerges and stressing that “the implementation of these laws remains conservative and partial” (p. 5). Both emphasize the risk that an alliance with the state could result in its cooptation of feminist rhetoric to pursue a racist or classist agenda. This study bridges the scholarly discourse on carceral feminism and its critiques in the U.S. context to similar debates in India on the dangers of state intervention to achieve feminist goals.
Concerns about sexual violence in India, in fact, have been used to promote interethnic conflict for nationalist political agendas, as is evident in the Hindu nationalists' portrayal of Muslim men as hypersexualized predators threatening Hindu women (Sehgal, 2007). Muslim communities in India have repeatedly suffered violence and riots in response to rumors of Muslim men raping Hindu women (Basu, 2015; Roychowdhury, 2016). In the debates leading up to the Domestic Violence Act in 2005, some politicians used the issue of domestic violence as a tool to attack minority communities, particularly Muslims (Gangoli & Rew, 2014). This research raises concerns about the appropriation of feminist agendas by politicians who seek to promote interethnic conflict or blame marginalized groups for these crimes.
Meaning Making, Social Movements, and the Media
The media is a crucial site for meaning making and cultural battles over how to understand and address social issues (Cuklanz, 1996; Gamson & Stuart, 1992). Discussions and debates that take place in the media are essential aspects of a well-functioning democratic society because they help citizens make informed political decisions (Moorti, 2002). The role of the media can be particularly important for social movements that use it to mobilize constituents and shape public perceptions of social issues (Benford & Snow, 2000; Gitlin, 1980; Snow et al., 1986). However, there are also power dynamics involved in meaning creation. The context from which frames emerge, such as television media, can place limits on the possible repertoire of meaning making that activists have access to (Ferree, 2003, 2012; Gamson & Meyer, 1996; Steinberg, 1999).
The media does not just play a passive role in this process of meaning making, as an objective mirror of reality, but rather can actively shape discourse by choosing what to report, how to frame social issues, and who to include in public discourse (Benedict, 1992). While the media can be a “source of power” for movement organizations (Gitlin, 1980), the biased power structure of the media can also lead to exclusion, condemnation, and/or trivialization of marginalized groups (Tuchman, 1978). In fact, Prabhash (2005) has found that women are often ignored in Indian news and that the institutional power structures that reinforce gender oppression are not questioned in media discourse.
Some scholarship in the field of media and cultural studies has specifically examined the representation of sexual violence in mass media, analyzing both news coverage of highly publicized rape cases as well as depictions of rape in television shows. Research has shown how the media can perpetuate existing rape myths (Benedict, 1992), draw on racial stereotypes in their portrayal of rape (Meyers, 2004; Moorti, 2002), as well as make space for gendered and feminist interpretations of sexual violence (Cuklanz, 2013; Falkof, 2019). Falkof (2019) analyzes news coverage of a gang rape and murder in South Africa that occurred in 2013 and finds two competing discourses: a “feminist” discourse, which describes the death as a result of hegemonic patriarchy and a culture of toxic masculinity, and a “political” discourse, which focuses on “lawlessness” without discussing gender. She finds that the second discourse is more pervasive and argues that these highly publicized cases become symbols of crime and social decay. A recent analysis of international print news coverage of the 2012 Delhi rape case reveals how racial, ethnic, and class anxieties can shape narratives of rape and fuel public anger (Roychowdhury, 2013). Roychowdhury (2013) finds that these news outlets portray Jyoti Singh Pandey, the victim in the 2012 case, as an urban, middle class, young, and educated woman who is part of the “modern” and “developed” India, incorporated into the capitalist global economy. In contrast, these outlets portray her perpetrators as working-class and lower caste migrant laborers living in the slums on the outskirts of Delhi, symbolizing the threatening “old India” (Roychowdhury, 2013). Roychowdhury argues that this framing is dangerous because it can lead to increasingly punitive government action against the working class and lower castes of India and a governance model where state violence and violation become accepted and actually sought after. In analyzing print news outlets, however, her study is unable to capture the discursive struggle around these issues.
Research in this field of media and cultural studies tends to focus narrowly on the media's representations of sexual violence, rather than how different actors use the media to push forward their agenda and engage in dynamic cultural struggles with one another. Much of this work also analyzes print news media, with very little attention to televised discourse on mainstream news outlets, crucial sites where public figures, such as activists and politicians, come together for discussion and debate. Television discourse provides a window into how public figures engage in a discursive struggle, putting forth competing visions for how to understand and address gender-based violence. Rather than analyzing isolated quotes from individuals in print news articles, my unique dataset of television broadcasts allows me to analyze how these actors interact with one another directly in the public sphere.
Methods
The aim of this analysis is to explore how participants in televised media discourse engage with one another in a cultural battle over the meaning and interpretation of gender-based violence and how the media enables and constrains the discourse in various ways. I draw on NDTV, New Delhi Television, broadcasts published online because this news station was ranked among the top English news channels during the period of data collection and recently ranked fourth in viewership among English news channels. 2 Though NDTV 24 × 7 is a prominent English news station, it is one among a vast field of television news in India. English is now the second most common language in India behind Hindi, but the estimated 10%–30% who have some fluency in English are primarily college-educated urbanites and elites (Times of India, 2010). Despite these limitations, this analysis can illuminate some dynamics of discourse among elite actors, social movement activists, and others who participate on NDTV panels.
For this study, I collected all NDTV broadcasts from December 17, 2012 to March 11, 2013 using the search term, “Delhi gang rape,” which became a catchphrase for the high-profile rape case. The total number of videos analyzed is 46, comprising ∼20 hr of broadcast time, with segments ranging from 5 to 45 min. Of the 46 videos, 27 include panel discussions mediated by NDTV hosts with a range of three to eight panelists. These panels are the primary focus of this analysis. While most of the panel discussions are in English (n = 23), several are in Hindi (n = 3) or both English and Hindi (n = 1). 3
NDTV strategically selects people who represent different organizations or interests to participate on their panels, which provides for lively debate and attracts viewers to the network. I categorized panelists into identity groups based on how they are introduced and outside research on the activities or groups with which the panelist is engaged. Panelists can occupy more than one social position. I created the identity category of “activist” to encompass panelists who are members of a women's organization addressing gender-based violence, women's rights lawyers, have participated in campaigns against any form of gender-based violence, have participated in and/or organized protests in this movement, and/or write extensively on women's issues. Another major identity group consists of elite panelists, which include political figures and police affiliates. Political figures encompass a range of positions within the state apparatus including Members of Parliament (MPs) as well as Former Solicitors General (i.e., former government legal advisors). The majority of political figures are affiliated with one of the two most prominent political parties in India: National Congress, a center-left party that gained power with India's independence, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing party with connections to Hindu nationalist organizations. Across all the NDTV segments analyzed, 46 panelists are activists, 20 are political figures, eight are affiliated with the police, and 22 occupy a variety of other social identities. While the majority of panelists appear on only one panel, one-fifth appear twice and a few appear more than twice.
In order to make sense of the patterns that emerge across different types of panels, I organized panels into a typology of panel types. Not all panels fit neatly into this typology, but a typology can help make sense of how NDTV structures discourse and how this structure shapes the discourse that emerges. I distinguish between three types of panels: (1) the activist panel (n = 9), (2) the elite panel (n = 2), and (3) the contentious panel (n = 10). The activist panel consists primarily of activists or progressive authors, writers, or academics. The elite panel consists primarily of people in positions of power within the state apparatus, such as Members of Parliament, other government employees, and people affiliated with the police. The contentious panel includes panelists with a wide range of social positions, including both elite panelists as well as activists and others. Only three panels did not fit neatly into these three categories. The different composition of these panels provides important context for the debates that emerge and the topics and voices that dominate the discussion.
This study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis that involves several steps of inductive and deductive reasoning. I first generated a list of themes informed by the relevant literature and research on the women's movement in India. I watched each broadcast in full, allowing new themes to arise, taking detailed notes and extracting quotes. This list of themes then took the form of a concrete list of codes. I rewatched each video and coded statements. 4 This form of data analysis allows me to elaborate on the frequency with which themes emerge across panelist identity groups and panel types. As the analysis proceeded, it became clear that the types of frames deployed varied by panel type. These findings echo Whittier's insight that “both discursive fields and institutional structures affect how activists frame issues and how frames are adopted and altered by those in power” (Whittier, 2016, p. 794). In addition to analyzing quantitative patterns across panels and identity groups, I also qualitatively analyzed the narratives that emerged in the NDTV discourse, how meaning was communicated and contested, how panelists interacted and engaged with one another, and how the format and context of each exchange provided opportunities and barriers to discourse.
Findings: Discursive Resistance on NDTV Panels
This section analyzes the dynamics of discourse on NDTV panels. I find that elite panelists sometimes use the discussion of sexual violence as a basis to pursue their own punitive agendas, disregarding gendered interpretations of and responses to rape. While some advocate for the death penalty, others advocate for increased crime control more generally or increased resources and capacity of the police. Feminist activists as well as progressive journalists, authors, scholars, and actors engage in discursive resistance to these crime-control and gender-blind approaches to sexual violence. They challenge the state's appropriation of feminist issues to pursue punitive agendas and infuse the discourse with gendered understandings of sexual violence as well as calls for an end to rape culture and impunity. They also reject attempts to blame violence on marginalized groups and push the discourse beyond criminal justice to deep-seated and broader causes of sexual violence. However, they do not provide alternative visions for confronting this issue that do not rely on a state criminal justice response.
NDTV structures the discourse in such a way that invites this resistance to punitive, crime-centered, and gender-blind approaches to sexual violence through its selection of panelists and the contributions of hosts as they guide these discussions. While elite panelists do sometimes use these discussions to pursue their own punitive agendas, they rarely can do so on NDTV without receiving push back. Only two panels are dominated by elite actors. In contrast, nine panels consist primarily of activists and progressive actors and ten are contentious panels, with a mix of elite actors, activists, and others who engage in discussion and debate. The different compositions of panels create unique contexts in which different discourses emerge. These findings reveal how the media can be both a vehicle for people to share their perspectives on different issues as well as an active participant in the discourse, making space for and sometimes actively engaging in resistance to certain types of discourse. Each following subsection, organized by theme, describes how panelists engage with one another about these various topics. Table 1 summarizes the distribution of topics that panelists discuss across panelist identity groups.
Number of Panelists that Reference Each Topic, by Panelist Identity Group.
Note. A “reference” consists of a panelist mentioning the topic at least ones throughout the panel discussion. Since some panelists belong to multiple identity groups (n = 6), rows do not sum to the total.
Since some panelists belong to multiple identity groups (n=6), rows do not sum to the total.
The Death Penalty
Protestors' calls for the death penalty for rape captured the attention of the media, making this punitive measure a frequent topic of discussion on NDTV panels. Politically affiliated panelists on NDTV are the only panelists that openly support the death penalty for rape, perhaps a political move to show they are taking this issue seriously. A total of four politically affiliated panelists express their support for the death penalty throughout the NDTV segments analyzed (see Table 1). No members of women's organizations and none of the self-proclaimed or NDTV-defined activists participating on NDTV panels support the death penalty as a solution to rape. In fact, though the topic of the death penalty arises on activist panels, none of the participants on these panels express support for this measure.
When the NDTV hosts introduce the topic of the death penalty or politically affiliated panelists express support for this measure, actors and other progressive panelists resist this extreme punitive approach to sexual violence. Some bring the focus back to impunity, arguing that certainty, rather than severity, of punishment should be the main priority. For example, on a contentious panel, BJP Member of Parliament, Yashodhara Raje, claims she supports the death penalty as a deterrent, a signal that, “If you are going to behave like animals, then you will be treated like animals.” 5 In response to Raje, the actor and activist, Shabana Azmi, responds, “It is the certainty of the punishment, not the severity of the punishment that is going to act as a deterrent.” She refocuses attention from the severity of punishment to the need for a functioning justice system that responds to sexual violence and ends impunity. Similarly, when the NDTV host asks Anuradha Kapoor, a member of a women's organization participating on an activist panel, whether she supports the death penalty, Kapoor responds, “I think the problem is… the manner of the implementation and… what the woman goes through in the process.” She directs attention back to survivors of rape, who are often blamed throughout the criminal justice process for the violence they endure. She concludes by stating, “I think the main point is the impunity. People know they will get away with it.” These activists resist calls for the death penalty and instead shift focus towards the negative experiences of survivors throughout the criminal justice process and the impunity with which people perpetrate these crimes.
On activist panels in particular, some participants directly challenge the death penalty for rape as an abuse of power and an appropriation of feminist issues. Veena Gowda, a women's rights lawyer, states, “I don't think death penalty is the answer to the problem today. Come on, ultimately what you’re actually saying is you want to give the state the power to take away someone's life. I mean, I can't support something like that.” On another activist panel, scholar Dr. Akshay Khanna argues that the campaign for the death penalty is the result of “the appropriation [of antiviolence activism] by political parties.” The contributions of a feminist speaking Hindi also challenge the death penalty as a solution to rape. Kavita, a rural feminist activist, says, “The revenge of violence should not be to act with violence.” She expresses confusion with the focus on punishment and does not think the offenders should be hung, but rather believes that strict laws need to be put in place in order to change people's behavior. These activists explicitly challenge an increase in the state's punitive powers in the name of protecting women.
Some activists point out that imposing such a harsh punishment for rape can actually hinder efforts to hold people accountable. Kapoor, for example, argues that, “If there is a death penalty, then very few people will be convicted,” perhaps alluding to the fact judges will be less willing to convict someone if they feel the punishment is too harsh. On a contentious panel, feminist activist, Kavita Krishnan points out that increased severity of punishment, like the death penalty, can actually act as a deterrent for victims to report sexual violence that occurs within their own families or at the hands of people they know.
On one of the two elite panels, one panelist has clearly been invited by NDTV to push back against calls for the death penalty for rape. After a Member of Parliament affiliated with the BJP, Yashodhara Raje, expresses support for the death penalty, the host introduces Praveen Swami, the senior associate editor of The Hindu, by stating that he has “some very interesting statistics” about the death penalty. Swami then states that no studies provide evidence for the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring crime. He challenges the focus on punishment and policing by stating, “The debate about rape isn't a debate about policing … ultimately this is going to get results when the values we teach our sons and their attitudes start to change … the problem is us.” Swami is clearly invited onto this elite panel to share evidence against the use of the death penalty, and he ends up also challenging the narrow focus on punishment and policing in the discussion, bringing in a gendered perspective on sexual violence. By inviting Swami to participate on this predominantly elite panel, NDTV structures the discourse in such a way to invite resistance to the appropriation of feminist issues for the state's pursuit of a punitive agenda.
In one unique exchange, a feminist activist challenges the celebration of the extralegal death of one of the accused in the 2012 case. This man was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial in Tihar Jail, a prison complex in New Delhi. While the incident was first thought to be a suicide, questions remained as to whether he was murdered. On one contentious panel, panelists debate the responsibility of the government in his death and the public celebrations that took place after he died. Nilanjana Roy, a social critic and author, rejects these celebrations claiming, “One of the hardest things for us to accept in a democracy … is that even the worst criminals, even people who have committed horrific crimes, do have human rights.” Renuka Chowdhury, a Member of Parliament, responds by deflecting attention from the human rights of the accused and claiming support for victims. She states, “While there are people who talk about the human rights of prisoners, there's a nation that asks about the human rights of people who are killed by such people.” However, Roy responds by stating, “I don't think the government can escape responsibility as easily as it would like to by hinting that there's some kind of competition between the rights of the victim and the rights of the accused. You don't get to choose. Human rights apply equally.” Here, Roy condemns Chowdhury's punitive approach to violence against women and emphasizes instead the human rights of the prisoner. This exchange is particularly interesting given Bernstein's argument that human rights discourse is “a vehicle … for the transnationalization of carceral politics” (Bernstein, 2012, p. 235). Bernstein argues that, just as antiviolence efforts in the United States fed into the country's growing culture of control, the human rights approach to confronting gender-based violence similarly imbues states with increased punitive powers and enables state violence under a feminist guise. My findings provide some evidence that this is not always the case, illustrating how human rights discourse can actually serve as a tool to reveal how states violate the rights of prisoners.
Contending With the Crime Frame
Many elite panelists discuss sexual violence in the context of crime more generally, using this topic as a basis to advocate for increased crime control without invoking any gendered analysis of rape. I coded these statements as crime. Whittier (2016) defines a crime frame as one that “emphasizes that domestic violence and rape are common, part of a ‘violent crime epidemic’ (U.S. Senate, 1990, p. 19), and equated violence against women to other crimes.” The crime frame is one of the most prevalent frames among political figures and police affiliates. Almost half of political figures and over a third of people affiliated with the police use the crime frame at least once, compared to only one out of 45 activists and no members of women's organizations (see Table 1). Political figures affiliated with the BJP use the crime frame at a higher frequency (n = 10) compared to political figures affiliated with the National Congress party (n = 1). While panelists use the crime frame only once in the activist panels, they use it 18 times in contentious panels and 8 times on elite panels.
On contentious panels, a discursive struggle often takes place between elite panelists embracing the crime frame and activists and other progressive panelists who push back against this narrow frame and bring in gendered interpretations of rape. On one particular contentious panel, the three elite panelists all embrace a crime frame, focusing on crime and punishment more broadly and ignoring or explicitly pushing aside gender. Arun Bhagat, a former Delhi police commissioner, says, “Why are we giving respectability to criminals? Why is there a ban on the use of handcuffs? In United States they use manacles on the legs.” Bhagat does not discuss gender-based violence specifically, but rather claims that society treats “criminals” too well, looking to the United States, one of the countries with the highest incarceration rates in the world, as a positive example. Yashodhara Raje, a BJP Member of Parliament, groups rape with other crimes, drawing attention to lawlessness more broadly and a dysfunctional criminal justice system. Harish Salve, the Former Solicitor General of India affiliated with the BJP, even explicitly urges panelists to remove gender from the discussion, saying, “Let's leave the gender justice issue out of this.” He proceeds to focus on crime control and the problem of crime more generally in India. These statements serve as examples of the ways in which elite panelists use the topic of sexual violence to advocate for increased crime control more broadly, failing to address gender-based violence specifically.
The two actor/activists on this same contentious panel challenge the narrow focus on crime and punishment, bringing in gendered interpretations of rape. Shabana Azmi, a prominent public figure and actor who is vocal about women's issues, simply ignores Salve's call to push gender aside. She responds to his statements by pointing out, “Violence against women has a tacit approval in society and rape is a way of exercising power and subjugating women.” She claims that these crimes happen because of impunity, “Because you feel that you can get away with it.” Gul Panag, another actor who is vocal about women's issues, echoes Azmi's claims and argues that rape is a systemic problem with its roots in “the patriarchal attitude which has transcended society at all levels” and which leads to impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence. While the need for law and order to address this sense of impunity is central for Panag, she also invokes a gendered analysis of sexual violence. Azmi and Panag refuse to “leave the gender justice issue out of this” and insist on considering how widespread patriarchal attitudes and impunity for rape perpetuate violence. While their position could be defined as “carceral feminist” by Bernstein (2012) or gendered crime frame by Whittier (2016), their contributions push the boundaries of discourse towards gendered analyses of sexual violence in the context of the contentious panel where the crime frame and punitive attitudes by fellow panelists are rampant.
The solution to impunity for rape for many activists is not increased crime control and punishment, but rather addressing rape culture that permeates the criminal justice process and eliminating laws that explicitly grant impunity for sexual violence. Kapoor describes how, “The court process itself is so terrible for the woman. … And women also don't want to come out and talk about it because … they are the ones that are questioned. They are the ones that are asked, ‘Why were you out at night? What were you doing there?’” This rape culture throughout the justice system, Anuradha points out, leads to impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence. Veena Gowda argues for “a sustained, effective legal system,” but emphasizes that rape culture serves as a barrier to such a system. She says, “The police officers say that the incidents occur because of the way women dress, because of the time that they go out.” Some panelists, such as Warisha Farasat, a lawyer who is vocal about gender issues, describe how laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 6 “are enabling this kind of impunity” for security forces and police officials. These panelists argue that impunity persists both because rape culture prevents the effective implementation of existing laws and because of the existence of laws that protect perpetrators of sexual violence.
Even when resisting the crime frame on contentious panels, some activists do focus their attention on the criminal justice system as the primary site for social change. For some, this focus stems from a desire for simple and immediate solutions to the complex problem at hand. For example, Anant, an actor and activist, starts by saying, “The failure starts from way back. … It is the social structure he's living in. But all that is… Right now, maybe it's not the right time to discuss it. Right now, we need to discuss deterrence and probably get some deterrence into place.” Anant argues that we need immediate solutions and deterring people from committing these crimes is the quickest solution at hand. Similarly, Kavita Krishnan, a prominent feminist activist, claims that a public proper protocol is necessary and distrusts the focus on mindsets. She says, “I completely can't buy the argument that we have to wait for cultural mindset change to happen in the country, ok, you have to have a protocol. You have to say, if this is violated, then not only will the person doing the violating in the police be charged, [they] will face punishment.” These examples reveal how some panelists are weary of focusing on the broader structural and cultural roots of the issue of gender-based violence, and rather want to focus on something more tangible and immediate: implementing an effective criminal justice system.
Overall, these activists and progressive panelists are less concerned about the severity of punishment and “crime control” generally, and more concerned about the impunity with which perpetrators commit acts of sexual violence. They criticize the failure of the justice system and society more broadly to condemn gender-based violence and support victims throughout the process. They oppose severe punishment like the death penalty and instead call for a justice system that does not blame victims for these crimes. However, in calling for an end to impunity for rape and a functioning legal system, panelists typically rely on existing laws and the criminal justice system, like the carceral feminism that some scholars have critiqued. They do not provide alternative visions for ending impunity that do not involve the state's punitive powers.
Defining Police Reforms
Calls for police reforms are widespread throughout the discourse, with 22 panelists (25%) discussing this topic at least once (see Table 1). However, the meaning attached to this term differs across panelists. Political figures and police affiliates calling for police reforms rarely invoke gendered analyses or critiques of police actions, but rather use the topic of sexual violence as a basis to advocate for increased police capacity and resources to solve and prevent crime. These calls for police reform are examples of how elite figures attempt to appropriate feminist discourse, using the same concept embraced by feminists, but transforming its meaning to pursue different goals. Activists and other progressive panelists typically push back against this narrow definition of police reform, emphasizing how the process of justice for the victim is fraught with gender bias and victim blaming by the police. Half of feminist activists that discuss police reform criticize the way police often blame women for rape, as opposed to only one out of nine political figures and no police affiliates.
One instance of this discursive struggle over the meaning of police reforms occurs on one of the contentious panels described above, where Salve and Bhagat, two elite panelists, emphasize police resources and efficiency while Azmi, Panag, and the NDTV host resist this narrow frame and bring gender and rape culture into the discussion. Bhagat criticizes “police inefficiency” and Salve claims that the issue at hand is “a policing problem” that you solve by “inculcate[ing] the fear of the law … by better prevention and better enforcement.” Salve continues, “The real problem is … we have not invested in the infrastructure of criminal investigation. … If the poor policeman investigating has neither the skills nor the equipment to conduct a proper investigation, the accused goes free.” In this scenario that Salve describes, the “poor policeman” is the victim of the situation, rather than the survivors of sexual violence who are often blamed and questioned by the police for the violence they endure. Azmi, apparently frustrated by this lack of focus on gender, asks, “What about gender sensitization?” The NDTV host then brings attention to rape culture, saying, “The problem is … when you go to a cop and say, ‘rape’ he's gonna wonder whether this was consensual … it's a mindset.” The host herself brings up the issue that many police doubt victims' accounts. The host and the two activists resist elite panelists' attempts to use the issue of sexual violence to pursue punitive agendas, which include building police capacity. They, instead, force fellow panelists and viewers to consider the gendered aspects of the criminal case process, how rape culture throughout the system perpetuates sexual violence and survives when granted impunity.
On another contentious panel, where elite panelists similarly remain focused on police resources and strategy, a feminist activist challenges the very idea that increased policing can help address the issue of gender-based violence. Kavita Krishnan asks, “Can't we look at this question without the focus purely on policing? … Rape is not something that animals out there do. It is something that is produced daily within our society, in our families.” In this particular instance, the purpose of challenging the focus on policing is to expose how rape also happens in much more private and hidden contexts, such as within families, where an increase in policing will have no impact.
Resisting Blaming Marginalized Groups
Some elite participants try to blame the marginalized, poor, or migrants for gender-based violence. This framing is consistent with the findings from a recent analysis of international print news coverage of the Delhi gang rape (Roychowdhury, 2013). However, on NDTV broadcasts, we see a pattern of resistance to this framing as other panelists, including activists, members of women's organizations, and the hosts themselves, challenge this perspective, arguing that rape transcends social class. In one instance, Anil Shukla, the Additional Commissioner Headquarters at the Delhi Police, introduces the idea that rapists come from a specific background. He says, “What is the profile of the accused? … There are a lot of socioeconomic factors [associated with rape], migrant population, floating population.” However, Kavita Krishnan immediately rejects this idea, saying, “I really have to strongly, strongly disagree with that because I feel that there you are heading towards a certain kind of profiling which is very dangerous. … The idea that it's only migrant populations … I find that to be very dangerous and I don't think we should go there.” Here we see a prominent feminist strongly resisting an image that conflates rapists with migrant populations or people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In another instance, Harish Salve, the Former Solicitor General of India, argues that there is a “huge underworld” in India that is “growing by the day, people who don't care for the law.” The NDTV host responds by pointing out that there are also men from “well-to-do” families that commit acts of violence. The actor/activist, Azmi, adds, “It's got nothing to do with their economic condition. It is a mindset in which you feel that this is the way you can control the woman.” On this panel, the NDTV host herself is an active participant in challenging the view that gender-based violence is simply a product of the “underworld” of criminals. Activists and their allies do not stand by and let elite figures use the issue of gender-based violence to further any racist, classist agenda, but rather they actively resist this type of framing of the issue.
Beyond Criminal Justice
Throughout the NDTV discussions, there are instances in which the hosts and panelists bring up fundamental, deep-seated causes of gender-based violence and propose solutions to address these issues in order to prevent sexual violence. Panelists introduce various topics including the objectification of women, images of aggressive masculinity in the media, and a culture and mindset that accepts these forms of violence. On one contentious mixed panel, Namita Bhandare, a feminist and columnist who started an online petition amid the protests, comments on how she wants to broaden the discussion beyond the punishment of the accused in this specific case. She says, “We want a larger debate. We want a debate on female feticide. We want a debate on attitudes.” Bhandare wants to shift the focus of discourse beyond this one case and the criminal justice response, to broader issues that shape and perpetuate sexual violence.
On activist panels, the absence of elite panelists who adopt the crime frame seems to provide more space for discussion of these broader causes of gender-based violence because activists do not need to resist the crime-centered and gender-blind approach to sexual violence. On one activist panel, scholar Dr. Akshay Khanna argues, “I think we have to look at a broader level. Let's look at the state, let's look at the violence of the state in different parts of this country.” He refocuses attention to images of “aggressive masculinity” in the media and the production of a “culture of violence.” On one panel discussion that initially centers around impunity for perpetrators of violence and the state's failure to implement laws, the host shifts the focus and asks, “I think the general consensus is that somewhere of course the state is failing, … but don't you feel that there is a certain responsibility lies with you and me, all of us as a society as well?” Here the NDTV host herself is creating space for a broader discussion of causes of gender-based violence. The feminist activist, Anuradha Kapoor, answers, “I think absolutely, I think that it's important that socially we question the fact, how is it that men go out there, this whole patriarchal understanding of well, we can abuse women, restricting women's mobility through the fear of rape.” These panelists and the hosts make sure to address how there are deep-seated causes of gender-based violence that must be confronted that go beyond the criminal justice response.
Discussion and Conclusion
This article reveals how elite state actors were the primary advocates of punitive, crime-centered approaches to gender-based violence, whereas feminist activists and other progressive panelists discursively resist these approaches. They refocus attention from crime and punishment to impunity, gendered processes of justice, rape culture, and patriarchal structures and attitudes that support and reinforce gender-based violence. Some directly challenge the punitive approach and resist attempts to blame marginalized groups for these crimes. Attention to discursive opportunity structures reveals how NDTV makes space for and even invites discursive resistance to punitive approaches to gender-based violence. Panels that included solely elite figures were rare. More prevalent were either panels dominated by activists or contentious panels with people from many different social positions engaging in discursive struggles over how to understand and respond to gender-based violence. This variety of participants in the discourse provides ample opportunity for discursive struggle and resistance. NDTV hosts sometimes even invite or engage in resistance themselves. These findings complicate our understanding of how feminists and their allies engage with punitive responses to gender-based violence and how the media can shape and make space for resistance to crime-centered and gender-blind discourse.
By decentering the United States, this study expands our understanding of the various forms of feminist engagement with the state across contexts. Context can shape feminist strategies for addressing gender-based violence and state engagement with antiviolence efforts. Roychowdhury (2016) argues that feminist antiviolence activism faces unique challenges in “weaker” states, like India, where popular politics can more frequently overpower the law. This overpowering of the law can be particularly dangerous in any context where race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity all shape public perceptions and anxieties regarding sexual violence. In particular, they shape perceptions of “worthy” victims and punishable perpetrators. Activists participating on NDTV had to navigate a unique sociopolitical context where class, caste, and religion shape public perceptions of rape, and some in fact did resist framings of sexual violence introduced by state-affiliated actors that drew on caste and class stereotypes.
A country's history of state violence and relationship with the criminal justice system can also importantly shape how feminists engage with the state and the consequences of doing so. The United States is rather unique in its heavy reliance on prisons, with an incarceration rate that far surpasses that of most other countries, including India. In the Indian context, therefore, it may make less sense to speak of “carceral feminism” in the same way as in the United States. India faces its own set of challenges when it comes to state overreach and state violence. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, for example, is a law that many women's organizations and activists oppose because it grants impunity to some perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict zones. The use of the death penalty, though by no means unique to India, is also a form of state violence that feminists must contend with. Some scholars have described how the death penalty has made a strong come back in India's popular imagination since the 2012 Delhi gang rape (Surendranath, 2017). In fact, the 2012 case was placed in a “fast track” court, where the perpetrators were sentenced to death. The government ultimately enacted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013, which instituted the death penalty for repeat offenses of rape. The threat of state violence, therefore, is ever present and a challenge that Indian feminists must grapple with.
While the unique context of India can shape feminist and state responses to sexual violence, there are noteworthy parallels between the discourse on NDTV and discourse in other contexts. In her analysis of congressional hearings that led to the Violence Against Women Act in the United States, Whittier (2016) finds that some state actors adopt a crime frame that ignores gender in its analysis of rape. Falkof (2019) analyzes newspaper coverage of a gang rape in South Africa that occurred in 2013 and finds that a “political” discourse, which focuses on lawlessness without discussing masculinity, is prevalent. This “political” discourse is similar to the crime frame that Whittier describes and that I find in this analysis of NDTV broadcasts, with a narrow focus on crime and lawlessness without any analysis or acknowledgement of gender. These parallels between discourses across contexts reveal how the crime frame, a gender-blind, punitive approach to sexual violence, put forth primarily by state actors is a strong force internationally that feminists must contend with. Future research should be attuned to these competing public framings of sexual violence.
Public television is a crucial site where meaning making and cultural battles take place, shaping how people think and talk about a wide range of social issues. While this analysis of NDTV discourse does not presume to generalize to the dynamics of “Indian media” or “Indian feminism” more broadly, it does reveal the dynamics of resistance and discursive struggle that take place in this particular public space between elite figures, activists, and others. The narratives that emerge in these public forums can shape how people think about a social problem and how societies choose to respond to social issues. While prior print media studies reveal the types of frames that emerge in news coverage of sexual violence, this analysis of a unique dataset of NDTV broadcasts provides a window into how activists, state actors, and other public figures engage with one another in a cultural battle over how to understand and address gender-based violence in India. We see resistance from activists and others in response to statements by the state that ignore gender and focus solely on punishment.
The contributions of activists and other progressives, however, lack a serious consideration of what type of state response would be appropriate and what limits should be placed on state power. Most panelists who argue for a functioning legal system defer to existing laws and seem content with the status quo in terms of punishment. In this particular context, they do not offer a vision of what a nonpunitive response to ending impunity might look like. However, this omission may reflect less a failure of activists and more a limitation to the emancipatory potential of mainstream televisions news discourse.
This case highlights the possibilities and limitations of cultural change and meaning making through mainstream television media. These discussions are mediated by news agencies, and the frames that emerge depend on how the television agency structures discourse, how the hosts frame questions and issues, and who the agency invites to participate. This case illustrates how activists and other panelists are more easily able to move beyond the narrow focus on crime when police and political figures are not present on NDTV panels. However, the contentious panels are the most prevalent panel type on NDTV, likely because NDTV attracts more viewers when politicians, police, and activists are debating, rather than when feminists are engaging in creative discussions about how to address gender-based violence. While activists participating on NDTV did not often provide alternatives to the carceral model (e.g., transformative justice), that does not mean those models do not exist in India. This case raises questions about the limits of mainstream television news for developing emancipatory or transformative ideas of justice.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Pamela Oliver, Myra Marx Ferree, Gay Seidman, Kjersten Bunker Whittington, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and support.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
