We started Durga to enable everyone to look at gender-based violence as an issue that’s everyone’s problem. When this journey began in 2013-2014, we realised that women felt unsafe and vulnerable in public transport. In order to make public spaces occupiable for women and buses being one, we piloted the first of its kind panic alarms (Durga Alarms) in Bangalore’s buses and also took them to Delhi. Buses are the most accessible means of transport and also the most unsafe. Women need to feel safe in buses if we want them to work, experience leisure, and move around because it’s these modes of transport that get them to places where they can do the above. The idea of the Durga Alarm was/is to create a noise on sexual violence and get attention of bystanders to intervene and address the issue immediately. This way the problem is not only of the person who has experienced harassment in the bus.
We then took the next step to enable this bystander behaviour in drivers and conductors of the BMTC buses, so they were equipped to handle these instances. This took an organic move to working with other modes of transport and organisations like Uber, Namma Yatri and therefore car drivers and autorickshaw drivers. The approach was to work with these groups to shift norms so they can become allies.
Sexual violence also happens in other public spaces and so we began to work with people who occupy these public spaces to become active bystanders. This resulted in the 25 day intervention designed to engage with the participants. The assumption behind this is that, as active, engaged, and socially conscious citizens, we will be better equipped to take that step for survivors. We work with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (ВМТС), Traffic Police, Security Guards, Street Vendors as well as Community Women and Domestic Workers.
In order to scale up our intervention and programme across the city, we began our partnership with the Bangalore Police and with National Law School Bangalore in 2024, ten years later. We tweaked the model to be lesser hours while still delivering the same knowledge and tools. We aim to enable approximately 6000 active bystanders across Bangalore.
Our next step is to take the solution at scale i.e at the scale of the problem. This means that anyone, anywhere is equipped with the skills to be an active bystander. Having engaged over 8,000 participants in Bangalore, we plan to scale by adopting a 3D approach: Demonstrate, Document, and Distribute. Collaborating with behavioral science experts, we will explore why men harass, design simple interventions, and test them with pilot groups. Insights will inform scalable solutions for broad implementation, supported by policy advocacy. By fostering partnerships with government and institutions, we seek to empower communities, making bystander intervention accessible, and build collective action to enhance safety for vulnerable groups. Our aim is to create a sustainable, large-scale solution to the problem.
Voice Out is a collective created to enable netizens to be active bystanders and intervene when they see someone in distress in virtual spaces. Today, we have our Voice out collective spread across India.