But a few weeks ago, one man began stalking her. Her parents thought of going to the police but family and friends dissuaded them, saying the girl’s reputation would be "damaged" if they made a report. The final straw for the girl was when the stalker’s relatives told her parents to vacate their tiny rented room. Feeling responsible for her parents’ difficulties, she waited till her parents were out and, on March 23, hanged herself. In her suicide note she wrote: "Wherever I go, there are men everywhere. I am tired. They won’t let me live." By removing herself, she wrote, her parents would no longer have to face eviction. #MeToo India style

Going out to do chores. Walking to school. Running in the mornings. Getting fit. Dreams of a job. These simple things are not open to millions of young girls like the student from Bakhtawarpur. For other Indian women, it is a battle to be born (given female foeticide), to be accepted in marriage for themselves without giving a dowry, to get an education. An even bigger struggle for many is to win the right to work, see friends and possibly even date. The movement for women’s rights in India diverges sharply from that in the West following the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the eruption of the #MeToo campaign. That campaign has encouraged women globally to recount incidents of sexual harassment or rape. Many Indian women, though, are still fighting for basic human rights that are taken for granted elsewhere. Loading For them, an incident of sexual harassment in the workplace – as recounted by thousands of women and celebrities in #MeToo – could be called (without diminishing the significance of workplace harassment) a minor difficulty. Even if they wanted to use social media to put across their experiences, many cannot. Only 30 per cent of internet users are women.

"The #MeToo campaign has resonated with the educated middle class women who are employed, who dare to speak, and who are fighting for their space and are active on social media," says Priya Varadarajan, the founder of Durga India, an NGO which works on women’s safety in public spaces. "But very few women belong to this class. When you move out of the cities, you see women for whom survival is the most basic question and for whom #MeToo will make no difference." Devi Sharma, who lives in Alwar in Rajasthan, said she had never heard of #MeToo. But she should still be described as a feminist. ''I work in the fields and get a lower daily wage than a man. I want that to change. I don't know what social media is or what women are doing in the cities," she said. Brothel 'madam' Renu Singh and her granddaughter in the red light area of Sonagachi, Calcutta. Credit:Amrit Dhillon

Brothel "madam" Renu Singh said that until she and other sex workers received the assistance of a non-government organisation, she was not allowed to open a bank account because she lacked the documents. ''I had to fight for a bank account. Before, my savings were never safe and I couldn't take out a loan when I had to pay for my daughter's wedding," she said. "This was a basic right I never had till a year ago." Threats and humiliation A pilot project that was launched this month in New Delhi saw 200 buses fitted with alarm buttons. The project was developed with Durga India to tackle the routine groping and pawing that happens on buses. If a woman presses the button, the driver will stop the bus and call the police. It's a perfect example of how something as rudimentary as using public transport to get from A to B is fraught with humiliation. Or take the recent experience of a well-known cardiologist in the nation's capital. Her daughter was stalked by a man who threatened to rape her and mutilate her genitals before pouring acid onto them. When the doctor stopped her daughter’s access to her Facebook and Gmail accounts, the stalker turned on her, threatening rape based on his violent, pornographic fantasies.

When the cardiologist went to the police to report the stalker, the police refused to register a complaint. "He hasn’t done anything yet. He hasn’t turned up at your door with a knife, has he?" the policeman said to her. "It took me over three weeks to persuade the police to register my complaint and arrest him. I am educated. I have connections. My husband and I are wealthy. I had a cabinet minister supporting me, trying to get the police to act. Just imagine what happens to ordinary poor women if they want to report harassment or rape?" she asked. The cover of the March 2018 edition of India's women’s magazine Grihalakshmi sought to break the taboo on public breastfeeding. Strands of feminism

Feminism in India has been moving in multiple directions. Mainstream feminism has tended to focus on changing laws and fighting for the most basic rights that are denied women. But alongside these efforts, there has emerged a new, parallel feminism comprising younger women who are tackling the kind of issues that prompted the #MeToo movement, and using similar methods such as social media and public shaming. In October, an Indian academic based in California, Raya Sarkar, launched a Facebook campaign naming and shaming 70 top academics. Mainstream feminists decried this "vigilante approach" in which the accused were not able to defend themselves, but Sarkar continued her campaign asking Indian women to name the academics who had sexually harassed them on campus. This new generation is leaving diehard reactionary men gasping in disbelief. Earlier this month, women took to posting pictures of themselves topless on Facebook with watermelons held in front of their breasts, making fun of a lecturer in Kerala who complained about how his students dressed "provocatively" and deliberately exposed their chests like "slices of watermelons on display". Some women’s groups have occupied public spaces – gardens, streets, parks – in a campaign called "Why Loiter" which is aimed at making women feel comfortable outside their homes. A woman "sleeping" in a park in Bangalore, in a protest aimed at reclaiming public spaces for women.

"Why is public space only where men feel safe and comfortable?" and "Why should women worry about going out or attracting the ‘wrong’ kind of attention’?" are questions the campaign prompts. Prominent campaigner Jasmeen Patheja organised an event called Meet to Sleep in which hundreds of women slept in parks and on street benches in December to reclaim their right to do what Indian men take for granted, namely, lie down for a while or take a nap in public without feeling endangered. “For too long we have been told to be careful. Every time a woman is harassed she is told to be more careful. We are now changing the narrative,” Patheja told the media. Meet to Sleep events were held in many cities and coincided with the fifth anniversary of the brutal rape and murder in New Delhi of Jyoti Singh, which convulsed the country. Her mother, Asha Singh, is often asked by the media for her opinion on the status of women in India. A woman of great dignity, she always answers in a measured tone.

"Men still think they can do what they like and get away with it. Our systems haven’t changed. The police are usually unresponsive and unsympathetic," she told Fairfax Media. "But one good change is that more women are speaking out. They are bold and determined to live freely. That’s the major improvement I have seen in the past five years." Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyondblue 1300 224 636; National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732.