Kavita Krishnan

Role in Nirbhaya Protests

While emerging as one of the most influential activists during the massive anti-rape protests that followed the rape and murder of a 23-year-old girl in India's capital city, New Delhi, Kavita Krishnan has contributed substantially to shaping the discourse of the movement. One of the speeches that she made at the protest outside Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's house quickly went viral on YouTube and has received over 60,000 views so far. In this speech, she laid out a kind of manifesto of the movement, one that represented a major break from the securitised, protectionist standpoint which was rife at that time and articulated women's freedom as the main demand. In this speech, she argued against the prevalent commonsense that death penalty was the solution to rape. She pointed out that the conviction rates for rape in India are extremely low and, therefore, methods such as chemical castration and death penalty can't act as deterrents. She made a strong case for arguing on the basis of women's "unqualified freedom", "freedom without fear". Her views on death penalty have been influential in shaping the discourse around rape in the aftermath of the post 16 December anti-rape protests. The demand for "Freedom Without Fear" became a rallying point for anti-rape protesters, and Kavita Krishnan's views on "Freedom" were extensively published.

Statement on Sri Lankan Easter bombings On 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, Krishnan made a premature claim on Twitter, suggesting that the attack was an act of "majoritarian terror against religious minorities." Khemta H Jose of The Quint wrote, "Kavita Krishnan, an Indian icon of the left, jumped to blame Sri Lanka's 'majority' (Sinhalese) for the Colombo bombings, before any investigation was completed – it's just one small example of the difference in the way the left deals with terror or extremism based on the identity of the perpetrator."

Harassment She had told reporters, “These trolls … they are going after me regularly, routinely, for my skin color, for my looks, telling me I’m not worth raping, what kind of torture and rape I should be subjected to, telling me what kind of men I should be sleeping with … and on and on and on, more and more.”

Fallout with CPI (M-L) Liberation Through a Facebook post on 1 September 2022, Krishnan announced that the CPI (M-L) Liberation has relieved her of all party posts and responsibilities at her request; however, she will continue to remain a member of the party. This is being seen as a fallout of her differences with the leadership on various issues including those related to China and the Russo-Ukrainian War. In the preceding months, she had often criticised socialist and communist regimes.

She wrote in a social media post, “My friends on the Indian Left… could never reconcile to the fact that the peoples of USSR and especially its colonized Republics, chose not to retain the Soviet Union and that Gorbachev at the end of the day respected that choice instead of ‘imposing socialism by bayonets’ on people who had rejected it,… It is not enough to discuss the Stalin regime, USSR, or China as failed socialisms but as some of the world’s worst authoritarianisms that serve as a model for authoritarian regimes everywhere.”

Book reception: Fearless Freedom Fearless Freedom by Kavita Krishnan was published in May 2020.

Popular reception by Women's Web A more popular reception of Fearless Freedom was done by Women's Web, a popular Indian blogpost which celebrates women's voices. Author Piyusha Vir talks about how Fearless Freedom acknowledges that, ‘Confinement to the home itself is a form of violence that is not even acknowledged.’ and how that acknowledgement came as a "rude reality check" for her. This reality check made Vir think of how women's lives in India are surveilled in the name of safety, and it makes her question, What can we do to dismantle this deeply patriarchal society and the system?

Recognition She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2014.