But not everyone has clambered aboard. The ruling Congress party, to which Tharoor belongs, was irked that the high-profile Minister floated the idea without consulting the government first. While not prohibited, naming laws after individuals in order to memorialize them and help the public identify with a cause, like Jessica’s Law and Megan’s Law in the U.S., has not been practiced in India. That in itself is not much of a reason not to reconsider. But there is a graver case to be made for not changing India’s culture of confidentiality for rape victims, even with the family’s permission. More than in other societies, “there is a huge stigma to the survivor and victim of rape [in India],” says Vrinda Grover, a human-rights lawyer in New Delhi. “It is the survivor and victim who is blamed for the sexual assault, and her life is made completely hellish … Confidentiality allows her to move on.”

　　Grover feels that the anonymity of the victim may have helped people in India wake up to the fact that they too are not safe, making their demands for change louder. The gang-rape victim had just left a movie at a mall with a companion and was lured onto a private bus when she was attacked for over an hour. The banality of her circumstances has helped bring her case home in a powerful way and has helped sustain the weeks-long protests around the country. “My sense is what drew [the protesters] to this was the anonymity of the victim,” says Grover. “Each one of us could identify with her suffering.” Others say the debate, which has gotten a lot of ink and airtime in recent days, has simply become a sideshow. A spokesman for the opposition BJP party called Tharoor’s suggestion a “needless diversion” from the real task at hand — getting changes made to the existing law that will make it a more effective tool in protecting women in a nation where rape is unsettlingly common.

　　But the fact that it is a debate at all is yet another encouraging indicator — like the unprecedented tide of outrage that has swept the country — that people are rethinking everything at the moment. The victim has become an unexpectedly vital symbol of just how dangerous the institutional and social complacency over treating women as second-class citizens has become in India. With so many young people out on the streets, a sense of real hope is forming that this case could stir lasting change. “There has been an earthquake,” says Stenhammer. “The most important thing is not to lose focus — fast-track the courts, change the law where we have found gaps, and focus on what we can do together. There has to be a basic systemic change, a mind-set change. There is a lot to do.”