“Why were we raped if a boy eve-teased a girl? Did the whole nation go about raping the community of Nirbhaya’s rapists to avenge what was done to her?”

She is someone who could be called S, not because she does not want the world to know her name, but because her identity has to be protected, for the consequences it might possibly have. S is one of the “Muzaffarnagar rape survivors”, of the seven whose ordeal is the collective shame and guilt of our entire country.

Excerpted with permission from “Shadow Lines”, text by Neha Dixit, visualisation and illustrations by Priya Kuriyan, from First Hand 2, Graphic Narratives from India: Exclusion, edited by Vidyun Sabhaney, Yoda Press.