borderlands e-journal www.borderlands.net.au 1 VOLUME 14 NUMBER 1, 2015 Sovereignty, Postcoloniality, and Gendering Human Rights: Rape and Occupation Goldie Osuri University of Warwick The December 2012 Delhi gang rape case of Jyoti Singh Pandey prompted widespread protests in India, and received global international media coverage. Since the event of the gang rape case, the complexity of feminist, queer, Hindu nationalist, and legal discourses in India also sheds light on state sovereignty and its investments in occupation, suffering and sexual violence in Kashmir and the North East. Attention to sovereignty in relation to bodies assembled by territory, religion, sexuality and gender makes visible an assertive Indian imperialism. This paper explores the ways in which a gendering human rights approach, which resulted in the 2013 anti- rape law is inadequate in thinking through sexual violence, suffering and torture where it concerns occupation. It may be more apt, this paper argues, to think through the practices of sovereignty in the Indian (post) colony. Introduction On December 16, 2012, the horrific rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey i and the subsequent wide-scale protests in Delhi received global coverage. Whether it was the brutality of the rape, delayed police action or state apathy, the public protests incited a sea change in Indian politics regarding violence against women and played no small part in the swift attempts at justice that followed. For one, the alleged offenders were arrested in record time, within a week (Times of India 2012). Secondly, the government-commissioned Verma committee was instituted on December 23, a week after the event, to provide recommendations for amendments to criminal law for sexual