Many people are familiar with the story of Kitty Genovese, the woman who was stabbed to death while onlookers did nothing to stop it. Recently, a 20 year old Indian woman named Pradnya Mandhare was in a somewhat similar situation. She was attacked in front of 50 people who did nothing to help. However, she bravely took on the attacker and protected herself.
This girl was on her way home after a school day when a drunk man attacked her at a train station in Mumbai. No one, out of the 50 people watching, did anything to help. She stated, “He tried to hit me back and he really stunk of alcohol, but I was determined not to let him get away with it.
I know that women don’t like to complain to the police but I was determined to make sure he was punished[…]The only thing to do because nobody else was doing anything was to hit him and so I belted him with my bag.” She then dragged him, singlehandedly, to the police station, where he was arrested. This 25 year old man is still in police custody.
Mandhare is now being lauded for her heroic act. However, she does not see herself as a heroine and just thinks that women need to feel free to defend themselves, even though women there are usually afraid to go to the police. As she says, “Every woman should fight back in such cases and they should not keep quiet.”