Event, Response, and Avenues Toward Justice: Historicizing the "Delhi Gang Rape" of 2012

On December 16, 2012, Jyoti Singh Pandey was raped and murdered aboard a bus in Delhi. The case, which has come to be known as the "2012 Delhi Gang-Rape" or "Nirbhaya," caught hold of Indian popular interest, instigated mass protest, and became an international media sensation. In a world, a country, and a city where sexual assault—in many cases fatal—happens with abhorrent regularity, why did this event capture local, national, and international interest? This thesis seeks to answer this question by applying a historical approach, analyzing the rape, the responses to it, and its meaning as an event in contemporary history.