“Delhi parks to restrict entry after sunset.” This was the headline that followed the rape of a minor, a 17-year-old, in a park in South Delhi. A so-called solution that does no good and only harms women, all under the guise of protecting them. All of this in the month before the Hindu festivals of Navratri and Durga Puja, when goddesses are revered and worshipped. These protectionist idea of ‘saving’ women while simultaneously curtailing their freedom has historically been used to control women’s agency and autonomy and sustain patriarchy in Indian society. The idea of rescuing or protecting women reinforces the notion that women’s mobility, and by extension their bodies, require justification. Gendered violence has also historically been used as a tool to push women further into the domestic sphere until they become invisible in public life.Even 14 years after the Nirbhaya incident, the onus and accountability for gendered violence have still not shifted to men as perpetrators, the state for its governance failures or the legal system for making the process itself the punishment. Little seems to have changed, considering September 2026 saw at least 13 rapes and sexual assault cases in the national capital. Government data also suggests that multiple projects allocated under the Nirbhaya Fund remain unused, with the annual allocation declining in recent years. In 2011, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade authored Why Loiter?, a seminal book that maps how women from different classes and communities confront and navigate public spaces. Taking inspiration from the book, Neha Singh and Devina Kapoor launched the “Why Loiter?” campaign in 2014, a call to action for women to reclaim public spaces and challenge patriarchal norms. When Why Loiter? issued a call inviting people to organise a women’s walk in various cities of India, we decided it was time to channel our frustrations and anger by bringing women together. It was time to declare that you cannot erase us: we are part of public life, we are part of the city and we deserve safe public spaces.Photo: Anushree Jairath and Tanvi Mishra.On October 2, a Friday night, more than 150 women gathered in South Delhi, wearing pink and carrying placards. There was a pulsating energy running through the group, as the women came together from different parts of Delhi-NCR. Our Instagram post, in collaboration with the Why Loiter? campaign, received an overwhelming response, and the WhatsApp group became a hub of camaraderie and vulnerability. One woman shared how her mother had been unwilling to let her attend the walk, but she resisted and came anyway. Another said she would be travelling by metro, prompting others to coordinate with her for the journey from the station to the starting point.Also read: Night and Law: A Tumultuous HistoryBased on a poll we posted in the group, we expected a turnout of 50-60 people at most, but almost all the women had brought friends and relatives. Some male allies showed up, too, and they did not, in any way, overpower the event. The police walked alongside us, their car following us from the beginning to the end. Another attempt at ‘protecting’ us, perhaps, but we leveraged it to manage traffic and keep antisocial elements at bay.Photo: Anushree Jairath and Tanvi Mishra.Unfortunately, women are acutely aware that the legal apparatus is not their friend – as seen by the harassment meted out by the police towards women journalists during the anti-CEC protest.For the next 90 minutes, women across generations, with different motivations and ideologies, became one. Some played music, some peacefully demanded a more equitable society and some documented the walk. Everyone made the walk their own, but no one strayed from the objective: reclaiming the streets and the night, asking for better infrastructure and showing solidarity with the survivors of sexual assault.Also read: Can Only the Incumbent Reclaim the Night in West Bengal?Ours was one of many such walks across India, with almost 3,500 women marching for these demands. At the end of the walk, we arrived at a park, which was nothing if not a symbolic gesture! The group erupted in song, sending a wave of goosebumps through us. Women forged new friendships and solidarities because collectives can be an antidote to the hopelessness and despair so many of us face.What we offered through the walk was a community: a safe space where women can be themselves. And if this is what one walk can achieve, imagine public spaces where fear is replaced by friendship, protection by solidarity, and a false sense of morality by genuine optimism and hope. As one poster in the march eloquently summarised, “Din bhi hamara, aur raat bhi hamari hai” (The day is ours, the night is ours, too). Photo: Anushree Jairath and Tanvi Mishra.After the Astha Kunj Park rape, the Supreme Court ordered a safety audit of public spaces in Delhi. We can only hope that these measures do not become yet another tool for the state to curtail women’s mobility.Anushree Jairath is a feminist researcher and activist based in New Delhi. Tanvi Mishra is a nonprofit communications professional based in New Delhi.