THE sensational developments over the last week brought the question of crimes against women to the forefront with a dramatic effect. The exceptional case of the Unnao rape victim, a mere 15-year-old who was lured by Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the local MLA of Unnao, has burst into public discourse. The air was thick with disbelief over the Delhi High Court's decision to suspend the life sentence of the convicted Sengar in the 2017 rape case and grant him bail. Naturally, this obnoxious development set off waves of outrage nationally. It also reignited debates about justice for survivors of sexual violence.
Mehmood Pracha, the Ambedkarite lawyer who fought the case for the victim, was insightful while outlining the chilling societal consequences of the verdict: "Justice has become the victim." He further went on to say, "There are certain cases like Asifa's case, the Hathras case, and now Unnao that shakes the conscience of the entire society. But in India today, judicial delay has become so normal that justice itself becomes the victim."
Perhaps this new chilling sequence of events started with the communal carnage in Gujarat. The landmark case of Bilkis Bano brought this obnoxious and chilling process to the fore. Not that women had not been subjected to violence in the past; but the new dimension is the weaponisation of such crimes by providing social, political, and of course, ideological sustenance for all this. The intersection of gender and communal-Dalit persecution makes the current realty even more threatening.
Bilkis Bano exhibited remarkable strength of character in her pursuit for justice. Widespread evidence of sexual violence was found in several reports brought out by the civil society and concerned citizens groups, while data gathered through RTI queries suggested that few rapes were reported and even fewer registered by the police. Understandably, the reluctance of women, particularly in rural areas, to report their ordeal flows from social ostracisation that looks down upon survivors of rape. It is not difficult to understand that the impunity of the perpetrators of the communal carnage in Gujarat 2002 had dissuaded victims from approaching the police, in whom these Muslim women had no confidence left.
Notwithstanding that chilling atmosphere, Bilkis was one of the few rape survivors who came forward. She waged a historic battle and secured the first conviction ever for this crime during communal violence in independent India. It is widely known that women's bodies become subjects of sexual brutalisation during communal riots for humiliating and demoralising the entire community. But despite the conviction, the Gujarat government pardoned the perpetrators. Thanks to some of the respected NGOs and the National Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court facilitated a proper investigation, shifted the trial outside Gujarat, and overturned the FIR by the state police.
The Unnao case was a chilling reminder of what happened to Bilkis Bano and so many other victims of the communal carnage in Gujarat 2002. The Unnao case was really an open and shut case. However, given his powerful connections, Sengar managed to secure the complicity of the police and the state government. The victims' immediate family members were also killed during the legal proceedings for sabotaging evidence. Even the Delhi High Court, which delivered this atrocious order of remission, noted that the CBI did not vocally oppose the application for showing leniency.
Given the sense of outrage ripping across the country, the CBI was forced to move for a stay on the Delhi HC order. It is another matter that the Supreme Court found the Delhi order flawed even on consideration of law and went out of the way to ensure that remission was eventually stayed.
There has been a rich body of intellectual and political work by scores of eminent activists and leaders of the women's movement and civil society who have documented their experiences on these atrocious developments, which can be ignored only at our own peril. These studies and publications by noted activists, leaders, jurists and feminists have irrefutably linked the growing crimes against women to the growth of Hindutva forces and the ascent to office by the RSS-BJP. It is the leverage of power that provides the grounds for the impunity of Hindutva-related perpetrators and completely blocks the process of justice.
Therefore, it is not merely the crime, but the criminal defence, which often fringes on celebration, which is rupturing the very fabric of this nation. It will be useful to go into the essential ideological roots of this cancerous virus. In course of the centenary celebration of the RSS, the top brass of the organisation, including its supremo Mohan Bhagwat, have brought out the inseparable element of male supremacist and patriarchal inclinations of the RSS. The advocacy of Hindutva with the almost synonymous use of Sanatan Dharm highlights these underpinnings. Right from the days of Ramayana and Mahabharata, these references have remained in our collective memory. It is Sita who has to always be subjected to Agni Pariksha to prove her chastity. It is Draupadi who is bound to be humiliated in public as her body becomes a site of battle for dominance and hegemony.
It is not just the epics but actual Vedic and Puranic texts which brings out this inerasable belittling, if not crucifixion, of the women. Rig Veda and Atharva Vedas assign homemaking and motherhood for the women. Dedication to husband, a euphemism for subjugation, is the assigned priority. Bhagavad Gita, Artha Shastra and, to top it all, Manusmriti attribute 'sleep, lust, anger, dishonesty, malice and bad conduct to women; call them heartless and disloyal and needing to be guarded; that they should not be given freedom, otherwise they will disrupt social structure; they are fickle.' Manusmriti goes on further to say that a man can leave his wife, mortgage her or sell her (aka Draupadi). She should never displease her husband. Such 'pearls of wisdom' adorn Shiv Purana, Devi Bhagwatam Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Bhagvad Purana, Narada Purana, Garuda Purana, Agni Purana, Matsya Purana and Brahman Purana. Consigned to the home and tasked with obedience to the husband and the other menfolk of the family, women can forget about freedom.
It will be a truism to point out that these anachronisms are simply unacceptable in the twentieth century. If the elected leaders of India are claiming to be viswagurus and to have great influence in the contemporary world, they have to distance themselves and disavow such regressive thought. But that is not possible. BJP has its umbilical cord attached to RSS and Hindutva. Therefore, apart from the structural inequality that women in India suffers from time immemorial, in terms of access to education, health, income and all other means and wherewithal towards empowerment and equality, the present times confront them with a second and even bigger challenge to take on this atrocious world of bigotry and misogyny. This challenge can only be met by the combined strength of the democratic and secular forces; men and women walking and struggling hand in hand. The democratic women's movement has already made remarkable contributions in the pursuit of that objective.
(December 31, 2025)
