“Will the law not protect survivors who don’t weep”: Twitter as a platform of feminist deliberation and democracy in India

Abstract

An analysis of 40,000 tweets that trended after the Tarun Tejpal acquittal in India showed that the nature of the debate around issues of molestation and rape exhibited attributes of deliberation and demonstrated that Twitter in India, in certain cases, has strong potential to emerge as a space for deliberative feminist activism. Discussions gave impetus to advocacy around sexual molestation. While the word “victim” was used in more instances rather than the human rights–based term “survivor,” Twitter debates were supportive toward survivors of assault. There was minimum trolling and patriarchy was called out as was a legal system that sided with the influential man of power. Although city-bred English-speaking voices dominated, conversations were intersectional in nature acknowledging how the horror of physical assault was perceived by different women belonging to disparate socio-economic strata and how legal systems exacerbated gender related crimes.