Abstract: »Following the brutal gang rape of a paramedic student on a moving bus and her subsequent death in India in 2012, there has been a surge of interest among women’s rights activists, lawyers, researchers, and the like to condemn the increasing incidents of sexualized violence against women, as well as to call for changes to the country’s rape laws. Intimidated and disgusted by the horrific incident, an American filmmaker of Indian descent created Priya’s Shakti (2014), an augmented reality comic book in which the protagonist has also been subjected to horrific gang rape and thus faces severe criticism and ostracism from her own family and society. While Hindu mythology is crucial to the author’s narrative, he deploys it to show the courage of a common woman seeking retribution on her molesters and the ability to change people’s attitudes toward rape survivors, but only via divine intervention.
As a result, this presentation will argue that by exposing the horrific reality of bestial sexual crimes against women and drawing on Hindu mythology, this comic book broadens the tropes of its medium/format, as well as the discourse on “Rape and Revenge,” allowing for more collective response and social action to help resolve this national problem. Since the author considers the #MeToo movement in India, which encourages women to speak out against gender-based sexual violence and injustice, this presentation based on his text will also discuss the myths, reasons, and stereotypes surrounding the rape of working women in the context of India’s growing sexism and rape culture« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of India | Comic: | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in India