
The Campaign
More than 90% of women have faced some form of sexual harassment in their lives. 1 in 4 girls is a child bride. More than a third of Indian women face sexual or physical violence at home.
Violence against women is an everyday issue, one which we all see and walk away from. But what if we didn’t? What if instead of saying violence against women is “not our business”, we choose to intervene instead?
That’s what Dakhal Do is. Where, instead of walking away, we intervene.
We speak up. We make violence against women unacceptable.
Dakhal Do is building a movement of active bystanders today. Will you be one?





Share Your Selfies With Us!
Many of us witness violence against women.
Many of us choose to walk away.
But no more.
If you pledge to intervene the next time you witness violence against women, take a mirror selfie and share it on social media, wiith the text:






Stories of Intervention
What does it mean to intervene during violence? Listen to these inspiring stories to hear from those who did it!
I saw a car in which a man was hitting a woman on her head, aggressively shaking her and shouting at her. At first, I went my way. But, then I mustered up some courage and turned back. I stopped my bike in front of the car. I was scared. The man was stronger in build than me. The man came out shouting asking why I had stopped the car. My response was to ask him about what he was doing. He said the woman is his wife and that he was talking to her. I told him that it definitely did not seem like talking and what he was doing was wrong. I asked the woman and she told me that he had been hitting and abusing her the whole evening and that this is his usual behaviour. I asked her what she wanted. She wanted me to make him understand. I said, I am going to call the police and then you can talk in front of them. When the man heard me say police, he backed off a bit and tried to defend himself.
I gave the woman my number and asked her to contact me in case of anything. The woman called me a few days later and told me that her husband’s behaviour had been better. I have learned one thing - the importance of having a conversation or just speaking up. Each time, the person facing violence has come back and appreciated the fact that I spoke up for them, when no one else did.
I live in Kolkata and here in autos, generally three people sit at the back and one passenger sits on the left of the driver. Once, I was travelling on the backseat with two other men next to me. They were friends and about the same age as me, 22-23 years old. I was sitting in the corner. A girl boarded the auto. She must have been a little younger than us. Generally, it’s expected that the driver will shift a little to the right side to make room for the passenger. But this time, I noticed that the driver moved to the left instead. From where I was sitting, I could clearly see that the driver was using his elbow to touch the girl’s breasts from the side. He was also using the excuse of tricky manoeuvres on the road to inappropriately touch her. The route was 15-20 minutes long. Five minutes into the journey, I asked the driver to stop even though my destination hadn’t come. I asked the women to take my seat at the back and she happily agreed. The auto driver gave me dirty looks as if he would beat me up. However, the route was familiar to me and I knew most of the drivers who worked on that route. I knew I could navigate the situation if things got out of hand. Such incidents of girls being touched/groped are very common.
I live in Mumbai and was travelling in a crowded bus. Generally, men don’t stand where you have seats reserved for women. But I saw one man standing very close to a woman who was seated. The man was touching his body on her shoulder. Most people were observing this but not saying anything. I think the way he was standing and how he looked scared people. I paused, observed what he was doing for 3-4 minutes, realised that nobody was intervening and so I decided to go. I rushed to the man and said, “I am watching what you are doing”. He said, “I am not doing anything”. I asked the woman if she was feeling uncomfortable. She said yes and explained what the man was doing. When I intervened, a few other people also stood up and said that they saw it too. We all asked the driver to stop the bus, the conductor came and asked the man to get off the bus. This made me realise how everyone was waiting for someone else to do something and how my speaking up gave everyone the courage to speak up too.
Ever Intervened? Share it with us.
If you or someone you know has also intervened in violence against women? We want to hear about it. Send us your story and it could be featured on our page!
The Breakthrough Report on Bystander Intervention
Do people intervene in violence against women? What goes through their head when they do?
To answer these questions, we spent a year working with bystanders like you to better understand why people intervene and what motivates / stops them. We spoke to 91 respondents through in-depth qualitative interviews, as well as conducted a digital survey with 721 responses.
And to show for it, we have our report:
Decoding Bystander Behaviour: Actions to address
Violence Against Women.

Our Petition to the Delhi Government

In 2019, the Delhi Government launched its Farishte Dilli Ke scheme which provides a reward of Rs 2000 and a certificate for any good Samaritan who takes accident, acid attacks and burn injuries victims to a hospital.
Working to make safe spaces for women needs not just bystander support but work at multiple systemic and structural levels. That’s why we’ve set up a petition to the Delhi Government, asking it to extend the cover of it’s Farishte Dilli Ke scheme to also cover bystanders who intervene in violence against women cases.