Women Walk at Midnight started in Delhi in 2016 when a 24-hour lone walk was being attempted in the city by Mallika Taneja, a theatre artist. The politics of walking and the need for it, especially at night, was inspired deeply by the very active conversation around women’s safety and lack of freedom or ‘azadi’ in Delhi during Nirbhaya movement in 2012 and by the succinct articulation and assertion of the need to walk in Maya Krishna Rao's theatre piece - 'The Walk'. As Maya Rao put it, ‘in the day, at midnight or at 3 in the morning, I [we]will walk’.

 

Women Walk at Midnight also builds upon decades of feminist movement, and more specifically the contemporary Indian women’s movement where several collectives, groups, and movements have articulated women’s claim to the city -for leisure, at different times of the day – from Blank Noise’s ‘Meet to Sleep’ meet-ups to walks and strolls inspired by the book Why Loiter. 

 

The practice has built upon the physical and intellectual labour and resilience of the women who have walked at night with us and before us, who have led our walks in their neighbourhoods, and have anchored the collective’s logistics, social media, and ideation. 

 

Since 2016, the practice of Women Walk at Midnight has evolved, grown, learnt, fallen on its face and then picked itself up again. It has insisted on presenting itself on the streets of different cities - sometimes failing but often succeeding. We have invited women who have walked with us to take us on walks in their neighbourhoods, and we have taken the walk to other cities ourselves. Over the years, a loose community of walkers and walk leaders has grown often collecting around a midnight walk - thinking and breathing together.

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