You couldn’t have missed it — the outpouring of women’s anger across India this month. Spilling into streets, bursting into confrontations, angry mothers in Manipur, a frustrated commuter in Mumbai. Rural and urban, women are done waiting for justice to inch forward, for permission to be heard.

The confrontation between a woman caught in a traffic jam in Mumbai and Maharashtra water resources minister Girish Mahajan went viral within minutes. Mahajan was leading a protest linked to the women’s representation Bill. Because he can — after all, he’s minister — he decided to hold it on a busy road, inconveniencing scores of commuters. The woman got late to pick up her child. Marching up to the minister, she confronted him in a manner that is extraordinary because we almost never see citizens question those in power so directly. Beyond the “shut ups”, “get outs”, and “damns” that minister........

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