Fondly remembered as Chandu by the students of JNU even today, Chandrashekhar was murdered along with fellow CPI(ML) leader Shyam Narayan Yadav on 31 March 1997 in Siwan, Bihar while addressing a street meeting.

Chandrashekhar, who had been the President of the JNU Students' Union the year before Krishnan was elected the Joint Secretary, was the first to recognise her passion and to suggest her to work full-time for women's rights.

[6] Following Chandu's murder, thousands of JNU students participated in mass demonstrations, demanding action against former Rashtriya Janata Dal parliamentarian Mohammad Shahabuddin, whose men, they alleged, had carried out the attack.

[9][10] While emerging as one of the most influential activists[11] during the massive anti-rape protests that followed the rape and murder of a 23-year-old girl in India's capital city, New Delhi, Kavita Krishnan has contributed substantially to shaping the discourse of the movement.

In this speech, she laid out a kind of manifesto of the movement, one that represented a major break from the securitised, protectionist standpoint which was rife at that time and articulated women's freedom as the main demand.

She pointed out that the conviction rates for rape in India are extremely low and, therefore, methods such as chemical castration and death penalty can't act as deterrents.

[18][19][20][21][22] On 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, Krishnan made a premature claim on Twitter, suggesting that the attack was an act of "majoritarian terror against religious minorities.

This reality check made Vir think of how women's lives in India are surveilled in the name of safety, and it makes her question, What can we do to dismantle this deeply patriarchal society and the system?