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Shradha Singh, a 23-year-old yoga instructor from Madhya Pradesh, went to Jantar Mantar, Delhi, in the third week of July, angry about question paper leaks. At the protest she posted a seven-second Instagram reel, set to a cleaning-products jingle, gesturing at Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel. Within hours, the video had been reshared by anonymous meme pages that claimed she had insulted the armed forces. Within a day, national news channels were broadcasting it. Within a week, Singh says, users had worked backwards from her car number plate and gotten hold of her phone number and address.

Then the calls started. She says men rang her with threats of murder and rape. Her mother’s and friends’ accounts were traced and people badgered them for her whereabouts. She has not stepped outside since. Moreover, Meta has removed 33 of her posts documenting the protest, while giving her no route of appeal.

Another protester is only 15 years old. Videos show her using cuss words directed at the prime minister, as a great many protesters did. Her Instagram handle, phone number, workplace and family details have been widely circulated. Someone even put her face on an AI-generated “Most Wanted” poster.

Six first information reports followed, filed in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, by a Supreme Court advocate who told Scroll.in that doing so would deter others: “It will make sure that other kids don’t do this.” On July 31, a video of the 15-year-old, hands folded, apologising, went out on television.

Outrage is the obvious response and the least useful one. Men in Indian public life are threatened constantly, some of them murderously. The more pertinent question is why the threat, whenever the target is a woman, is almost always rape.

A threat borrows its power from somewhere

Nobody threatens a stranger with something that carries no social meaning. Threats draw on already established fears, and rape acquired that status long ago. It promises injury, yet injury is the smaller part of the promise. What it offers is humiliation,........

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