Poetry, placards, slogans, Instagram reels — the recent protests at Jantar Mantar against examination paper leaks saw it all. For centuries, political protest has relied on the language of sexual humiliation, gender inversion and bodily degradation to strip rulers of their authority. As tensions mounted between Britain and its North American colonies over taxation and imperial control in the years leading up to the American Revolution, political satire increasingly cast British rule as a form of sexual violation. The animosity focused on Montez, and when the March revolution arrived, she was, by most accounts, the final straw. Political caricature of Lola Montez (Wikimedia Commons) Political caricature of Lola Montez (Wikimedia Commons)The humiliation was completed in life rather than in ink.