Unreported History: How Media Fragments Women’s Protest in India

Abstract

While protests have been studied, this article offers an unprecedented examination of how the Indian media disconnects women’s civic resistance from its historical and political continuity. Women’s protests in India are largely framed not as structured political claims, but as emotional outbursts or community responses. Through moments such as Mathura (1972), Bhanwari Devi (1992), Nirbhaya (2012) and Shaheen Bagh (2019–2020), the study reveals that press coverage frequently privileges symbolism and domestic identity over political agency—reducing women to symbolic figures rather than recognising them as political actors. This pattern of fragmented visibility, where each protest is rendered a standalone event, undermines the continuity of women’s participation in India’s democratic development. Drawing on the integrative and narrative review methods, the article traces shifts in how the media constructs protest—through thematic repetitions and representational choices over time. Media framing, it argues, does not merely shape public perception—but determines whether women’s resistance is acknowledged as political participation or reduced to something less than its democratic intent in popular memory. The study calls for journalistic practices that affirm protest as a legitimate civic claim, centre women’s political agency, and preserve the continuity of women’s resistance as part of India’s democratic development.