Instagram Scandal in Delhi’s Elite Schools Complicates India’s Reckoning with Sexual Violence

Late at night on May 2, 21-year-old Haris Khan received a series of messages over Snapchat from a 16-year-old friend with whom he often played badminton. She had sent him screenshots of a direct message conversation on Instagram that featured photos of herself, taken from her own Instagram account. The conversation, Khan said, was riddled with such lewd and derogatory remarks that he was startled.

He called her soon after. She was upset and angry. Her selfies, she said, were taken without her consent and circulated in an Instagram group that called itself the “Bois locker room.” The group was formed by more than 20 teen boys from across Delhi’s elite private schools, some of whom had just graduated. The sole purpose of the group was to circulate photographs of their girl classmates, all taken from their respective Instagram accounts, and comment on their bodies.

“[They] were fantasizing about the girls,” said Khan, after seeing the many screenshots his friend had shared with him. “These were sexual fantasies crouched in derogatory language.”

The group’s activity might have remained private had it not been for one boy in the group who chose to expose the others. He knew one of the girls personally — Khan’s friend — and felt uncomfortable. On May 2, he sent her the screenshots from the group.

When she told Khan, they both decided that the other girls, whose photos had been shared on the group without their consent, deserved to know, too.

After the initial disbelief and anger, the girls decided to post the screenshots, along with the demeaning comments that accompanied their photos, on a separate Instagram account they created for this purpose. They also circulated the screenshots on Twitter. They wanted to expose not just this one group, Khan said, but women’s commonplace objectification as well.

At first, everything went well, Khan said. The public outrage sparked dialogue and even caught the attention of the press. But then, one of the screenshots that one of the girls had mistakenly posted to the account — and then deleted — hadn’t actually originated in the Bois locker room group.

It was a screenshot from an unrelated Snapchat conversation, seemingly between two boys from different elite schools in Delhi. One of them called himself Siddharth and said he was planning to rape a girl whom they both knew, egging on the other boy and compelling him to join in. The other boy, who was not a part of the Bois locker room group, refused to respond. Instead, he told the girl that Siddharth was planning to rape her.

“It was a separate, unconnected incident to the Bois locker room chat, but we accidentally posted the screenshot on our Instagram profile,” said Khan. When they realized their mistake, he said, the group issued an apology and clarified that it was a mix-up. But by then, the rape threat had become national news and, despite their correction, instantly associated with the Bois locker room group.

On May 4, the Delhi Commission for Women, a government body constituted to investigate matters of women’s safety and security in the capital, tweeted that it had issued a notice to Instagram and to the Delhi Police asking them to investigate the rape threat.

On the same day, media reports surfaced of a 17-year-old boy, suspected to be a member of the group, who had committed suicide after a classmate accused him of molesting her two years before. Even though family members wrote to the press and confirmed that the boy’s suicide had nothing to do with the Instagram group — and that he was not even a member — the media still linked his death to the virality of the Bois locker room exposé.

After public outcry, the cybercrime cell joined the investigation, and on May 6, the 18-year-old administrator of the Bois locker room group was arrested. Soon after, 15 of its teenage members were interrogated by the police over the phone. The rape threat in particular was examined.

But in a stunning turn of events, on May 10, the investigation revealed that Siddharth, who had issued the rape threat, was not a boy at all, but the 14-year-old girl herself. She had planned her own rape to “test” the character of the boy she liked and see if he would rise to the bait of violence.

After the outcome of the investigation was made public, Khan said, the narrative left their control. Khan said he and the girls received rape and death threats on social media.“They said we were safe only because of the lockdown and that they would hunt us down and kill us once it was over.” The girls became too scared to speak out. “It was chilling,” said Khan.

Threats on social media were overwhelming and persisted for weeks, Khan said. Men on Twitter even called for the arrest of Swati Maliwal, chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, with the hashtag #ArrestSwatiMaliwal. Men’s Day Out — a media blog that purports to champion men’s causes in India — was one of them, and it claimed to have filed a criminal case against Maliwal for “abetting the suicide of a minor boy” even after the boy’s brother clarified to the press (as well as in an Instagram post) that he was never a part of the Bois locker room group.

Maliwal addressed the issue in a tweet on May 11:

“Disgusting that a girl sent out snapchat msg to a boy planning her own rape. ‘Bois Locker Room’ chats are not connected to this Snapchat but equally offensive & warrant legal action! The girl endangered cause of hundreds facing cyber abuse everyday! MUST be acted against too!”

Against this backdrop of national outrage and confusion, parents intervened, and the teen girls who had exposed the Bois locker room chats now faced anger and censure at home. Their cell phones were confiscated, and the Instagram account they created was deleted.

Meanwhile, the police issued a statement to the press saying that no action would be taken against the girl for impersonation, nor for planning her own rape on Snapchat. “Although creating a fake ID is wrong, her intent was not malicious, so we are not filing any complaint,” an official told the Indian news agency PTI.

According to media reports, a first information report (FIR) — a formal complaint with information documented by the police — was filed against some of the members of the Bois locker room group. However, no further action has been taken on the case.

It is not clear if any action is being taken on threats issued against Maliwal either. The Delhi police did not comment when approached for this article.

A romanticized culture of gender violence

“Both of these cases point to the fact that we do not have engaging, peaceful, and non-judgmental spaces for teens to learn how to interact with each other,” Kirthi Jayakumar, lawyer and founder of The Gender Security Project, told Women Under Siege via email. “Teens often learn how to interact through tropes in popular shows, films and literature, where this kind of ‘testing’ is often romanticized.”

Enough examples can be found in Bollywood, the country’s Hindi film industry, which has been frequently called out for featuring such objectification through its popular and sexist “item songs,” the catchy tunes that punctuate the films. These songs are usually filled with suggestive lyrics and raunchy imagery, and often serve no purpose in furthering the storyline.

“A young girl feeling the need to test the boy in the first place points to the lack of space and skills to engage in a relationship healthily,” said Jayakumar. “That she had to pose as a boy and say what she did reflects the pervasive idea of rape culture and how it operates.”

India’s ongoing reckoning with sexualized violence

India’s battle against sexualized violence has been in the international spotlight since 2012, when the brutal gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy student aboard a bus in Delhi drew global attention and nationwide protests calling for women’s safety to be a national priority. She was dubbed Nirbhaya, meaning “fearless” in Urdu, and her case became a symbol for India’s struggle against gender violence and patriarchy. On March 20 this year, four of the men convicted in her rape and death were put to death by hanging.

After this landmark case, many more Indian women have been speaking out against rape and sexual violence. But, rape survivors in India still deal with stigma and the notion that they are “damaged goods” in a society that blames the victim for provoking her own rape.

The culture of silence and stigma may account for the low reporting numbers and abysmal conviction rates for sexualized violence in the country. According to the latest figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau, the country’s conviction rate for rapists stands at only 27 percent.

But in October 2018, India’s #MeToo movement challenged this toxic silence. Many women from all walks of life named their harassers. Several prominent men were exposed, including MJ Akbar, a former government minister who was forced to resign over the allegations.

Days after his resignation, however, Akbar filed a criminal defamation suit against Priya Ramani, a journalist and one of the many women who had accused him of sexual harassment. Anyone convicted of criminal defamation in India faces either a two-year jail term or fines — or both. Ramani told the Delhi High Court in September 2019 that her disclosure “came at great personal cost” but that she hoped her move would empower more women to speak out. The case is still ongoing.

According to the latest reports from the National Crime Records Bureau, rape, gang rape, intimate-partner violence, and acid attacks were among the top crimes against women in both rural and urban India. Still, a growing number of Indian men complain that the laws tend to favor women and are biased against men, a situation they find personally threatening.

In the Bois locker room case, once it was made public knowledge that the falsified rape threat was issued by a girl herself, the hashtag #NotAllMen began trending on Indian Twitter. Men gleefully pointed out how the abuse of the law was becoming the norm for women, ignoring the fact that none of the minor boys involved in the Bois locker room case were ever detained. The girl who planned her own rape on Snapchat was reportedly only 14 years old.

“Any law can be abused,” said Jayna Kothari, executive director of the Center for Law and Policy Research in Bengaluru. Kothari is also a lawyer, who often represents marginalized communities — women, the trans community, and differently-abled people — before the Supreme Court of India. “But in my experience, this rarely ever happens when it comes to harassment and gender violence. For most victims, it is still a long hard struggle for justice.”

“I firmly believe that cis men need to start engaging with understanding why laws prioritize and respond to the needs of women, and should prioritize and respond to the needs of other gender identities that have historically faced oppression,” said Jayakumar. “Why should their right to seek justice under law be questioned at all?”

An appeal for better sex education

The conclusion of the Bois locker room saga — ending in the girls being policed and silenced — should be of concern, said Kothari.

“I get a lot of complaints centered around sexual harassment in schools,” said Kothari. “But girls are often threatened by the social network (both online and in real life) that boys have, and this feeds into the fear and silence around sexual harassment.”

In recent years, especially after the Nirbhaya case, laws prosecuting rape have been strengthened. Courts have been established to fasttrack cases, and rape threats are taken seriously. “But protecting yourself online is still a grey area,” said Kothari, “especially for young girls.”

Women and girls who are bullied online, whose photos are shared without their consent, and who feel powerless to check the voyeurism of groups like the Bois locker room, often internalize one message, said Kothari: Even when we speak out, we are discredited and ignored.

When this message is imbibed by girls as young as 14, it tends to set the stage for how they will react to harassment and violence when they’re older. “This is why so many crimes relating to sexual harassment are under-reported, encouraging toxic behavior,” she said.

The toxic culture of objectifying women online also fuels insecurity. “Young girls are constantly posting photos of themselves, but in my experience, I’ve seen that most are dissatisfied with the way they look,” said Magdalene Jeyarathnam, director of the East West Center for Counseling in Chennai.

When photos are stolen and misused, or when parents come down heavily to restrict their sharing, they are taught to be ashamed of their bodies, which adds to the discomfort and trauma of those growing years, said Jayarathnam.

“If a girl needs to pose as a boy and plan her own rape, it indicates fear and insecurity, too — it’s highly likely that this hyper-vigilance among teens is the impact of not seeing many intimate, healthy and long-term relationships around them,” she said.

That’s why sex education in schools can be critical. “It needs to be more comprehensive than just a biological explanation, Radha Khan, a writer and social worker who focuses on issues of gender, governance and social inclusion, told Women Under Siege over the phone. “It must include the discussion around consent and what it means. It is vital to not demonize the idea of sex or relationships, or to couch it in shame.”

“It takes a village to raise a child, and we must understand where we have erred,” said Jayakumar. “Instead of punishing conversations around sex and relationships, we need to discuss them more openly, addressing all teens and not just girls alone or boys alone — segregated learning is part of the problem.”

In her counselling sessions with teenagers from many of Chennai’s top schools, Jeyarathnam often poses questions to boys and girls that revolve around many sensitive gender issues, including consent. “When I ask the boys what they would do if a girl refuses to go out with them, the overwhelming majority surprise me by answering, ‘We would ask her over and over again or we would persuade her.’ I tell them that they should respect her right to refuse. A ‘no’ means ‘no,’” she said.

“And then, I tell the girls to be honest about their feelings. At an age where there is natural curiosity about sex, identity and relationships, we need to equip ourselves to be better guides.”

As India continues to seek long-term solutions for battling sexual violence, it is clear that addressing objectification and misogyny through open dialogue is important. And, often, this means catching them young.