Pledge of 16 Dec 2013: Commemorating Delhi’s Braveheart, Marching ahead for Women’s Right To Freedom Without Fear

On 16th December, 2013 hundreds of students,volunteers,professors,activists and common people marched from JNU to Munirka bus stop commemorating the unknown braveheart of 16th december and the movement for women’s right to freedom without fear that followed and pledged to keep the flame alive.

On December 16 this year, as we pay tribute to the young woman whose life was cruelly taken away…

We pledge to resist all patriarchal dictats and norms.

We pledge to challenge the sense of ‘entitlement’ that men feel over women: that husbands feel over wives; that Army men feel over ‘enemy’ women; that feudal landlords feel over dalit women; that brothers and parents feel over sisters and daughters on how they will dress and who they will love or marry.

We pledge to respect women’s consent, their autonomy, their right to say No.

We pledge to fight against all forms of patriarchal violence, be these rape, ‘honour’ killings, female infanticide or acid attacks.

We will fight to ensure that no woman ever has to undergo such horrors, just as we pledge to ensure justice, compensation and reparation for survivors of sexual crimes and their right to live a life of dignity.

We promise that we will stand up for the right of Gudiya not to be raped – as well as for her right to study and live life fully after rape.

We pledge to raise our voices against those in authority who defend harassers and rapists, those who undertake surveillance in the name of ‘protection’, as well as those who indulge in misogynistic stereotypes and remarks.

We pledge to uphold a women’s right over her body above the institution of marriage.

We pledge to ensure dignity for the household labour of women and the labour that women perform everyday in factories, establishments and fields.

We pledge to ensure every institution and workplace mandatorily forms anti-sexual harassment committee and make the workplace free from sexual harassment.

We promise not to wait for a Pavitra to die before we support her in her struggle against sexual harassment.

We pledge to carry forward the struggle for the full implementation of the Verma Committee Recommendations.

We pledge to challenge the patriarchies of the parliament, police, entertainment and educational systems in all their myriad forms.

We will raise our voices against the cops and the VCs, judges, editors and the bosses who defend sexual harassers and rapists or blame women for being ‘normal’ after rape.

We pledge to fight for the removal of AFSPA and will no longer allow custodial rapes and torture to be defended in the name of ‘national pride’

We pledge to resist when rapists are defended in our name – in the name of the ‘nation’ – because the rapists are in uniform and the raped are women of the ‘enemy community.’

We will fight to ensure that the dictats of caste groups and khaap panchayats no longer snuff out the lives of young lovers and couples like Manoj and Babli and Divya and Ilavarasan or a Rizwanur Rahman can live together in peace.

We refuse to uphold the colonial and fossilized section 377 of the IPC and pledge to reverse the SC Verdict that criminalises Same-Sex Expressions.

We will fight to ensure that law of the land is held accountable to safeguard constitutional morality against ‘popular’/majoritarian morality and khaap mentality.

We will fight for the rights of the man to wear a sari and the woman to wear a short skirt.

We will stand with the Kashmiri, Muslim and Dalit man who seeks to hold his head high and love a woman without fear.

We will fight for the rights of protestors to walk the streets without fear of bullets and tear gas.

We will fight for the right to love or live with whom we choose, without fear.

We must ask men not only to ‘respect women,’ but also to respect women’s right not to be ‘respectable’.

We pledge to take forward the struggle for bekhauf azadi, for freedom for women from all restrictions and fears.