I had meant to scroll for a few minutes. Then a girl raised her voice on a Delhi street. A flag lifted above the crowd. Someone reached for a friend. A woman resisted as she was taken away. I put my phone down, but the pictures stayed with me.On October 10, journalists covering demonstrations in Delhi were detained, some despite showing press cards and identifying themselves. News accounts described reporters being pushed into buses, dragged by their clothes and separated from their phones and equipment. One journalist said her shirt was pulled upwards as she was dragged. Another alleged that a masked officer without a name tag kicked and dragged him. Accounts also raised questions about men in plain clothes and officers without visible identification. Their roles, and the authority under which they acted, must be established.The Press Club of India later held a meeting and silent march. Allegations of harassment against women journalists are before the courts, and the Supreme Court has sought answers. A person trying to protest, or a journalist trying to report, should not have to wonder who has taken hold of them—or whether anyone will answer for it.That day, poems began appearing on my screen. Seher Nagma read Shailaja Pathak. RJ Mirchi Sahema gave Allama Iqbal’s mountain and squirrel their voices. Amita Sharma read a poem about “not all men”; its poet was not identified. Prashant Savaliya addressed women through the names of goddesses. The creator, identified as Seet Bejanti Mishra, read a poem answering a man who said he could buy girls for Rs 300. Shivam Parashar shared ‘Main Hairaan Hoon’, a poem that circulates under Mahadevi Varma’s name.The lessons girls are taught View this post on Instagram A post shared by Naghma Sahar (@theindiastorywithnaghmasahar) Pathak’s poem begins with the instructions girls learn early: speak less, eat less, laugh less, go out less, dream less. Become less. Then comes the answer:Kam ho jao, kam raho. Meri dost, tum kam sunna.Become less, take up less space. My friend, listen to them less.I thought of the girls in the street, refusing that old lesson in shrinking. Fear does not disappear because a woman is brave. She goes forward with it there beside her—and often with a friend’s hand in hers.Story continues below this adIn Iqbal’s fable, the mountain mistakes its size for superiority. The squirrel reminds it:Nahin hai cheez nikammi koi zamane mein;Koi bura nahin qudrat ke karkhane mein.Nothing in this world is useless;nothing is without worth in nature’s workshop.A woman should not have to become hard or invulnerable to prove her worth. Nor should she have to be a goddess first. She is already a whole human being, with her own mind, humour, ambition, fear and strength.Amita Sharma’s poem asks why women’s anger is so quickly treated as an accusation against every man, while jokes and generalisations about women pass with barely a murmur. One question stays with me:Agar saalon ka dard aur gussa ek nare mein baahar aa raha hai,Story continues below this adto ismein ek shareef insaan apne upar kyun le ja raha hai?If years of pain and anger are coming out in a slogan,why should a decent man take it personally?A decent man can hear anger without making himself its subject. He can ask what it is telling him.Beyond goddesses and symbols View this post on Instagram A post shared by Prashant Savaliya (@prashant_savaliya94) Savaliya’s poem invokes the goddesses and gives each one a human task. Saraswati studies; Lakshmi earns; Durga fights fear; Kali speaks against injustice:Tum Saraswati ho, itna padhoki log tumhein gyaan dene ki himmat na karein.You are Saraswati: study so muchthat no one dares presume to teach you.There is affection in these lines. Still, the woman dragged from a bus is not a symbol. She is a citizen. She should not have to be Durga to walk safely, Saraswati to be heard, or Sita to be respected.Story continues below this adThe poem read by Seet Bejanti Mishra answers a man’s boast with a mirror:Insaan ka chehra hona ek baat hai,aur insaan hona ek baat.Having a human face is one thing;being human is another.To speak of buying girls is to imagine that a person can be priced, that her consent can be brushed aside. The poem’s satire gives that cruelty no place to hide. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Seet Baijanti Mishra (@seet_mishra)‘Main Hairaan Hoon’ asks why women have not raised their voices against verses and stories used to diminish them:Main hairaan hoon unki chuppi dekhkar.Ise unki sahansheelta kahun, andh-shraddha?I am astonished by their silence.Should I call it patience, blind faith?I have not found this poem in a reliable edition of Mahadevi Varma’s work, so I cannot confidently attribute it to her. Her courage does not depend on it. She wrote about women’s condition, education and self-reliance, edited Chand, and helped make room for women as poets and thinkers. Her collection Shrinkhala ki Kadiyan, published in 1942, is part of that documented work.Mahadevi Varma is personal to me, too. My sister’s mother-in-law was Neeti Srivastav, a professor of Hindi at Delhi University and Mahadevi’s niece. Neeti could speak plainly about religion, dogma and ritual without sneering at faith or surrendering her mind to it. She could look at tradition and legend and ask: what is history, what is myth, and what is simply a story we have chosen to carry?Story continues below this adShe did not make a performance of daring. It was simply how she thought. Knowing Neeti lets me imagine something of the force of mind Mahadevi must have possessed, and the independence she passed on to her niece: the freedom to question, to distinguish, to say what one believes.Equality is not foreignWe should be careful when we speak of India and the West. The British did not invent patriarchy, though colonial rule classified and codified social and legal practices, sometimes hardening hierarchies and bringing its own patriarchal ideas with it. Older forms of control also grew within our own societies. We cannot blame only the British, or only the past, and leave ourselves innocent.Nor should we call women’s equality foreign to India. Women here have argued, taught, composed, led and challenged convention for generations. At Navratri, we light lamps for Durga. Yet a festival cannot do the work of justice. We may honour the Goddess and still fail the girl being pushed into a bus. The test is what we do when a woman speaks, when she is humiliated, when she needs someone to stand beside her.And we men must remember: we are from women. We were carried, fed, soothed and taught by them. Women have often stood ahead of their time while men caught up, sometimes reluctantly and sometimes too late. We cannot admire their courage from a safe distance. We must stand with them.Story continues below this adI saw a reel of Nikhil Rana singing one of his own songs. I want to end with that voice, and the possibility of people drawing closer through music. It does not erase the day’s fear or fury. It lets in a little air.A democracy must allow people to gather, question, report and dissent—and return home with their dignity intact. The girls in the streets are asking who gets to decide how much space a woman may take. The answer belongs in our laws and institutions, but also in our homes and daily conduct. Women’s due is not a favour. It is their right.When the world tells girls to become less, listen to it less. Then listen to the girls. Their voices above the traffic are not a threat to democracy. They are a call to make room, to show respect, and to give women the place that has always been theirs.