Breaking the Silence: Honouring women’s voices this Navaratri

By Priyanka Lugani

It is Navaratri, the nine nights where we worship and celebrate the Goddess. The very existence of Shakti is testament to the deep reverence we hold for the divine feminine in the Indian collective.

All across India, we worship Devi. From a young age we are reminded that she has agency, that her power is all pervasive, and that she will crush all injustice. In any city or village you will find small temples honouring Maa. During Navaratri there are processions throughout the country, as countless people fast, pray, and celebrate the Goddess.

My favorite part is Ashtami, followed by the Kanchka rituals, where young girls are honoured as embodiments of the great Goddess.

Yet, beyond this spiritual faith, do we apply and embody this reverence in our daily lives? Do we truly respect the feminine in day-to-day life?

What does the sacred feminine in society really look like beyond ritual?

The Sacred Feminine in Society vs Everyday Reality

Across India, many women grow up within environments where certain experiences remain difficult to express openly. Families, communities, and institutions transmit expectations about duty, respect, and loyalty.

These expectations move through everyday behaviour: through reactions, approvals, silences, and the subtle signals that communicate what may be spoken and what should remain unspoken.

Over time, these expectations become part of the psychological landscape of the people who live within them. Parents pass forward what they themselves inherited. Elders protect the social order they believe sustains stability. Communities prioritise harmony and reputation. Institutions often preserve continuity.

Through these processes, patterns of behaviour repeat across generations.

In this way, silence becomes normalised.

When silence becomes Culture

Many women encounter moments when expressing discomfort brings dismissal, disbelief, or pressure to remain quiet. Pain may be reframed as duty. Questions may be interpreted as disobedience. Experiences that disrupt the accepted order often remain confined to private spaces.

When such responses are repeated over time, silence becomes part of the environment itself. What began as individual reactions gradually forms a broader social pattern.

To lose your dignity is one of the most painful, shattering life experiences. It leads to a profound state of trauma and disenchantment, extending into every cell and system within us.

Interestingly, in Hindu tradition we visit powerful Shakti Peethas, each built as an altar to Sati, and each a reminder that they were created through her loss of dignity and intense humiliation. We bow our heads and seek refuge in these sacred sites—from Kamakhya Devi to Jawalamukhi, Chint Purni to Kalighat.

Yet, we carry our own loss of dignity in silence, as if there is no other choice—no understanding, no one to listen.

I encountered that many women, from all backgrounds and ages, were experiencing a similar pattern of pain, disillusionment, and trauma. From friends and family members to strangers alike, the same patterns of humiliation, harm, and dehumanisation appeared.

Somewhere, the nervous system tightens with trauma—and with the inability to speak or be heard.

Breaking the silence around women’s experiences

Break the Silence is an anonymous archive of women’s stories.

These are accounts of inequality, control, violence, pressure, and the quieter moments in which a woman’s voice encountered resistance. Some stories describe explicit harm. Others reveal subtle dynamics that slowly shape identity, choices, relationships, and life paths.

Individual experiences often appear isolated. But when many voices are gathered together, recurring patterns become visible.

These patterns reveal how expectations surrounding gender move through families, workplaces, communities, and institutions across generations.

This initiative exists to bring those lived experiences into the open.

Alongside this, we incorporate insights from scholars of ancient disciplines—from Jyotish to Vedic philosophy—offering deeper understanding and context.