Few react: Amateur actors in a skit about rape on a Delhi bus.

Delhi: Two years after the gang rape and murder of a physiotherapist on a moving Delhi bus, it seems Indians travelling on buses  remain reluctant to intervene whenmen grope and harass women passengers. 

Judging by the responses of bus passengers to an impromptu skit being performed on board Delhi buses, little has changed in the years since the bus rape made headlines around the world. .

Eight male and female activists, with no acting experience, have been boarding crowded buses for a month pretending to be ordinary passengers. After a few minutes, they start a fracas in the aisle. A woman accuses the man standing next to her of touching her bottom and rubbing against her - a routine experience for women on Indian buses.

He answers back aggressively, yelling that if she doesn't want to be hassled she should stay at home or at least wear less "revealing" clothes. "The way you are dressed, you should expect to be groped," he says.  

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She slaps him hard. "What's wrong with my clothes? I'm wearing an Indian outfit. What kind of clothes will make me safe?" she shouts.

The  fight lasts about five minutes. The purpose is to kindle memories of the Delhi gang rape in December, 2012, and see how many passengers intervene on the side of the woman. During 54 performances of this "guerrilla theatre" piece called Are you listening?, most male passengers have passively watched the argument, some smiling and looking amused.

"Many of the women were worse," said 27-year-old Suman. "I was accused of being 'loose' and 'out of control'. I was dressed in leggings and a knee-length top that covered me completely, but they said I should be dressed differently."

When the performance is over, the activists, from the Democratic Youth Federation of India, hand out leaflets and try to get passengers talking about women's safety. "The idea is to sensitise the public about the role they can play in ensuring that incidents such as the Delhi gang rape don't happen," said Pramod Singh, state president of the federation.. 

Who stepped up to help the "victim" or restrain the "assailant" during these skits? It's a  short list. One man protectively guided the "victim" towards a seat; a few senior citizens took the victim's side but failed to confront the assailants; a woman doctor asked the assailant angrily, "Who the hell are you to tell us what to wear? We will decide what to wear, OK?"; and an elderly woman in a sari grabbed the assailant by the collar and told him to behave.

"The vast majority just sat passively and let the girl fight alone," said activist Sanjay Kumar Singh. "Some even slept through the whole thing. A few told us to shut up because they were getting late for work. The attitude of the majority is that it's all the woman's fault, she is to blame".  

The worst remark of all, said Singh, came from two men who said the Delhi gang rape had never happened, it was "fake" and "any woman who shouts or argues in public [like the victim actress on the bus] is by definition a bad character because women should be quiet and gentle".   

N.K. Singh, a veteran theatre director who conceived the play, calls it the play a "small endeavour" to raise at least some people's awareness about women's rights.  

"Instead of the usual protests and marches to mark the second anniversary, I thought it would be better to jolt people on a bus into thinking about this and challenge them directly. I wanted to make them realise that sitting quietly is what leads to violence against women," Singh said.