The decision did more than meet Kaushik’s claims for compensation. It issued far-reaching institutional directions: the creation of a committee headed by retired Justice Asha Menon to propose a model Equal Opportunity Policy (EOP) for transgender persons, and then, further ordered that the policy, following the guidelines, would be binding on all establishments, public and private, until the Union Government delivered its own. Through this action, the Court bridged the historic gap between recognition and implementation of equality, making it move from being an aspiration into an enforceable mechanism.

A Case that Became a Constitutional Reckoning

Unfortunately, Jane’s experience is not unique. After revealing her gender identity, she was forced to turn in her resignation after only eight days on the job at a school in Uttar Pradesh; a school in Gujarat later rescinded her job offer on similar grounds. She subsequently filed with the Supreme Court, under Article 32, arguing that these actions were violations of her constitutional rights and of the 2019 Act that prohibits discrimination “in any matter relating to employment.”

The court agreed. The Bench noted that discrimination on the part of private employers that is gender identity-based “strikes at the heart of the constitutional guarantee of dignity and equality” and explained that by not doing something about such exclusions by private entities state was making an “omissive discrimination.” The judges reminded the government, in the end, that the TG Act and its 2020 Rules were not too long ago, “brutally reduced to dead letters” by the government’s bureaucratic apathy.

While acknowledging the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, and the 2020 Rules, the Court regretted that they “have been brutally rendered dead letters” (para 35, p. 29). It further criticized the “grossly indifferent approach to the transgender community,” noting that this inaction “cannot in any way be fairly regarded as inadvertent or accidental; it is deliberate and is undoubtedly rooted in societal stigma, compounded by a lack of bureaucratic will” (para 35, p. 29). This scathing indictment of bureaucratic failure was coupled with a clear finding that the petitioner’s termination constituted a violation of her dignity, livelihood, and equality.

In asserting both direct and indirect discrimination, the Court put the question of gender identity discrimination into a framework of systemic injustice, and not simply a personal grievance. The damages awarded to Kaushik were symbolic, but profound: declaring through the judiciary that dignity is not contingent on conformity.

The Constitutional Arc: From NALSA to Kaushik

The judgment in Jane Kaushik v. Union of India is not disconnected from a trajectory of equality jurisprudence over the last decade or so. Its reasoning is founded upon three separate but constitutional landmark decisions — National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India [(2014) 5 SCC 438], Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors. [(2017) 10 SCC 1], and Navtej Singh Johar and Ors. v. Union of India (Ministry of Law and Justice) [(2018) 10 SCC 1] — each of which represented a point in India’s constitutional journey from recognition to dignity.

In National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (NALSA), the Supreme Court expressly recognized transgender individuals as “the third gender,” indicating that Articles 14, 15, 16, 19, and 21 recognize the right to equality and dignity for all individuals, regardless of their gender identity. The judgment stated, “Gender identity is inherent to the concept of personhood…one of the most fundamental elements of dignity, self-determination, and freedom.” The Court also mandated that the state governments recognize self-identification and take proactive measures relating to education and employment. The Kaushik Bench cited NALSA to reaffirm that, “Articles 15 and 16 must be read in a manner that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity” (para 30, p. 26), but importantly extended this reasoning into the employment context, stating that neither public nor private employers may deny employment based on gender identity.

Three years later, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, a nine-judge Bench recognized that the right to privacy under Article 21 includes bodily integrity, decisional autonomy, and the right to express one’s identity. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud wrote that “privacy protects individual autonomy and recognizes the right to make vital personal choices.” Kaushik recognizes this principle and extends autonomy to the workplace, contending that the right to live with dignity includes the right to livelihood without stigma.

Finally, in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, Section 377 of the IPC was invalidated, decriminalizing relations between persons of the same sex, and holding that equality is grounded in constitutional morality rather than public morality. With NALSA, Puttaswamy, and Navtej all providing a philosophical basis for the holding in Kaushik, they enforce those rights in the workplace. From recognition of identity, to protection of autonomy, to the enforcement of economic dignity, Jane Kaushik marks an evolution in India’s constitutional journey to not only a right to exist but to a right to thrive.

Equality Beyond Formalism: The Court’s Expansive Interpretation

One particularly notable aspect of the Kaushik case is its recognition of substantive equality, an embodied notion of equality that requires not just that all people be treated the same, but that normative structural barriers are eliminated so that certain groups can realize their rights.

Citing Articles 14 through 16 of the Indian Constitution, the Court validated that discrimination based on gender identity is a form of discrimination based on sex. The Court also connected this idea to the right to a dignified life and to live under Article 21 of the Constitution by stating that refusing employment based on gender identity results in “economic and social death” to an individual. The judgment invoked something called constitutional morality and reminded employers, both public and private, that the obligation of equality is not discretionary; it is a part of being a democratic citizen.

This point is significant because, as observed by CJP in its report about transgender rights in 2023, a lot of the discrimination experienced by the transgender community is not a result of outright bad intentions but rather due to inertia and ignorance by the institutional structure. The Court’s reasoning captured that in its justification by holding that to omit, or not act, can itself be a form of discrimination.

By recognizing “omissive discrimination,” the Bench also expanded and layered the idea of state obligations. As the Bench explained, equality means positive obligations. The State must ensure that the rights of transgender persons are not merely enshrined in law, but that they are realized and effective.

Strengthening Employment Protection

The first sphere of impact of the judgment for the transgender community is with respect to employment security.  The Court found expressly that the protections available under the TG Act apply equally to public and private employment, which makes it unlawful for any establishment to deny employment, promotion, or continuance for reasons relating to gender identity.

This means that where previously, major alterations to workplaces across India were difficult to put in place properly (at a general level, but increasingly across specific employment compartments governed by individual laws, such as recognition also in respect of ‘male and female’), this is now a seismic shift in practice and the obligation on employers. Employers must now make reasonable accommodation, whether borrowing the term from disability rights jurisprudence or applying the principle from the Court in respect of substantive equality, on any decision or treatment, covering everything that applies to transgender persons: recruitment forms, uniforms, leave policy, goodwill policy, and grievance procedures, also all included.

Having also ordered a compensation award to Kaushik, the Court now presents a precedent in respect of damages in fear to workplace discrimination, making it clear that discrimination is not only a negative ethic but an illicit treatment too. As earlier argued in CJP’s “The Discordant Symphony”, the work for transgender rights in India is not only about legal recognition, but within the real act, one of accessing responsible means of livelihood. This judgment helps stitch the gap between legal and lived rights responsibly, moving now toward enforceable law work.

Mandating an Equal Opportunity Policy

Arguably, one of the most progressive components of the ruling is the instruction to draft a template Equal Opportunity Policy (EOP) for transgender persons. The Court observed that Rule 12 of the 2020 Rules already imposes an obligation on every establishment to implement an EOP, designate a complaint officer, and create an environment free of discrimination, but noted that few, if any, establishments had done so.

The newly constituted Justice Asha Menon Committee is to produce a uniform EOP to be used by all establishments. Until it is formally adopted by the Union Government, the Court ruled that the guidelines of the committee will have a binding effect.

This shifts the responsibility of inclusion from a moral goal to a legal duty. The Court effectively constitutionalizes workplace inclusivity as an obligation of employers. Employers, schools, corporations, etc., now have an ongoing obligation to have trans-inclusive policies, grievance policies, and sensitization regimes.

As CJP’s earlier analysis in “From Judgments to Handbook: India’s Transformative Journey towards LGBTQIA Equality” pointed out, systemic inclusion cannot be left to goodwill; it has to be planned design. The Supreme Court has now offered precisely that design.

Ripple Effects: Recruitment Norms and Affirmative Action

Jane Kaushik’s implications transcend a single case. For the public sector, the judgment reopens discussion around reservation and affirmative action for transgender persons. Only a handful of states, including Karnataka, which offered a 1 % horizontal reservation, and Odisha, which instructed departments last month to incorporate “transgender” as a category of gender separately on forms, have taken action on inclusive hiring policies.

By calling out inaction by the state, the Supreme Court has signalled that governments cannot sit idly. Departments will have to insist on representation, reasonable relaxations, and non-discriminatory criteria in recruiting and promoting.

The implications for the private sector are equally significant. Employment discrimination based on gender identity now not only carries reputational risk, but legal risk as well. The binding EOP means private institutions will now need to modify their recruiting advertisements, the recruiting application forms, and internal HR policies to ensure inclusion. Selection committees and the Board of Directors will require mandatory sensitivity training, and failure to comply could result in judicial assessment.

In that regard, the judgement extends the ethos of equality into India’s economic systems, making sure that the transformative promise of the Constitution governs behaviour not only by the State, but the marketplace as well.

Constitutional Morality Meets the Workplace

Through Jane Kaushik v. Union of India, the Supreme Court has issued one of its most important equality decisions since Navtej Johar. It extends the Constitution into dimensions of society where discrimination can often continue without intervention. It does this by asserting the need to implement a national Equal Opportunity Policy and assigning significant responsibility to the State to respond to “omissive discrimination”, therefore transforming equality from a right to a collective responsibility of every institution.

For India’s transgender citizens, this decision substantively transforms symbolic recognition into meaningful participation – from simply existing to being able to be employed, from invisibility to the possibility of inclusion. True progress is not identified merely in laws or decisions but in the security of dignity in everyday life.

The next test is whether this landmark ruling is remembered, not as a judicial victory but as when workplaces, all over India, began to embody the values of the Constitution itself.

The judgment in Jane Kaushik v. Union of India can be read here:

The judgment in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India can be read here:

The judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India can be read here:

The judgment in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India can be read here:

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related

Reflecting on Transgender Rights in 2023: Have Legal Recognition and Advocacy Efforts Broken the Cycle of Discrimination and Ostracism?

The discordant symphony: where does the transgender community go from here?

From Judgments to Handbook: India’s Transformative Journey towards LGBTQIA+ Equality

Can pride be apolitical? Perspectives from queer and trans* community

Mapping Gender-Based Violence in India: Trends, determinants, and institutional frameworks

MAT highlights state’s duty under Transgender Act 2019 for Trans inclusion

The post Beyond mere Recognition: The Jane Kaushik judgment and the next frontier of transgender equality appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delivering judgment in Muhammad Shareef C & Anr. v. State of Kerala & Anr., decided on October 30, 2025, Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan declared that while Islamic personal law may permit a man to marry more than once, the law of the land and the Constitution must prevail when such a marriage is to be formally registered.

“A Muslim first wife cannot be a silent spectator to the registration of the second marriage of her husband, even though the Muslim Personal Law allow a second marriage to a man in certain situations. The 1st petitioner can marry again if his Personal Law permits him to do so. However, if the first petitioner wishes to register his second marriage with the second petitioner, the law of the land will prevail, and in such a situation, an opportunity of hearing for the first wife is necessary. In such situations, religion is secondary and constitutional rights are supreme. In other words, this is essentially the fundamental principle of natural justice. This Court cannot ignore the feelings, if any, of the first wife when her husband registers his second marriage in accordance with the law of the land. I am sure that 99.99% of Muslim women will be against their husband’s second marriage when their relationship with him is in existence. They may not disclose the same to society. However, their feelings cannot be ignored by a court, at least when their husbands attempt to register the second marriage in accordance with the Rules 2008.” the Court held. (Para 10)

Background of the case

The first petitioner, Muhammad Shareef, a 44-year-old man from Kannur, was already in a subsisting marriage with two children when he claimed to have solemnised a second marriage in 2017 with Abida T.C., the second petitioner, as per Muslim custom. The couple, who have two children together, approached the Registrar to register their marriage under the 2008 Rules, asserting that it was essential to secure property and inheritance rights for the second wife and their children.

When the Registrar declined to register the marriage, the petitioners approached the High Court contending that Muslim personal law allows up to four wives and that, therefore, the registration authority had no right to refuse.

The legal questions before the court

Justice Kunhikrishnan framed two fundamental questions:

1. Whether notice to the first wife is necessary for registering a Muslim man’s second marriage under the Kerala Registration of Marriages (Common) Rules, 2008; and
2. What remedy exists if the first wife objects to such registration on grounds of invalidity.

“Polygamy is an exception, not the rule” — The Qur’anic context

The judgment is remarkable not only for its constitutional vision but also for its interpretive depth in reading Islamic law through the lens of justice and equality. Referring to Jubairiya v. Saidalavi N. [2025 (6) KHC 224], Justice Kunhikrishnan extracted passages from the Qur’an to dispel the misconception that a Muslim man may marry multiple times at will.

Citing the verses, the Court underscored that justice, fairness, and transparency lie at the heart of Muslim marriage law — principles that align with constitutional values. Providing the same, the Court highlighted the facts of the case and held “

“In this case, admittedly, the 1st petitioner married another woman and in that relationship, he has two children. When the relationship with that woman was in existence, the first petitioner submitted to this Court that he fell in love with the second petitioner and married her. I don’t think that the Holy Qur’an or the Muslim Law permits an extramarital relationship with another lady when his first wife is alive and his first marriage with her is in existence, and that also, without the knowledge of his first wife. The principles derived from the Holy Qur’an and Hadith collectively enjoin principles of justice, fairness, and transparency in all marital dealings. However, the petitioner is relying on Muslim Personal Law to justify his marriage to the second petitioner.” (Para 6)

The Law of the Land: Rule 11 of the 2008 Rules

The Court examined Rule 11 of the Kerala Registration of Marriages (Common) Rules, 2008, which obligates the Local Registrar to verify the details furnished in the memorandum of marriage, including previous marital status (Columns 3(f) and (g) of Form I). Justice Kunhikrishnan observed that this requirement gives the registrar clear knowledge of whether a spouse is already married — and therefore, whether due notice must be given to the first wife before proceeding with registration.

While citing Hussain v. State of Kerala [2025 (4) KHC 314], the Court clarified that the Registrar has no power to adjudicate on the validity of the marriage, but cannot ignore procedural fairness:

“…the Registrar is not vested with the power to decide the validity of the marriage. The question is, when a muslim man marries again, when his first wife is alive and the marital relationship with her is in existence, the second marriage can be registered as per the Rules 2008 behind the back of the first wife. The Holy Qur’an is silent about the consent of the first wife for the second marriage to a muslim man when the earlier marriage is in existence. However, it does not prohibit the option of obtaining consent from the first wife, or at least informing her before he marries again. Equality in gender is a constitutional right of every citizen. Men are not superior to women. Gender equality is not a women’s issue, but it is a human issue. As I mentioned earlier, the principles derived from the Holy Qur’an and Hadith collectively enjoin principles of justice, fairness, and transparency in all marital dealings. Therefore, I am of the considered opinion that, if a Muslim man wants to register his second marriage in accordance with the Rules 2008, when his first marriage is in existence and the first wife is alive, an opportunity of hearing should be given to the first wife for the registration.” (Para 10)

Justice Kunhikrishnan: “A Muslim first wife cannot be a silent spectator”

In one of the most stirring portions of the judgment, Justice Kunhikrishnan emphasized that registration of a second marriage behind the back of the first wife would violate principles of natural justice and human dignity:

“A Muslim first wife cannot be a silent spectator to the registration of the second marriage of her husband, even though the Muslim Personal Law allow a second marriage to a man in certain situations.” (Para 10)

The Court observed that even though personal law permits polygamy, it is conditioned upon fairness and capacity — both moral and financial — to treat each wife equally. Ignoring the first wife’s perspective would amount to legalising injustice.

Gender equality as a constitutional mandate

Justice Kunhikrishnan firmly anchored his reasoning in Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, holding that the procedural fairness demanded by the 2008 Rules flows directly from the constitutional right to equality:

“Equality in gender is a constitutional right of every citizen. Men are not superior to women. Gender equality is not a women’s issue, but it is a human issue.” (Para 10)

The judgment went beyond mere procedural compliance and addressed the emotional dimension of injustice suffered by first wives:

“I am sure that 99.99% of Muslim women will be against their husband’s second marriage when their relationship with him is in existence. They may not disclose the same to society. However, their feelings cannot be ignored by a court, at least when their husbands attempt to register the second marriage in accordance with the Rules 2008. Article 14 of the Constitution says that the state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” (Para 10)

This humane acknowledgment of emotional agency — rare in judicial discourse — underlines the Court’s empathetic understanding of women’s lived realities within personal law frameworks.

What Happens if the First Wife Objects?

The Court provided clear procedural guidance for registrars and litigants. If the first wife objects to the registration of a second marriage, the Registrar must not proceed with registration and must refer the matter to a competent civil court:

“If the first wife objects to the registration of the second marriage of her husband, alleging that the second marriage is invalid, the registrar shall not register the second marriage, and the parties should be referred to the competent court to establish the validity of the second marriage as per their religious customary law. As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing in the holy Qur’an which mandates a man to get permission from his first wife for his second marriage. However, Customary Law is not applicable when the question of registering a second marriage arises. I am not saying that the second marriage cannot be registered, but an opportunity of hearing should be given to the first wife by the statutory authorities, while a second marriage of a Muslim man is to be registered.” (Para 10)

Balancing Faith and Law: The Constitutional Synthesis

Perhaps the most profound aspect of Justice Kunhikrishnan’s judgment is the synthesis it achieves between faith and fundamental rights. While reaffirming that Islam does not mandate consent from the first wife for a second marriage, the Court held that when registration under a secular statute is sought, constitutional guarantees must take precedence:

“Customary Law is not applicable when the question of registering a second marriage arises. I am not saying that the second marriage cannot be registered, but an opportunity of hearing should be given to the first wife by the statutory authorities, while a second marriage of a Muslim man is to be registered. Muslim Personal Law states that a man can have more than one wife, provided that he has the capacity to maintain more than one wife and can give justice to his first wife. If the husband is neglecting the first wife or not maintaining the first wife, or inflicting cruelty on the first wife and thereafter contracting a second marriage, making use of his Personal Law, an opportunity of hearing to the first wife will be beneficial to her at least when the second marriage is registered in accordance with the Rules 2008. marriage registration officer can hear the first wife, and if she objects to her husband’s second marriage, stating that it is invalid, the parties can be referred to a competent civil court to establish the validity of the second marriage.” (Para 10)

Outcome and broader implications

The writ petition was dismissed as the first wife had not been made a party. Nonetheless, the Court issued a transformative directive:

“Let the Muslim women also get an opportunity of hearing when their husbands remarry, at least at the stage of registering the second marriage.” (Para 10)

The ruling thus extends procedural protection to Muslim women within a statutory framework that transcends personal law — ensuring that no woman is blindsided by a state-sanctioned act of erasure.

Why this judgment matters

1. Reasserts constitutional supremacy: Personal law cannot override statutory procedure or fundamental rights when interfacing with state authorities.
2. Advances gender justice: By recognizing the first wife’s right to be heard, the Court has extended procedural dignity to Muslim women.
3. Bridges faith and constitution: It integrates Islamic principles of justice and fairness with the Constitution’s egalitarian ethos.
4. Sets a model for inclusive procedure: The decision creates a precedent for harmonizing personal law practices with secular regulatory frameworks.

Conclusion

Justice Kunhikrishnan’s ruling is a landmark in both family law and constitutional jurisprudence. It acknowledges the validity of personal law while firmly situating all state-recognised acts within the boundaries of constitutional morality, equality, and natural justice.

In essence, the judgment transforms a narrow question of registration into a broader affirmation of women’s rights and human dignity. It is a model of judicial craftsmanship that blends empathy with principle — reaffirming that in India’s constitutional democracy, faith may guide conduct, but fairness must govern the law.

The complete judgment may be read here.

Related:

Shah Bano Begum (1916-1992): A Socio-Political Historical Timeline

Misogyny & Faith: Extreme narratives curtailing the autonomy of women

Shubha case: Reformative Justice meets Gendered Realities

Andhra Pradesh High Court rules Trans woman is a ‘woman’

A Question of Rights: Supreme Court backs teacher in maternity leave dispute

The post Kerala High Court: First wife must be heard before registering Muslim man’s second marriage appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Note: Meanwhile, Shah Bano’s daughter has approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Tuesday (November 4) claiming that the movie ‘Haq’ starring Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi affects the personality rights of her mother, depicts her image in a derogatory manner and must not be released. After hearing all the parties–including the producers and the Censor board, Justice Pranay Verma reserved his verdict in the matter.

In the 1970s, Shah Bano filed a suit for maintenance from her husband. As the court proceedings ensued, just to unburden himself from paying maintenance to his separated wife, Shah Bano, he (Mr Khan) divorced Shah Bano (reportedly inside the Court itself), and argued that un-Quranic Instant Triple Talaq (ITT) didn’t provide for maintenance. The litigation reached up to the Supreme Court which ruled in favour of Shah Bano, in April 1985. This created a huge furore. Muslims and the Urdu press initially welcomed it (according to Nawaz B Mody’s essay). By August 1985, the Muslim conservatives began to massively agitate asking for upturning it through legislation. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, was persuaded/misled to oblige the Muslim conservatives. Ever since then, the Ayodhya-Babri Masjid dispute took a new, sharper turn, giving an excuse to Hindutva supremacists to influence wider Indian society and the polity.

Five years ago I wrote:

….In the 1980s, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)—guided forces among Muslims made their own contributions of fodder to rising majoritarianism. On January 15, 1986, in a session of the Momin Conference at the Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi announced his intention to amend the law to nullify the Supreme Court’s April 1985 verdict in favour of Shah Bano. A bill was introduced in March and it became the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act in May 1986. In January 1986, there were strident Muslim protests against the progressive verdict, which had granted Shah Bano, a Muslim woman, alimony after her divorce.

The approach of the conservative Muslims became pretty clear from the Urdu memoir, Karwan-e-Zindagi, published in 1988 by Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Miyan Nadvi (1914-1999). In Volume 3, Chapter 4, Page 134, Nadvi clearly narrates that it is he who had persuaded Gandhi not to accept the proposition that many Islamic countries have already reformed their personal laws. Nadvi’s narration is triumphant; he rejoices in the successful accomplishment of his effort to stymie a similar reform in India. He says his persuasion had a particular psychological impact on Gandhi and that his “arrow precisely hit the target— woh teer apney nishaaney par baitha”.

On page 157 comes Nadvi’s candid “confession”: “Our mobilisation for protecting the Shariat in 1986 resulted into complicating the issue of Babri Masjid and vitiated the atmosphere in a big way— is ne fiza mein ishte’aal wa izteraab paida karney mein bahut bara hissa liya,” he writes.

For further substantiation, one must read Nadvi’s memoir in Nicholas Nugent’s book,  Rajiv Gandhi: Son of a Dynasty, published by BBC Books, in 1990. On page 187 Nugent writes:

“…a decision had been taken by the Congress High Command in the early 1986 to ‘play the Hindu card’ in the same way that the Muslim Women’s bill had been an attempt to ‘play the Muslim card’… Ayodhya was supposed to be a package deal… a tit for tat for the Muslim women’s bill… Rajiv played a key role in carrying out the Hindu side of the package deal by such actions as arranging that picture of Hindus worshipping at the newly unlocked shrine be shown on television.”

The lock was opened within an hour of the judgment being delivered by the district court of Faizabad on 1 February 1986. As said earlier, the deal between the Prime Minister, the Muslim clergy and the Momin Conference’s Ziaur Rahman Ansari (who died in 1992) had already been struck in January 1986. There is a reference to this in his biography, Wings of Destiny, 2018, written by his son Fasihur Rahman. Yet, a nagging question remains: who wanted to open the locks, and why? After all, the elections were four long years away and so Gandhi did not have a direct electoral stake in the event…”

This biographical timeline of Shah Bano therefore attempts at capturing the journey of the India(n) republic veering around the issue of Muslim resistance to reforms in Personal (Gender) laws and surge in Hindu majoritarian influence. This timeline also provides a significant reading list, by many including some of the dramatis personae in this saga. Many of these facts pertaining to the issue remain largely unknown even to informed readers. They provide an informed reading.

1916:  Shah Bano Begum was born; [the year when Congress-Muslim League & Moderate-Extremist Pact took place at Lucknow].

1932: Shah Bano marries Indore-based advocate Md Ahmad Khan (1913-2006), her cousin. [The year Gandhi-Ambedkar Poona Pact happened].

1937 to 1939: The Shariat Application Act was enacted. Jinnah, the pork-eating non-practicing Muslim, was the pilot of the legislation. The roles of Maulana Azad, Maulana Madani, etc., in this legislative pursuit not known, so far. A daughter (of the Punjab’s Khizr & Sikandar Hayat Khan family) asks for inheritance in landed property, as per Shariat. [Tiwana-Jinnah] deny this right, invoking cunning arguments, such as, (i) Customary laws deny daughter’s share in land, and (ii) that land & agriculture was a state Subject whereas the Shariat Act was a Central law! Thus, Muslim women are made to suffer from the Shariat Act on two fronts: the marriage-divorce issue as well as the inheritance rights in parental assets.

1938 to 1947: Muslim League & Savarkar led Hindu Mahasabha come together, ally, pushing India towards Partition, with the active support of the British colonial state.

1946: Mr Md. Ahmad Khan marries again (second marriage), with Halima Begum, a cousin of Shah Bano.

1946-1950: Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD) on Article 44, Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Articles 25 to 28 and 37.

1947: Partition happens; millions are raped, displaced, looted, amputated, mutilated. Jinnah’s goal of consolidating Muslims politically through the enacted Shariat Act gets accomplished and manifests in Partition, leaving an unending legacy of bloodshed, communal hatred. India’s Muslims are rendered ever more vulnerable.

January 30, 1948: Gandhiji was assassinated by Hindu bigots affiliated with radical Hindu outfits. Just ten days before, they had failed in their attempt to assassinate Gandhi and one of them was arrested. Yet, for many hours after the killing, on January 30, 1948, an apprehension prevailed about the identity of the assassin until then Prime Minister Nehru and Home Minister Sardar Patel clarified the situation, declared the reality.

1951-1961: Nehru led govt reforms Hindu Personal Laws; expects the religious minorities to initiate reforms at their own, from within. (For details see, Reba Som’s essay, “Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code: A Victory of Symbol over Substance?”, in the Modern Asian Studies, 28, 1, Feb 1994).

1962: Pakistan reforms Muslim personal Laws; the reforms which elude India’s Muslims even in 2025.

1972-1973: The Indira-led govt amends the Cr P C 1898 to help deserted women & abandoned old parents, with maintenance, and for adoption of child. Muslims protest across India against the essentially Hindu law reforms by coming out on streets– April 1973 the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) at Hyderabad, spearheads these protests.

(Despite the fact that the custody of Zayd, the son adopted by the Prophet continued with him till Zayd was martyred; Zayd’s son, Osama, also continued to enjoy utmost affection of the Prophet. The Quran doesn’t prohibit “adoption” per se, it only prohibits erasure of biological paternity.)

1975:  Mr Md Ahmad Khan drove Shah Bano out of her home; she had three sons and two daughters and one Bahu (daughter-in-law) who was said to have been in support of Mr. Khan in driving Shah Bano out of her home. [The same year Emergency was imposed in the country].

April 1978: Shah Bano went to the trial court (Indore) asking for maintenance; the Court issued an interim order for payment of maintenance.

August 1979: the local magistrate directed Khan to pay a sum of Rs. 25 (US$2) per month maintenance to Shah Bano who alleged that her former husband earned a professional income of about Rs.60,000 annually (US$4,600).

November 1979: Mr Khan protested this in the court invoking personal law; the judge said even under the existing interpretation of and codified Muslim Personal Law, a separated wife does remain entitled for maintenance. On hearing this, right inside the court, before the judge, Mr Khan pronounced the un-Quranic instant triple divorce. Simply to avoid payment of maintenance, of a meagre allowance of amount Rs 179/- per month.

1979: The Supreme Court verdict (in the Tahira Bi vs Ali Hasan) for maintenance to the divorced Muslim woman.

1980: Shah Bano filed a revised application for increased maintenance, and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh raised the amount to Rs.179.20 per month (US$14).

1980: Supreme Court verdict for maintenance in the Fazlun Bi vs Qadir Wali case.

Feb 19, 1981: Meenakshipuram (Tamil Nadu) Dalits Converted to Islam, en masse, and the village was renamed Rahmatnagar. This created furore and communal strife. [For details see, Theodre P Wright Jr (October 1982), “The Movement to Convert Harijans to Islam in South India”, The Muslim World, 72, 3-4, pp. 239-245]

February 1983: Nellie (Assam) Massacre [See Myron Weiner (June 1983), “The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti-Immigrant Movement”, Population and Development Review, vol. 9, Issue 2]

8 April 1984: “VHP gave a clarion call for the removal of the Babri Masjid”. [A G Noorani, 2019, The RSS, p. 207].

September 25, 1984: Former BJP President, Lal Krishna Advani-led Rath Yatra began

October 31, 1984: The Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated; Rath Yatra suspended.

April 23, 1985: The Supreme Court, hearing the appeal (High Court also retained maintenance), endorsed the verdict (for maintenance of Rs 500/- per month) given by the Lower & High Court. Justice Y. V. Chandrachud’s observations were not confined to Quran alone; the verdict subjected (the patriarchic aspects of Hinduism as well as Islam) to criticism.

Last Friday of Ramzan (1985) observed as Yaum-e-Tahaffuz-e-Shariat.

August 1985: Signing of the Assam accord, widely considered to be a political concession made at the cost of the immigrant Muslims.

Aug 1985: Arif M Khan, Union Minister of State in Rajiv cabinet, spoke in Parliament welcoming the Supreme Court verdict.

October 23, 1985: Rath Yatra resumed from 25 places. Deadline of Shivratri (March 8, 1986). Before this, discussions on the possibility of the locks of the Babri Masjid sought to be opened, by former PM, Rajiv Gandhi were discussed, according to Neerja Chowdhury’s report in the Statesman.

Nov 15, 1985: Succumbing under mass protests before Shah Bano”s house in Indore, she was forced to affix her thumb impression to a statement saying she disavowed the Supreme Court verdict. [Ritu Sarin, “Shah Bano: The Struggle and the Surrender”, Sunday, 1-7 Dec 1985].

December 1985 to January 1986: Five lakh Muslims came out on the streets of Bombay, Calicut.

The Hindu Mahasabha retaliated by handing out the same treatment to the effigies of Maulana Ziaur Rahman Ansari (d. 1992), Union minister of state for environment, who leads the fundamentalist pressure group within the Congress (I).

In the first few weeks after the Shah Bano verdict, most Urdu press welcomed the verdict and expected that the Muslims will introspect and will launch reforms (Nawaz B Mody’s research essay, Asian Survey, 1987).

December 1985: Ziaur Rahman Ansari (MoS Environment, in Rajiv cabinet) spoke against the verdict in a three-hour long speech in Parliament. He used casteist slurs against the judges: something like this, “Kya ab teli tamboli bhi Sharaiat mein dakhal dengey!” (Indian Express, December 21, 1985).

Muslims protested against the Supreme Court verdict and the observations recorded in the verdict (misleadingly propagating that Islam alone was targeted by the Supreme Court). Asghar Ali Engineer’s columns in Bombay’s Urdu Blitz kept appreciating the verdict and kept talking of the reformism.

December 1985: Shah Bano met Rajiv Gandhi at his invitation, in which Gandhi persuaded Bano to refuse the maintenance telling her the situation was very critical.

Post-verdict, till January 1986: Ali Miyan Nadvi (+ Syed Shahabuddin+Ibrahim Sulaiman Sait) led AIMPLB “bargained” with the Prime Minister to legislate against the verdict. “In exchange”, locks of Babri Masjid to be opened, via the Faizabad Court; the opening to be telecast on Doordarshan.

This is “confessed” by Ali MiyaN (1914-1999) in his Urdu memoir, Kaarwaan-e-Zindagi (1988; vol.3, chapter 4, pages 134-137, 157); corroborated by Nicholas Nugent’s biography (1990, p. 187) of Rajiv Gandhi. Neerja Chowdhury (Statesman, 20 April and 1 May 1986), “There is evidence of a connection between the opening of the doors of the disputed ram Janmabhoom in Ayodhya and introduction of the Muslim [Women] Bill in Parliament…”

Ali Miyan Nadvi had also promised the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that the Muslim clergy would make “some arrangement” for maintenance of divorced Muslim women out of the Waqf assets. This promise remains forgotten.

August 1985 to January 1986: Rallies and Protests in Bombay, Calicut, Indore, Assam, Patna, Lucknow, etc. against the Verdict— “Shariat Bachao!” Different responses of the Muslim civil society, academics, and politicians. Over 500 teachers of AMU and a good number of teachers in JMI (barring a few dozen teachers of Left-Liberal leanings) side with the Muslim conservatives and reactionaries.

19 December 1985: Vir Bahadur Singh, the Congress CM of UP visited Ayodhya’s Ramayan Mela organised by the government agencies.

January 1986: The deal to legislate against the Supreme Court Verdict was finalized/endorsed by Ziaur Rahman Ansari (& Momin Conference?), with the PM, Rajiv Gandhi. See the biography (2018) of Ansari, Wings of Destiny.

January 25, 1986: Umesh Chandra Pandey, a 28 years old local lawyer filed an application in the Munsif Court, Faizabad, seeking removal of restrictions on the puja at the disputed Babri Masjid site. The Munsif declined as the files were in the High Court since 1961.

January 31, 1985: Appeal was filed in the Babri Masjid dispute court of the District Judge, Faizabad;

February 1, 1986: The case was heard. Md Hashim’s application was rejected who was already a plaintiff. The District Judge (K M Pandey) heard the District Magistrate and the SSP Faizabad on the law-and-order situation.

February 1, 1986: Faizabad Court orders (at 4.40 pm) opening; within less than 40 minutes of the verdict, unlocking done (at 5.19 pm) & televised, “as per the deal between the AIMPLB & PM” (see Urdu memoir of Ali Miyan Nadvi, Kaarwaan e Zindagi, vol.3, chapter 4, p. 134, 135, 157; also read, Nicholas Nugent’s biography of Rajiv Gandhi, 1990, p. 187). 

Ali Miyan’s offer and the promise to the PM to institute a measure for looking after the abandoned, helpless women through Waqf or any other way, was a part of the deal which everybody including Ali Miyan chose to forget. The Qaum (community) never asked him about this, even after he wrote about the promise and deal in his Urdu memoir, Kaarwaan-e-Zindagi (1988, vol. 3, chapter 4). 

“There was a prior understanding between Indira Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi and VHP on the opening of the locks”, writes Noorani (The RSS, 2019, p. 207) citing Neerja’s two reports in the Statesman.

February 19, 1986: Bill tabled to nullify the Supreme Court verdict.

March 8, 1986: Shivratri, Deadline of the VHP’s Rath Yatra to open the locks.

March 29-April 4, 1986: The Eve’s Weekly quoted Arif Md Khan’s resignation who also said, within law, “Indian Muslim women will be the only women to be denied maintenance anywhere in the world”.

April 1986 (Muslim India monthly): “AMU Teachers Support the Bill”; “As for AMU, the few dozens of teachers who signed the petition against the Muslim Women’s Bill paled in comparison to the more than 500 teachers (including sixty-three women) who signed a memorandum to express their ‘whole-hearted suport’ for the Bill”, and stated that the Muslims were hurt by the Supreme Court judgement [Laurence Gautier, 2024, p. 379].

May 1986: Parliament legislated law on Muslim Women, against the Supreme Court Verdict.

1986: Shah Bano pressurised to refuse to take the maintenance.

1986: Ram Shila (Bricks) Pujan Rath Yatra.

1989: Kar Seva in Ayodhya and the police firings on them.

1990: Mandal Report Implemented followed by caste riots and Advani’s W(r)ath Yatra.

1991: Narasimha Rao led govt brings in neo-liberalisation

1992: Shah Bano Begum dies; hardly any obituary was published by the press.

Sunday, December 6, 1992: Babri Masjid demolished, followed by massive pogroms across the country, and then a bomb blast in Bombay on Friday 12 March 1993.

April 1994: Allahabad High Court declared Instant Triple Talaq (ITT) illegal.

BJP kept rising, expanding and consolidating to emerge soon as the dominant and hegemonic political power, transforming the society, polity, administration and every other institution.

2001: Supreme Court verdict in Daniel Latifi case (after a few months of Latifi’s death) clarifying/reiterating that the law legislated in 1986 does provide for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code of India.

Feb 2002: Gujarat pogrom.

2006: Md Ahmed Khan died in Indore at the age of 93.

May 2014: NaMo Era comes and stays.

August 22, 2017: Supreme Court verdict (in the case of Shayera Bano of Allahabad) declared the ITT (Instant Triple Talaq) unconstitutional. The AIMPLB was respondent no. 7 in this case. It had submitted its affidavit that Court shouldn’t intervene; Parliament should. Yet, even after the verdict, the AIMPLB didn’t submit its draft proposal/bill, of reforms, in the Muslim Personal Laws.

February, 10-11, 2018: While going for its 26th plenary at Hyderabad in early February 2018, the AIMPLB announced that the session would prepare a model nikahnama, but reneged on it.

August 1, 2019: The Parliament criminalised ITT (Instant Triple Talaq). Maintenance to the divorced/abandoned women remains ignored as ever.

Feb 2024: Uttarakhand legislates for UCC; AIMPLB & Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) contemplate challenging the legislation in the court of law, without reforming the Muslim Personal Laws.

July 10, 2024: Supreme Court upholds Telangana High Court verdict for maintenance of Rs 10 000 per month to a divorced woman.

July 14, 2024: AIMPLB resolves to find ways of protesting against the verdict.

Further Readings

• Asghar Ali Engineer (1987), The Shah Bano Controversy.
• Zoya Hasan (January 7, 1989), “Minority Identity, Muslim Women Bill Campaign and the Political Process”, Economic and Political Weekly, 24, Issue 1.
• Ziya Us Salam (2018), Till Talaq Do Us Part
• Shekhar Gupta, Inderjit Badhwar, Farzand Ahmed (January 31, 1986), “Shah Bano judgment renders Muslims a troubled community, torn by an internal rift”, India Today.
• “Secularism on the Bend”, Frontline (English Fortnightly, Madras/Chennai), 11-24 January 1986.

Disclaimer: The author is unaware of the content of the biopic, Haq scheduled to be released on Friday, November 7.

Prepared by Mohammad Sajjad, Professor, Modern & Contemporary Indian History, AMU, Aligarh.

[Biography of Shah Bano: Biography of the Indian Nation-State]. Updated on 27 Sept 2024

Hindi Rendering published in Baya, Oct 2024 to March 2025

Related:

Shah Bano Lives

How the Ulema are Perpetuating Male Hegemony in the Name of Islam

The post Shah Bano Begum (1916-1992): A Socio-Political Historical Timeline appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The idea of IFWD emerged from the India Fisher Women Assembly 2024, a historic gathering that declared November 5 as the day to honour the invisible hands that feed nations and protect the oceans. The call was later taken to the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) General Assembly in Brazil, where it was unanimously adopted. It now stands as a global symbol of recognition — and rebellion.

As fisherwomen say, this day is not about being seen, but about reclaiming what was always theirs.

Anchored in a long tide of struggles

In the long history of people’s struggles, women have always been the conscience of resistance. From the factory floors of early Europe to the beaches of the Indian coast, women have stitched together the labour of survival and the ethics of care. Rosa Luxemburg’s words — “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains” — echo in the voices of fisherwomen today, who refuse to stay still while their waters are fenced, their lives erased, and their rights sold in the name of development.

International Women’s Day, born of the labour and socialist movements of Clara Zetkin and Luxemburg, demanded political equality and an end to exploitation. November 5 extends that lineage from the land to the sea. It reminds us that liberation cannot be confined to borders or industries — that the politics of the ocean, too, must carry the red thread of equality, community, and justice.

As Zetkin had said, “The working women’s question is not an isolated question, but part of the great social question.” The fisherwomen of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have kept that question alive — turning it into a sea of solidarity that stretches from Kanyakumari to Dakar.

Why November 5 matters — and why it began in India

Fisherwomen have always held the coastline together. They wake before dawn to carry fish to market, manage homes through storms and loss, and are the first to rebuild after every cyclone. Yet, their names do not appear in government records. They are still called ‘helpers’ or ‘dependents’, while laws, schemes, and cooperatives continue to be written in the masculine lens.

This erasure, the women declared in Kerala, must end. They demanded recognition not as “wives of fishers,” but as fishers themselves — rightful claimants of the seas, keepers of knowledge, and protectors of coasts.

In doing so, they carried forward the dreams of pioneers such as Thomas Kocherry and Harekrishna Debnath, who had long insisted that the future of fisheries lies not in mechanisation or export figures, but in justice, community control, and the dignity of work. Both leaders believed that the rights of fisherwomen were the moral compass of the movement. Kocherry often said, “When the poor stand up, even the sea must make way.”

The declaration of November 5 thus became a collective act of remembering — of drawing strength from those who built India’s post-colonial fishworker movement and from the women who sustained it quietly all along. This was endorsed by the largest social movement of fishers across the globe, the Word Forum of Fisher Peoples at the General Assembly held in Brazil in the same month of November 2025.

The women of waters and their demands

The call for an International Fisher Women’s Day is inseparable from its politics. Across India’s recently declared more than 11,000-kilometre coastline and its countless rivers and lakes, women are demanding what should never have been denied:

• Recognition as fishers in law and policy, not as dependents.
• Equal rights to access and govern coastal and inland waters, free from corporate intrusion.
• Inclusion in welfare, insurance, and disaster-compensation schemes.
• First-sale and market rights to secure fair prices and independence from exploitative middlemen.
• Representation in fisheries boards and cooperatives.
• Protection of ecosystems from destructive aquaculture, deep-sea mining, and coastal militarisation.
• Legal safeguards from caste and gender-based violence — both within the community and from the state.

These are not demands for special treatment; they are demands for survival, carved from decades of unpaid and unacknowledged work that sustains both the fishing economy and the national food basket.

The ocean remembers

In the last decade, government programmes such as the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) and new policies under the banner of Blue Economy 2.0 have promised prosperity. But for most coastal and inland fishing communities, these schemes have delivered displacement instead.

Behind the numbers and glossy reports lie harbours privatised, commons enclosed, and women’s livelihoods erased. As industrial trawlers deplete fish stocks and aquaculture pollutes backwaters, fisherwomen are left struggling for survival in a development model that excludes them.

The state’s vision of ‘modernisation’ has turned the sea into a commodity. But fisherwomen, who live by its moods and rhythms, remind us that the ocean is not a market to be managed — it is a living commons that sustains cultures, livelihoods, and spiritual traditions.

Ocean feminism and the new tide

From the lagoons of Chilika to the estuaries of Karaikal and the islands of the Sundarbans, women’s collectives are practising what they call ocean feminism — rooted in care, community, and resistance. They see themselves not as victims but as custodians of ‘aqua territories’ — spaces of relationship, knowledge, and survival.

As Harekrishna Debnath, one of India’s earliest fisher leaders, often said, “We don’t fight the sea; we live with it. But we must fight those who sell it.” Today, that fight is global. It connects fisherwomen in India to their sisters in Senegal, Thailand, and Brazil — all confronting the false climate solutions packaged as Blue Transformation, 30×30, and Marine Spatial Planning, which in practice privatise the oceans and displace small-scale fishers.

Through the five-week campaign initiated by WFFP — from November 5 to December 10 — women and men of the fishing world are asserting their right to live with dignity, protect their territories, and resist enclosure in every form.

From recognition to transformation

This International Fisher Women’s Day is not a commemoration; it is a beginning. It reminds us that the ocean too has a memory — of those who built communities along its edge, who fed others before themselves, and who continue to hold the fragile balance between humanity and water.

As Rosa Luxemburg warned, “Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently.” Across India’s coasts and rivers, fisherwomen are thinking — and acting — differently: against caste, patriarchy, and neoliberal enclosures; for rights, justice, and community life.

Their struggle is our collective future. When the tide rises, may it rise with their names on its waves.

Jesu Rethinam is the Global Women Coordinator of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP).

Vijayan MJ is Director, Participatory Action Research Coalition, India (PARCI).

Courtesy: CounterCurrents

The post Every Wave Has a Memory: Women, Waters and the Promise of November 5 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

There is a story of unbroken violence behind the language of percentages. The NCRB might record a few percentage points of change year to year, but the factual curve of cruelty, fear, and impunity is steep and continuous. In projecting a neutral and comprehensive approach, the Bureau displays a sort of bureaucratic amnesia: it renders visible structural violence and the inaction of the State as statistical.

The Myth of ‘Marginal’ Improvement

According to NCRB 2023, India recorded 471,000 reports of crimes against women, a nominal increase of three percent from the previous year. The largest single category remains “cruelty by husband or relatives” under section 498-A of IPC, at over 31 percent of all crimes against women. Reported rapes amounted to 32,032, roughly the same as the reports in 2022; assault with intent to outrage modesty was recorded at about 20 percent. However, the situation is worse for children: POCSO (Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences) and associated crimes increased by 9.2% this year, exceeding 170,000 cases.

In June 2023, the Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh experienced a tragedy resulting from coercive harassment. A married woman, Reena Joshi, 26 years old, died after allegedly ingesting acid as the culmination of months of harassing behaviour by a local man, Zakir Hussain. The FIR her husband filed stated that Hussain had been harassing Reena, threatening her to end her marriage, to convert to Islam, and to marry him. The FIR also noted that despite the couple’s multiple complaints to the local police, no preventive measures were taken. On 10 June 2023, Reena died from her injuries, and at the time of her death, she directly named Zakir in her statements to those trying to save her life. Zakir was charged with and arrested under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 354D (stalking), and the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021. The incident led to protests by women’s and community groups, calling for accountability from police for their inaction in the face of reported harassment. In aggregate, this was an episode that illustrated structural neglect, collapsing everyday harassment into fatal violence: the law can then only respond after someone dies, while the accused would not be charged with murder but instead abetment of suicide as recorded by the NCRB —both minimizing and removing the gendered and communal motivation behind the behaviour.

At first glance, these small percentage increases may seem to indicate stability or a sense that things haven’t really changed. Yet the small percentage increase masks the inability of gendered justice to make progressive change, improvement. Further, an increase of three percent represents over 14,000 more women reporting violence against women. In India, however, we know that one in ten assault cases will be reported at the very least – on an already underreported crime according gf to the NFHS-5. Thus, NCRB appearances of reported cases are a fragment of a much larger, certainly unreported crisis and violation, and depend upon those individuals to sacrifice their dignity in an institutional and systemic sense. Statistically, the NCRB is relying on reported FIRs (first information reports), so that the illusion appears real.

The rationale suggests that if we don’t file a complaint, there is no problem. Mainstream coverage also advances the invisibility: by attributing the word “marginal” to the increase, the newsroom and media outlets unconsciously (or otherwise) participate in the state’s rhetoric of containment, as if gendered violence is merely a data problem, not a social emergency. What masquerades as stability is, in fact, indifference, which has both institutional and systemic impact.

Data without Identity: How Categories erase Vulnerability

If NCRB’s percentages flatten time, its categories flatten people. Crimes committed against women are presented as one large, lumped category that does not disaggregate for caste, religion, class, or disability, all of which structure vulnerability and allow access to justice, anywhere in the 2023 report. The only modest exception is “Crimes against Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women,” and that is put into its own category, marking the pattern of intersectional violence as totally separate from the gendered whole.

This structural erasure substantiates what feminist scholars have termed the violence of difference itself: that a Dalit woman’s rape, an Adivasi girl’s trafficking, or a disabled woman’s assault do not happen on their own but at the intersection of several hierarchies. The Hathras case (2020) stands as an emblematic instance of this: a Dalit woman was raped, her story ignored and erased, her body burnt to the ground. However, NCRB’s data design ensures that no such trend can be evidenced statistically again.

Furthermore, the Bureau’s gender binary means that LGBT survivors are entirely erased from the data. Trans women, gender non-conforming people, and male survivors of sexual violence disappear from the Bureau’s reporting, making counts impossible. To only count individuals that conformed to gender is to reproduce the very harm again through “neutrality.” In the NCRB’s data-driven justice, invisibility signifies that count.

The West Bengal Case Study: Acid Violence and Everyday Cruelty

Few forms of gendered violence are as literal or as haunting as acid attacks. West Bengal is, not surprisingly, the epicentre of the violence. It accounted for nearly one-fifth of all reported acid attacks in India in 2023. The vast majority of victims are young women, punished for rejecting advances, defying control, or asserting self-determination.

Behind every NCRB statistic lies the face of a survivor, disfigured by both acid and inaction. Survivors describe experiences of being transported between hospitals without burn units, climbing a three-to-five-year waiting list for a hearing at court, or working with police officers who treat the investigation as a waste of time. A field report from 2023 conducted by the Hindu from North 24 Parganas documented that survivors have yet to receive the Rs 3 lakh mandated compensation prescribed under the Supreme Court, an entire decade after the attack. For more than half of the survivors, the only consistent part of their experience after the attack is falling into poverty.

Where acid attacks appear in NCRB 2023, they appear under a neutral, bureaucratic category entitled “grievous hurt.” The neutralised language, substituted in place of targeted misogynist violence, reduces it to bodily harm and ignores its symbolic and social identity. There is also no data about rehabilitation, conviction rates, or disbursal of compensation. Defining acid violence in an unqualified way allows the State to distance itself from characterizing this as a moral failure, under the medical lexicon.

In West Bengal, civil society organisations such as Acid Survivors Foundation India (ASFI) have consistently pointed out how police evade filing complaints under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (326A, 326B) to suppress “rising crime rates,” and the National Crime Records Bureau then records this reduction in cases, rounding out this circle of denial. Each entry is then not progress toward justice, but rather a record of silence, reported the Indian Express.

On August 16, 2023, Jayanta Roy, a 35-year-old resident of Zamindar Para, a locality in Jalpaiguri town, threw acid on his neighbour, a 22-year-old woman, after she consistently turned down his romantic gestures. The woman, whose name family asked to be concealed, suffered deep burns to her face, chest, and shoulders. She was rushed to North Bengal Medical College, where doctors found she had incurred third-degree chemical injuries. Roy’s attack followed her, attracting weeks of trailing and loud harassment. The woman’s family reported that both times reported her was rebuffed by police, who told them to leave as it amounted to a “personal dispute.” Local outrage finally prompted local police to arrest Roy, superficially charging Roy under IPC Sections 326A (acid attack), 341 (wrongful restraint), and 354 (assault on a woman). The event was treated as a fast-track case, and the Jalpaiguri District and Sessions Court ultimately sentenced Roy in February 2024 to 15 years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of ₹3 lakh.

The case is noteworthy not only for the infrequent conviction but also for revealing the important procedural bias that ASFI has been publicly advocating for as long as two years — that is, most acid attacks are never afforded the appropriate legal formality and thus simply disappear from the NCRB records altogether. As The Hindu reported, West Bengal had 16 acid attacks in 2023, the highest in India, but local NGOs report the actual number is likely double that when misclassifications of burns and withdrawn FIRs are considered. 

Structural Underreporting and the Politics of Marginality

The structure of India’s justice system guarantees that the majority of gendered violence never reaches official visibility. FIRs rely on police discretion; prosecution relies on political will; data on conviction relies on judicial efficiency; and all this relies on survivors’ emotional stamina. For poor and marginalized women, it is deadly.

Data from the 2023 NCRB indicates there are a little over 1.3 lakh rape cases and over 2 lakh domestic cruelty cases that are pending. The time taken to complete a trial averages at over 5 years. One-Stop Centres (OSCs) that are supposed to provide integrated support to survivors are woefully underfunded and are not well-served. In many states, there are fewer than a dozen functioning centres. The NCRB does not provide cross-references for these service inadequacies; all it does is count cases, not conditions.

In digital spaces, gendered violence is finding new forms. Offences of online stalking, non-consensual sharing of images, and blackmail comprise a substantial proportion of the complaints now received under the IT Act. But, as indicated by the data from RTI from Mumbai, only a fraction of these offences turn into FIRs. Cyber harassment, in particular of journalists and women activists, has simply become a normalized way of life, but these acts are often framed as ‘defamation’ or ‘obscenity’ and thus escape the NCRB’s gendered lens entirely.

This type of structural undercount is not by mistake; it is a performance of stability. By keeping official numbers deceptively low, the State can suggest that its policies from Beti Bachao Beti Padhao to dispersing Nirbhaya Fund are “working.” Meanwhile, the continuum of harm remains intact, only concealed under an administrative façade of calm.

The Absences of Intersectionality and Enumeration

The omissions by the NCRB in categories like mob lynching, honour killing, or hate crimes further impoverish our understanding of how gender inter-relates with other forms of violence. Most forms of violence against women in interfaith or inter-caste relationships, for example, then get recategorised under “murder” or “kidnapping.” The political decision to stop monitoring 2017 these forms of violence reflects a larger trend of erasure.

The same erasure occurs in more publicly visible anti-feminist violence against women, whether they are journalists, protestors, or organizers. The 2023 IFEI Press Freedom Report recorded 226 accounts of harassment, hindrance, and threats, including for women journalists covering communal or gender issues. When we looked at the NCRB categories of “Offences Against the State” and “Offences Affecting Public Tranquility,” there are essentially no entries.

It’s the same when thinking of women online. The cyber restrictions and internet shutdowns during the farmers’ protests, or in Manipur, severed women from online safety resources – an erasure that does not fall under any NCRB recognisability.

What cannot be charged is not counted, and what is not counted does not exist in the eyes of the State.

The Cost of the Systemic Erasure of Crime

The NCRB’s 2023 report, similar to its precedents, is not just a record of data — it is a story about denial. By calling violence “marginal,” it converts the devastating meaningfulness of persistent crises to that of a simple statistical aberration. By disregarding intersectional detail, it obliterates how caste, poverty, and gender are complicit. And, by ignoring certain crimes, the NCRB builds a semblance of peace.

To think of a 3% increase as being “marginal” does not grapple with the implications of suffering from systemic violence or marginalization. Each number signifies a life subjected to fear, shame, and bureaucratic indifference. The NCRB’s visibility is selective. It only displays what the State is open to confronting.

When data conceals more than it presents, counting becomes collusion. To genuinely see the reality of gendered violence in India today, you need to see beyond the numbers, in survivors, in silence, in omissions, etc. Because in the measures of oppression, what the State frames as marginal is often collected in massive quantities. 

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related:

Mapping Gender-Based Violence in India: Trends, determinants, and institutional frameworks

The ‘Missing Women’ in Crime Data: Caste, Gender, and Institutional Blindness

Acid Survivors Speak: The Long Road to Justice and Rehabilitation

Digital Violence, Silence, and State Failure: Women’s Safety Online in India

The post Invisible Assaults: How India’s crime data erases violence against women and children appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Reading P. Sainath’s article, “Where there is a wheel” in the book “Everybody loves a good drought”, which narrated how the women of Pudukkottai were trying to cycle their way to personal independence, I felt a compelling urge to learn about the present condition of that place and its women. That’s why I headed to Pudukkottai, nearly 25 years after the master of rural reporting in India did so.

This is what Sainath had written about the cycling movement in Pudukkottai: “Cycling as a social movement? Sounds far-fetched. Perhaps. But not all that far -– not to tens of thousands of neo-literate rural women in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu. People find ways, sometimes curious ones, of hitting out at their backwardness, of expressing defiance, of hammering at the fetters that hold them.”

He has also discussed how young Muslim women from conservative backgrounds enlisted themselves to learn cycling. In the heart of rural Pudukkottai, young Muslim women from highly conservative backgrounds zip along the roads on their bicycles. Some seem to have abandoned the veil for the wheel. Jameela Bibi told the journalist: “It’s my right. We can go anywhere. Now I don’t have to wait for a bus. I know people made dirty remarks when I started cycling, but I paid no attention.”

It was the then collector, Sheela Rani Chunkath, who had hit upon the idea to reinvent “the wheel” for the women of Pudukkottai. Cycling fever gripped the land through a literacy programme called Arivoli Iyakkam (Light of Knowledge Movement). “Cycling has swept across this district. Women agricultural workers, quarry labourers and village health nurses are among its fans. Joining the rush are balwadi and anganwadi workers, gem-cutters and school teachers. And gram sevikas and mid-day meal workers are not far behind. The vast majority are those who have just become literate. The district’s vigorous literacy drive, led by Arivoli Iyakkam, has been quick to tap this energy.”

Kannammal, Arivoli central coordinator, had told Sainath then: “The main thing was the confidence it gave women. Very importantly, it reduced their dependence on men. Now we often see a woman doing a four-kilometre stretch on her cycle to collect water, sometimes with her children. Even carting provisions from other places can be done on their own. But, believe me, women had to put up with vicious attacks on their character when this began. So many made filthy remarks. But Arivoli gave cycling social sanction. So women took to it.”

Kannammal was among those first off the blocks. Initially, she was not sure whether should would be able to ride a cycle while she is clad in a sari. But the would-be cyclists turned up in strength at Kilakuruchi village and the inhibitions fell by the wayside — as did several male-enforced barriers.

Even ballads were written about the cycle movement, prompting the women to sing aloud while they cycled in the village-

“Cast off these illusions/                                    Set fire to the misery they have brought upon you.

Like birds whose wings have been clipped,/    Society has kept you confined within your homes.

Emerge like a storm gathering its strength.  O, sister, learn to ride the bicycle/                  and then set forth on a journey on the wheels of time.”

This song, written by Pudukkottai poets Jayachandar and Muthu Bhaskaran, was one among the many that were written to inspire the cycling women.

The first girl I met after arriving in Pudukkottai was Karthika, 20, a bearer at the hotel I stayed at. After completing her Plus Two, she had enrolled herself in a degree correspondence course. Asked about bicycles, she appeared to wonder why I was even asking — she has been riding a bicycle everywhere since childhood.

“Now, I have an old cycle. The government gave me a new one but my father sold it. He had some debts to pay off. Now I need to buy a new bicycle. I’m saving a little from my salary,” Karthika said.

A whisper of a smile greeted the question whether she knew about the changes cycles had brought to the women of Pudukkottai. As her mother and the other women in her family had already been cycling ever since she could remember, Karthika said, it never felt like something worthy of special attention.

A middle-aged diner at the next table cut in: “All that is history. The younger generation today doesn’t know much about it. You should go out to the road and see for yourself.”

I did as the diner, Gopalan who runs a business, told me and stepped out. Gopalan was not exaggerating: I could see for myself women who were basking in the freedom of movement. The town was humming — with the bustle of girls galore, college girls and school girls riding bicycles.

The bicycle trail led me to the Annavasal Panchayat Union Office, where section officer Ilavarasi Vasanthan spoke of how bicycles had transformed the lives of women.

“Now the women of Pudukkottai are just like those in any other place. They venture out to do anything. The old way — where men would speak outside while women stayed at home — is gone. In the panchayat office and elsewhere, they come directly to ask questions and get things done. They’ve shown strength both in their families and in society. Most important, they continue to travel by bicycle.”

I recalled what Sainath had written once: “Never before coming to Pudukkottai had I seen this humble vehicle in that light -– the bicycle as a metaphor for freedom.”

Kannammal had told him that for women, cycling “is a Himalayan achievement, like flying an aeroplane”.

Around 30 years ago, the women of Pudukkottai were usually confined to the kitchen whenever guests visited. Arivoli Iyakkam, the literacy campaign, brought about some change: men eagerly attended the literacy classes but women still stayed indoors.

The then collector, Sheela Rani Chunkath, realised that the women needed to step out of their homes in order to take part in the literacy initiative. Among the many strategies she devised, one was teaching women to ride bicycles.

The Arivoli Movement cast cycling as a symbol of freedom, self-respect and mobility. Spearheaded by the collector, several programmes were implemented to encourage women to learn cycling, prompting thousands to take a shot at pedalling. It would be fair to say that the women of Pudukkottai literally cycled their way out of the kitchen.

In order to understand how the dramatic transformation took place, I tried to meet the women who had learned cycling then, as well as those who had worked with the Arivoli Movement at that time.

Pandian, who had volunteered with Arivoli Iyakkam when it launched its literacy drive in 1991, shared his experience. He recalled the days when women hardly stepped out of their homes and how the volunteers tried to reach out and spread awareness through songs and dances.

“We were fighting against caste and religious divisions,” Pandian said. “We encouraged people to sit together and share meals. The Arivoli volunteers made it a point to eat in every household, disregarding caste, to demonstrate equality. Do you see now how many women are riding bicycles?”

Fatima, a secondary school teacher, said she never imagined that learning to ride a bicycle would give her so much freedom. “Now I don’t have to depend on anyone. It has completely changed my life,” she said with conviction.

Sarala, an anganwadi teacher, recalled the early days of learning to ride a bicycle.

“There was such an uproar back then. The men reacted with outright hostility. They hurled many insults at us. But the Arivoli workers stood by us. When many women began to learn, those men had no choice but to sit quietly and watch. Eventually, society accepted us,” she said.

I went around several places in Pudukkottai in search of Kannammal, who had led the cycling movement initially. After much effort, I found her — she now works as an assistant at the LIC branch in Pudukkottai.

Kannammal was astonished that I had come all the way from Kerala to meet the woman who had taught the women of Pudukkottai to ride bicycles.

“Oh, back then, things were completely different,” she said. “Girls weren’t allowed to study beyond the fourth or fifth standard. There were no schools nearby; they were far away. Once the girls reached puberty, it became impossible for them to walk such long distances to school, and they dropped out.

“In 1991, when Arivoli Iyakkam launched a literacy drive across the state, lakhs of people came forward to learn. But very few of them were women. That’s when Sheela Rani Chunkath Madam came up with the idea of a bicycle scheme.

“I was the first woman to learn to ride a bicycle. People used to say that if women started cycling, it would be the end of the world — that rains would stop, that it would be a curse! But Sheela Madam stood firm and faced all such criticism with determination.

“She gave me the strength to stand up to everything with confidence. I taught many other women to ride bicycles and helped them gain confidence too. The government gave us strong support. We made it clear to everyone — to the government, that we wanted to learn; to ourselves, that we could learn; and to society, that we deserved to be accepted.”

Those days, whenever a woman needed to get something done from a government office, she was required to prove she could ride a bicycle. If a woman went to collect a paper or document, officials would ask her to show that she could cycle. This, in turn, made it impossible for men to prevent women from learning — and that’s how the project gained social acceptance, Kannammal said.

“The bicycle scheme spread like a social revolution. Bicycle training centres for women, cycling competitions, rallies, demonstrations, lucky dips, prizes — so many programmes were organized. Thousands of women who initially learned cycling only to win a prize eventually made it a part of their everyday lives. For anganwadi teachers, cycling was made mandatory. Today, just as a child learns to walk, girls learn to ride a bicycle as they grow up. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government now provides free bicycles to all schoolgirls.”

Listening to Kannammal and seeing the women of Pudukkottai, one thing became clear: the very foundation of a woman’s self-confidence is her freedom of movement.

“When women began coming forward to learn cycling, there was an acute shortage of bicycles,” Kannammal said. “Women learned using the men’s bicycles. That actually turned out to be an advantage — since those cycles had a bar in the middle, men would seat children in front and ride long distances to fetch water. Later, women used the same cycles, seating their children on the back carrier, and it made fetching drinking water so much easier.”

Earlier, they used to walk long distances every day to collect water. Once they learned cycling, that burden was reduced. It also became easier to take goods and farm produce to the market. These may seem like ordinary things now, but back then, for women who had spent their lives inside the kitchen, appearing in public on a vehicle was a symbol of rising social status.

“Their circles of friendship expanded. They recognized their own strength. In truth, beyond just economic improvement, learning to cycle gave women self-respect, freedom and fulfillment,” Kannammal said.

When Sainath visited Pudukkottai in 1991, he had witnessed the early stages of the cycling movement. What I saw when I went there was the outcome — women who had stepped out from their homes are now deeply engaged in public life.

The history of cycling in Pudukkottai clearly shows that whether in a village or in a city, when sincere efforts are launched to empower/uplift women, they respond rapidly — and change truly follows.

Kannammal spoke about Women’s Day in 1992: “That year, the Women’s Day in Pudukkottai was like witnessing a historic event. Around 1,500 women tied the Indian tricolour to their bicycle handlebars and rode together in a grand rally through the town. I had never before seen such an expression of confidence.”

Cycling not only changed women’s quality of life but, as Kannammal said, it enabled them to come out of their homes and live alongside men as equals.

What I saw in Pudukkottai is this: when someone in power understands women’s movements and issues and when even a few committed people work sincerely for them, women’s lives can transform completely.

As I left, a song by Jayachandar came to my mind:

“Yes, brother, I have learned to ride a bicycle.

I now move with the wheels of time.”

In a country where so many women still cannot move freely, the women of a Tamil Nadu village learned to balance on two wheels — and through it, found freedom, confidence and progress. It remains a tale that continues to inspire, its revolutionary resplendence as radiant as ever.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Breaking patriarchal cycles through cycling: Revisiting the Story of Women in Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The primary objective of the International Day of Rural Women is to recognize and honor the contributions of women in rural areas to agriculture, food security, natural resource management, and rural development. The United Nations General Assembly formally established this day on October 15, 2007, following a proposal at the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference. Being celebrated one day before World Food Day (October 16), it underscores the crucial role rural women play in food production and security.

​Rural women constitute approximately 43% of the global agricultural labor force. They are the backbone of farming, livestock rearing, water harvesting, seed conservation, and local food systems. Despite their tireless efforts, they often lack equal access to land ownership, education, healthcare, credit, and technology.

​In India, this day provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of women farmers (Mahila Kisan), Self-Help Groups (SHGs), rural entrepreneurs, and voluntary organizations. India has made numerous constitutional, legal, social, and economic efforts towards women’s empowerment. The Constitution guarantees women equal rights and opportunities, such as Article 14 (equality before law), Articles 15(1) and 15(3) (prohibition of gender-based discrimination), Article 16 (equal opportunity in public employment), Article 39(a) and 39(d) (livelihood and equal pay for equal work), and Article 42 (maternity relief and just work conditions).

​Key legislation like the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, and the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (amended in 2017) have been enacted to protect women’s rights and safety. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments mandate one-third reservation for women in Panchayats and municipal bodies, with several states increasing this to 50 percent. Furthermore, the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023 (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam), passed by the Parliament, will ensure 33 percent reservation in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies after the next census and delimitation exercise.

​Women are the most critical link in the context of food security. They are pivotal not only in producing food but also in balancing storage, processing, nutrition, and consumption. They are actively involved in sowing seeds, weeding, harvesting, animal husbandry, vegetable farming, and dairy work.

​Many rural women conserve traditional seeds essential for local food diversity and organic farming. Several women farmers run organic farms, kitchen gardens, and community seed banks, contributing to both food security and environmental balance. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that if women were given the same resources as men, agricultural yields could increase by 20–30 percent, reducing the number of people suffering from hunger. This knowledge is proving vital for future food supply and climate change resilience.

​According to ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ Report 2024, India has the highest number of undernourished people globally, affecting 195 million. Furthermore, the UN Food Waste Index Report 2024 highlights that 19 percent of the total annual food production—about 1.052 billion tonnes—is wasted globally, while 783 million people go to bed hungry. Therefore, all food security schemes, including the Public Distribution System (PDS), must be transformed into universal and decentralized systems of local production, procurement, storage, and distribution.

​Approximately 70% of India’s total female population resides in rural areas. Under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, over 80 million women have joined Self-Help Groups (SHGs). Relief from the chore of collecting firewood or fetching water has allowed women, especially in rural areas, to engage more in agriculture and allied sectors. Women constitute 55% of Jan Dhan account holders, providing them access to banking facilities and credit. As of March 2023, the Stand-Up India scheme has disbursed ₹40,710 crore in loans, with 80% going to women entrepreneurs, promoting economic independence.

​In Madhya Pradesh, with a total population of 72.7 million, over 52.5 million people live in rural areas, including 25.4 million women and 27.1 million men. Currently, the state has over 500,000 active SHGs, with approximately 6.2 million women members. So far, ₹648.67 lakhs has been disbursed as a 2% interest subsidy to 30,264 women groups and 12,685 women entrepreneurs.

​The Ladli Bahna Yojana is providing financial aid of ₹1551.86 crore monthly to 12.7 million sisters’ bank accounts. Under this scheme, over ₹35,329 crore has been provided to 12.7 million women so far. Additionally, over ₹882 crore has been provided to 2.5 million women for gas cylinder refills at ₹450. This scheme is not only economically empowering women but also encouraging savings within their families.

​Despite economic progress, traditional social taboos discourage women from participating in salaried work, restricting them to the domestic sphere. On the other hand, NCRB reports indicate a continuous rise in crimes against women in Madhya Pradesh, with the state ranking third in rape cases nationwide. In 2023, 468 dowry death cases were registered, alongside thousands of cases of domestic violence and harassment. Madhya Pradesh is among the top states for crimes against women.

​The Global Gender Gap Report 2023 ranks India at 127th out of 146 countries in economic participation, pointing to severe inequality and gender biases. According to the Economic Survey 2023, over 90% of women workers are considered unemployed, indicating a lack of available work. The National Crime Record Bureau Report for 2022 shows that over half of the women who committed suicide between 2020 and 2022 were homemakers. Despite government efforts, most women are employed in the unorganized sector, lacking permanent employment, fair wages, and social security.

​While maternal and child mortality rates have declined in rural areas, they remain higher than in urban areas. Anemia and malnutrition are significant problems among rural women. Lack of access to health services, clean water, and sanitation are also serious concerns. Social evils like child marriage, domestic violence, dowry, and gender-based discrimination still persist.

*​Bargi Dam Displaced and Affected Association

Courtesy: CounterView

The post The unsung architects of food security: India’s rural women demand recognition appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Recent activity on X (previously Twitter), once again, showcases this mode of policing. Accounts such as Team Falcon and Muslim IT Cell have employed shaming and ridicule to condemn Muslim women for entering temples, forming friendships with men outside their faith, or celebrating their autonomy. Hindu supremacist organizations have found ways of employing the same tactics to marginalize a woman’s choice to marry a man outside of their faith or community, or choose clothing outside the boundaries of permissible attire. Despite presenting opposing principles, the toolbox is strikingly similar to “police” online, to “publicly shame”, and to socially “humiliate” someone into submission and compliance. Be it ‘love jihad’ or ‘bhagwa jihad’ the perpetrators mind-set is strikingly similar.

Common ground: Shaming, justification, surveillance

What is notable about these campaigns is their use of public shaming. Women are marked and shamed for exercising personal agency.

An example: a post by Team Falcon post showed a photo of Muslim women at a temple, with the caption sneering this as “shameful conduct of Muslim women.” Another post demonstrated how a woman was shamed for holding arms with her Hindu friends—that is to say, ordinary social situations were framed as shameful. By publicising women’s names, images, and voicing their social interactions, these accounts have made private behaviour into a public spectacle of communal shaming.

One post shared a photo of two Muslim women, who reportedly were turned away from a Garba event organised at a local mosque. Instead of holding the organisers accountable, the post went after the women specifically, trying to accuse them morally for attending, despite their faith.

Shaming is almost always accompanied by an explanation that the conduct is ideologically wrong. In fact, the rhetoric goes beyond objection of personal conduct to suggesting that women’s choices are a threat to the community. In one post, visiting a temple was framed as evidence of “Bhagwa Jihad,” a term meant to suggest that religious fluidity is part of a conspiracy to transform the community.

Another example stated that Muslim women were “diluting our culture by mixing with Hindus,” which reduces friendship or interfaith marriage to a ‘betrayal of the community’.  This discursive leap from personal agency to community traitor inspires politicized agency and turns it into a conflict of identity.

These stories are preserved by a social surveillance system that invites followers and supporters to act as its enforcers, magnifying and prolonging the policing effect. For example, a Muslim IT Cell post asked supporters to “expose Muslim women who befriend Hindus and betray their deen.”

Such posts act as crowdsourced surveillance, where every choice – what to wear, who to be with – may be subject to scrutiny in the public domain. The result is a constant sense of being watched – an online panopticon in which women are made to second-guess their choices.

Taken together, these practices represent informal yet deeply felt regulations of women’s lives. The coercion is not just in the explicit threats, but also in the fear they produce. Women who are targeted suffer reputational damage, harassment, and ostracism; women who are not targeted come to feel the threat, and, ultimately, censor themselves and withdraw from public life. Hashtags like “Bhagwa Jihad” and posts calling women’s autonomy “disgraceful” function in this same way as a means of ideological control based on obedience brought about from fearing discovery and humiliation.

Constitutional protections undermined

Monitoring women’s decisions online fundamentally contradicts the guarantees in the Constitution of India. These posts constitute a breach of Articles 14, 15, and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law, yet what does it matter when a post describes a woman’s behaviour as “shameful conduct of Muslim women,” only to post another opinion claiming disloyalty for visiting a temple? Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex and religion, yet these online campaigns are based on precisely these grounds. Article 19(1) (a) guarantees us freedom of expression, which is broadly interpreted in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence to encompass choices of dress, associations, and beliefs.

At the heart of all these violations lies Article 21. It guards against any violation of the right to life and personal liberty, which has been gradually expanded in case law to include dignity, privacy, and autonomy. Yet, the monitoring and invading of a woman’s private behaviors essentially negates these liberties. When a public social interaction or a photograph can be subclassed or reframed into a documentation of “immorality” or “betrayal,” any assurances of dignity and private space, as contemplated by Article 21, disappear.

When women are demeaned for either entering a temple or upholding interfaith friendships/relationships by being vilified with derogatory and vile terms like “Bhagwa Jihad,” their rights guaranteed in the Constitution become hollowed-out rights. Public degradation dissuades them from expressing themselves, chilling their speech and removing their agency. These case studies expose the inconsistency: constitutional guarantees and judicial pronouncements declare autonomy, dignity, and equality, but the social narrative and digital age conflict with these values every day. Women are free in principle, but the fact-checking hashtags like “Bhagwa Jihad” and public campaigns or calls to “expose” them erode the rights guaranteed to them in the Constitution.

From online narratives to real-world consequences

Online shaming is not limited to timelines or hashtags; it invades women’s daily lives. Women are often shamed through posts and subjected to abuse, harassment, trolling, and stalking. Comments online like, “shameful behaviour of Muslim women,” go beyond disapproval and serve as a way to justify policing women on the street, at school, or at work. On top of this, the damage extends to reputational damage. “Bhagwa Jihad,” and “betrayal of faith” are screen-shotted, shared in WhatsApp groups, and saved, creating a digital footprint that follows women around. Whether true or not, the stigma sticks to women — impacting lives, jobs, education, and relationships.

Furthermore, shaming online leads to community ostracisation. Families often pressure women to leave friendships, jobs, and in some cases, marriages, due to a fear of social stigma. This has deep psychological harm, resulting in self-censorship, withdrawal from public spaces, and anxiety for what could happen if they exercise their autonomy.

Narratives of extremism, whether Muslim or Hindu, utilize the same logic of patriarchal control. In some Muslim extremist narratives, having a friendship with an interfaith person or visiting their place of worship may be viewed as a “betrayal of the deen” — an expectation that women should always carry the burden of safeguarding religious purity. Similarly, Hindu supremacist narratives present a threat of “love jihad” in interfaith marriage, while insisting that women should employ prescribed dress codes to preserve “cultural purity.” The terms may differ, but the strategy is the same: reduce women to instruments of ideological reproduction and limit women’s freedoms to protect the imagined community.

The counter voices as an act of resistance

In the current context of online shaming and moral policing, we have begun to see, from both public figures and ordinary users, a push back against the misogyny present both in Hindu and Muslim extremist narratives. Historian Ruchika Sharma has been particularly vocal, using her X account to explicitly call out Muslim men for hypocritically excluding women from public and religious spaces, while also criticising Hindu supremacy for their almost violent moral policing of women’s dress, marriage, and friendships.

By not allowing either side the luxury of moral high ground, Sharma demonstrates how patriarchy traverses ideological boundaries. These interventions are far from simply rhetorical and create important counter-spaces of resistance, wherein women’s choices become reframed as matters of constitutional rights, rather than communal loyalty. The assertion by Sharma that women’s freedom cannot be bartered away because of any anxieties concerning faith or culture reflects the guarantees embedded in Articles 14 (equality), 19 (freedom of association), and 21 (the right to dignity). Her voice, in fact, shows how social media, notoriously a tool of harassment against women and gender non-conforming persons, can be reclaimed as a space for accountability and counter-narrative.

These instances of resistance signal to us that the digital space is not only a realm of control but also a site of struggle. Resistance voices undermine the legitimacy of an extremist tongue, and in doing so, disrupt the cycle of shaming and surveillance, and offer women and allies a shared vocabulary of solidarity.

In a similar vein, feminist groups, journalists, and student activists condemn moral policing on the internet, provide targeted women with legal and psychological support, and educate the public on constitutional protections. These alternative voices reclaim social media as a public space of accountability and solidarity, demonstrating that resistance is indeed possible and effective.

Women’s autonomy as first casualty

Patterns traced across ideological lines reveal an unsettling truth: women are the first and primary victims of extremist strategies because controlling women constitutes an effective means of enforcement and compliance with extremism. Public shaming, ideological justification, and social surveillance follow women from digital spaces into families, workplaces, and communities, exposing women to reputational, psychological, and social harms.

These practices violate Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21, undermine the aspirations of Vishaka and Shafin Jahan, and erode dignity, freedoms, and the equality of living. Social media and public discourse are vehicles of cultural policing that further amplify exposure to threats and surveillance.

Women’s autonomy is not a negotiable cultural or religious project; it is foundational to democratic society. Maintaining women’s autonomy is non-negotiable and requires platform accountability, legal protections, institutional fortitude, and proactive counter-speech, all stemming from an understanding that gender is to be the first fault line along which extremist ideologies seek to exert control.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this community resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related: 

Exclusion at the Gate: Navratri becomes the new front for communal politics

Muslim women publicly assaulted, hijabs forcefully removed in twin attacks

2024: Love Jihad as a socio-political tool: caste, endogamy, and Hindutva’s dominance over gender and social boundaries in India

Right-wing groups demand Muslim ban at Jabalpur Navratri garba

The post Misogyny & Faith: Extreme narratives curtailing the autonomy of women appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The ruling has already sparked protests on the NUJS campus, with students calling for the Vice Chancellor’s resignation, citing not only sexual harassment but also claims of financial misconduct. In a broader sense, the ruling has also reopened questions about whether India’s workplace harassment statute is too strict in its time limits and whether the courts should interpret those provisions flexibly in cases where survivors fear retaliation or are subject to institutional hierarchies. This judgement, combined with both a statutory formalism and symbolic sanction, captures the tensions at the heart of India’s struggle to reconcile due process, survivors’ rights, and accountability for sexual harassment.

The Judgment at a glance

On September 12, the Supreme Court in Vaneeta Patnaik v. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti & Ors., dismissed a claim of sexual harassment against the Vice Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), because the claim was outside the limitation period under section 9 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The Vice Chancellor was Dr. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, who took office in 2019, and the complainant was Prof. Vaneeta Patnaik, a senior professor. She alleged that VC Chakrabarti subjected her to unwelcome behavior in April 2023, but filed her complaint only in December 2023. The Local Complaints Committee (LCC) dismissed the case in its entirety, citing that it was beyond the six-month time limit set by the Act.

In opposition to the LCC complaint dismissal, Patnaik appealed to the Calcutta High Court. A Single Judge accepted the appeal and directed that the continuation of a retaliatory measure against her, namely being removed as director of the MA programme, and questioning her actions, would come in due course, was a form of continuing behaviour of harassment and meant the allegations were in time. The Division Bench overturned that finding by the Single Judge by ruling that other administrative decisions of the Executive Council of the University were not like sexual harassment.

The Supreme Court confirmed the Division Bench’s ruling that statutory timelines under Section 9 are compulsory. The Court gave the Court’s judgment a startling ending: while the complaint could not be resurrected, the alleged misconduct cannot be ignored. It was ordered that the incident should be recorded in the Vice Chancellor’s official record, without the complainant being heard on the merits, and the accused subject to a reputational cloud.

Statutory framework under the PoSH Act, 2013

The PoSH Act was intended to establish a time-bound and effective mechanism for addressing a complaint concerning harassment at a workplace. These provisions are particularly relevant to the NUJS judgment, specifically:

Section 2 (n) of the act defines sexual harassment as –

“sexual harassment” includes any one or more of the following unwelcome acts or behavior (whether directly or by implication), namely:—

• physical contact and advances; or
• a demand or request for sexual favours; or
• making sexually coloured remarks; or
• showing pornography; or
• any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature;

Section 9

Complaint of sexual harassment — (1) Any aggrieved woman may make, in writing, a complaint of sexual harassment at workplace to the Internal Committee if so constituted, or the Local Committee, in case it is not so constituted, within a period of three months from the date of incident and in case of a series of incidents, within a period of three months from the date of last incident:

Provided that where such complaint cannot be made in writing, the Presiding Officer or any Member of the Internal Committee or the Chairperson or any Member of the Local Committee, as the case may be, shall render all reasonable assistance to the woman for making the complaint in writing:

Provided further that the Internal Committee or, as the case may be, the Local Committee may, for the reasons to be recorded in writing, extend the time limit not exceeding three months, if it is satisfied that the circumstances were such which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within the said period.

Section 9 (1) establishes a period of limitation to allow the victims to make their complaints.

The problem with limitation

The NUJS case demonstrates how unyielding time limitations deny survivors of harassment the ability to redress for their injuries. Women facing sexual harassment, especially when the perpetrator is a person of power, are often silenced due to fears of retaliation, damage to their reputation, and institutional bias. The Supreme Court has acknowledged this reality in State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh (1996), where the Court asserted that delay in reporting an incident of sexual assault should not cast doubt on one’s credibility in and of itself, particularly where there is stigma associated with reporting. Under the PoSH Act, however, if a six-month time limit has been met, a complaint cannot be entertained, no matter the context of the harassment.

This rigid scheme conflicts with the Act’s very object: to create safer workplaces and protect women from harassment. Although the drafter intended to prevent stale claims and situations that would have been better dealt with if reported earlier, the relatively inflexible nature of the six-month limit places unacceptable burdens on complainants in hierarchical institutions such as universities, with their potential for administrative reprisal and threats to career.

Indian courts have varied their approaches to limitation depending on the applicable statute. In criminal law, courts spare no time in allowing reasons for delays in FIRs relating to sexual offenses, while highlighting trauma and coercion as valid excuses.

In contrast to the Supreme Court in this judgment, the High Courts, generally speaking, have adopted a stricter stance. For example, the Jammu & Kashmir High Court in Mohammad Altaf Bhat vs Principal Chief of Commissioner (2024) firmly ruled that the limitation set out through Section 9 was binding and not subject to extending the limitation period for any reason. In an institutional grievance circumstance [PoSH], courts have made clear they will not modify the length of the limitation even in the face of claims of imbalance of power.

The criminal justice paradox

This difference reveals a contradiction: while the criminal justice system has become more accepting of delays in sexual offense cases, workplace harassment law creates an absolute barrier that excludes exactly those complaints most affected by fear and power. Survivors who take time to process their traumatic experiences or wait until they feel safer to report are left without recourse. As a result, a legal framework is in place that prioritizes procedural finality over substantive justice. A broader application of the Act would involve either amending the law to include a minimum one-year limitation period for complaints, with flexibility for exceptions in special circumstances, or judicial innovation by interpreting retaliatory reprisals as a “continuing wrong” under Section 3 to extend the limitation period. Without such changes, the Act risks undermining its own protective purpose by silencing valid claims made at a later time.

Justice for both complainant and accused

In deciding that Prof. Vaneeta Patnaik’s complaint was time-barred, the Supreme Court left her with no meaningful opportunity to show that the alleged sexual harassment occurred. Survivors in hierarchical institutions may also experience retaliation, reputational damage, and institutional pressures that may prevent a timely report. The Supreme Court’s rigid application of the six-month time limit available under Section 9(1) of the PoSH Act barred an ostensibly justified legal claim while raising the question of whether the procedural aspects of statutory law should override or take precedence over justice.

For Dr. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, the Vice Chancellor who was accused, the Court’s odd instruction to record the incident in his service record impacts his reputation, without a formal inquiry. The statute may protect him from a determination, but he will bear the reputational burdens that last much longer than the proceeding — punishment without due process.

This sort of result begs a deeper question: is the injustice an inherent part of the legal structure, the judiciary’s framework, or both? The structure has an arbitrary limitation of six months, and does not seem to take into account the fact that the nature of being targeted for harassment often delays the complaint. Power dynamics, fear of retaliation, and fears about one’s job security all impact the complainant’s decision about when to report. Meanwhile, the judicial handling of the case, in adhering strictly to the text of Section 9, compensates with symbolic punishment—a contradictory outcome that could not ultimately satisfy either party. Rather than working to align fairness with the Code-delimited response, the court demonstrated both the limitations of law and the labour of judicial improvisation.

A global perspective

By global standards, India’s limitation period under the PoSH Act is remarkably short. In the United States, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) permits victims to bring complaints about workplace harassment for up to 180 to 300 days, depending on state law. In the United Kingdom, the Employment Tribunal typically permits complaints within three months but permits extensions where “just and equitable.” In general, some European jurisdictions (France and Germany, for example) allow survivors years to bring complaints. The ILO has previously stated that restrictive timelines can be important for protection and has encouraged flexible limitation rules for gender-based violence at work.

In this context, India’s maximum of six months (very rarely) is inadequate and does not meet international standards. It is an effort to achieve administrative efficiency rather than considering substantive justice, which itself dismisses the numerous real (and documented) hurdles that survivors face in reporting harassment in the first place.

Need for reform

The NUJS decision highlights a critical need for change in the PoSH Act. At a minimum, Section 9(1) should be amended to allow for an extension of one year, with a provision for condoning delay if the complaint is received in exceptional circumstances because of retaliation, intimidation, or psychological trauma. A workable definition of sexual harassment, as per Section 2(n), should be amended to explicitly include retaliation and reprisals to ensure that administrative actions that are hostile are not deemed irrelevant in some way. Without such changes, the PoSH Act runs the risk of defeating its purpose. Potentially, governments can empower women, but they can also entrench silence when complaints violate arbitrary and excessive technical aspects of filing. The Supreme Court’s judgment, restricted by the statute, also exemplifies that contradiction. It leaves a discomforting lesson – that even if a hearing in a sexual harassment matter isn’t a complete denial, unless certain aspects of law are adapted to include the lived experiences of survivors.

The entire judgment in Vaneeta Patnaik v. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti & Ors may be read here:

The judgment of Mohammad Altaf Bhat vs Principal Chief of Commissioner (2024) may be read here:

The judgement in State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh (1996) may be read here:

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this community resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related:

Sexual Harassment in the Media

Women’s protests against sexual violence continue as institutions bend to power

Mapping Gender-Based Violence in India: Trends, determinants, and institutional frameworks

Evolving legal protections for survivors of sexual assault: Anonymity, privacy, and media regulation

The post Time-Barred Justice? The Supreme Court’s Dismissal of NUJS Sexual Harassment Complaint appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Facts, procedural history & the Court’s reformative lens

The case dates back to 2003, when Shubha (accused no. 4) was set to marry a man, a union that she did not want or choose, but one that was forced upon her by family considerations. The prosecution demonstrated that she held animosity towards the marriage and worked with others to plot the murder of her fiancé. Both the trial court and the Karnataka High Court found her guilty of Sections 302/120-B IPC and sentenced her to imprisonment for life. The case was reviewed by the Supreme Court and, after considering the record, Justices M.M. Sundresh and Aravind Kumar found the evidence of conspiracy convincing and compelling and directed that the conviction be upheld.

What made this ruling truly distinctive was not simply reinstating guilt, but the court’s articulation of social context. The court recognised that the behaviour exhibited by Shubha was a product of alienation caused by being married off against her will. An alienation that the court described as “the worst form of alienation.” While the court recognised this was not to be a defence of culpability, it emphasised that the conditions of gendered invalidation must be considered at sentencing and post-sentence relief stages, if a person was deemed to have been coerced. Consequently, while invoking Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution, it stressed that pardon powers were a constitutional vehicle of individualised justice – one that should openly consider gendered oppression as legitimate grounds for clemency. In suspending the arrest for eight weeks, to enable Shubha to seek relief from the governor, the court’s ruling indicated that processes of clemency required engagement with gendered oppression.

Social context versus retributive logic in Indian courts

The Shubha decision makes us wonder: have Indian courts consistently take into account the social context when women engage in crime under coercion, or has retributive logic been dominant? The record shows a mixed, often inconsistent, picture.

In some instances, courts invoke coercion and systemic oppression as important mitigating factors. For example, in cases involving women who commit murder or manslaughter of their abusive partners after protracted violence, some High Courts have appealed to the long-standing nature of domestic violence as an acknowledgment of provocation, by virtue of coercion. In the context of honour cases, where women kill under the pressure of the family, again, courts have articulated, at times, the coercive background as relevant to culpability. These decisions show courts are willing to place women’s actions in structural contexts of patriarchy, violence, and limited agency.

At the same time, there is more often than not, retributive reasoning. In cases of homicide where intent and planning have been established, courts have articulated that social context and coercion cannot abrogate responsibility. For example, in Kehar Singh v. State (1988), the Court held that personal or political motivation for killing could not mitigate the culpability for murder. Lastly, in many honour killings and conspiracies to murder cases, courts have been more punitive, demanding stricter sentences for deterrence and for the sanctity of life as opposed to situating context within mitigation.

The jurisprudence, then, is inconsistent: there are reformative strands, but they typically take second place to traditional retribution. Shubha is an effort to marry both currents – placing liability but allowing for reform and mercy in cases where coercive power influenced behaviour is the causation of the crime.

Reformative justice and gendered social contexts

There is no mistaking that the Shubha decision reflects a careful but significant move towards more compassionate and contextualised treatment of women in conflict with the law. The Court maintained accountability by upholding the conviction but also offered recognition of the coercive reality of forced marriage, opening the door to mercy and rehabilitation. This simultaneous emphasis illustrates an important recognition of the fact that punishment cannot be understood separately from the social systems that structure women’s behaviour, particularly in a society in which family control, patriarchy, and honour codes remain entrenched.

The shift toward compassionate treatment produces a clear implication for sentencing practice. The finding encourages both first instance judges and appellate judges to record social facts and any coercive pressures that influence culpability, including forced marriage, prolonged domestic abuse, or economic dependence. These narratives help courts exercise a more considered approach to punishment and provide a credible evidentiary basis for executive review of punishment proposals. This re-orientation could eventually cultivate a sentencing culture that emphasises deterrence and reformation rather than purely retributive reasoning.

The ruling also presents an altered vision for the role of executive clemency under Articles 72 and 161. By inviting Shubha to request a pardon from the Governor, the Court signalled that mercy is not just political grace but a constitutional safeguard of individualised justice. If consistently applied, this would create an expectation for state authorities to consider mercy applications in a timely and transparent manner, particularly in cases where gendered coercion has informed criminal behaviour. Related to this idea of carving out space to consider mercy is the potential for rehabilitation: if coerced marriage is structural harm, this strengthens the case for gender-responsive rehabilitation programming (counselling, vocational programming, access to legal aid, and safe housing post-release) for women in prison. In this context, rehabilitation is not only seen as a component of clemency but as a necessary precursor to successfully reintegrating into society.

Risks, criticism, and a path forward

The Shubha ruling is promising, but it is not without risks. Critics may worry that this mental health context creates different standards for women compared to men, who, similarly, may be acting under coercive pressures. Others will warn of a slippery slope: it becomes concerned with the social context at the expense of culpability, including for intentional and premeditated crimes.  Finally, the effect of executive mercy varies by state and is politically driven rather than principled, and can therefore be arbitrary.

Concerns over presumptions of public policy in favour of leniency and reforms aimed at the offender’s mental state have been raised in previous cases. For example, various courts have considered leniency in cases involving “honour killings” (Shivani v. State of Haryana; State v. Rani). They recognized family coercion, societal pressures, and gendered vulnerabilities as relevant considerations in criminal conduct while also endorsing proportional sentences to ensure confidence in the joint processes of responsibility and punishment.

To mitigate prospective harms, a structure of procedural safeguards is essential. Courts must document coercive situations with factual, transparent findings so that context-driven reasoning does not degrade into irrational discretion. Executives should require uniform timelines and reasoned approaches for mercy petitions, and gender-responsive pre-sentencing reports prepared by psychologists and social workers should provide an evidentiary basis for assessing coercion claims. To maintain fairness and public safety, a rehabilitation programme should be coupled with the clemency decision.

Seen in this light, Shubha adds value to justice without undermining accountability. It requires Indian criminal law to remain firm in punishing spousal murder while expressing compassion about how coercive social structures shape culpability. If this ruling becomes standard, it could mark a significant point toward a principled, gender-sensitive, and rehabilitative justice system similar to lessons from earlier reform-oriented cases while ultimately addressing consistency and context-sensitive application.

Towards a gender-aware and reformative criminal justice

The ruling in Shubha v. State by the Supreme Court of India signifies an important moment in the history of Indian criminal law.  It highlights an important departure from the strict retributive stance towards context-sensitive and reformative justice. By recognizing the coercive circumstances that led to the commission of the crime by Shubha, and allowing her to seek a pardon, the Court has brought gendered social realities into focus within criminal law–an evolution which may emerge in new sentences, clemency petitions, and rehabilitative interventions from the Courts in the future.

There will be obstacles to a continued consistent approach in practice; however, this ruling supplies an initial manual for thinking about how judges and supporting actors can weave empathy, social context, and reformative thinking into judicial reasoning. Most importantly, it is a simple reminder that justice is not merely punishment–it is understanding the human and social conditions that lead people to commit a crime, especially women who commit a crime in the face of coercion.  By demonstrating this, Shubha v. State begins a liberating journey towards a more compassionate, fair, and gendered criminal justice system in India.

Judgements cited here may be read below:

Shubha v. State of Karnataka, 2025

Kehar Singh v. State (1988)

Shivani v. State of Haryana; State v. Rani, 2025

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this community resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related

Section 498A: Misuse or inappropriate application?

Bodily autonomy & safe abortion, a right under Article 21

As Woman, Citizen and a Muslim: How Courts Have Treated the Hadiya Case

“Anti-conversion laws being weaponised”: CJP seeks interim relief against misuse of anti-conversion laws

2024: Love Jihad as a socio-political tool: caste, endogamy, and Hindutva’s dominance over gender and social boundaries in India

The post Shubha case: Reformative Justice meets Gendered Realities appeared first on SabrangIndia.