As they tell you about the life of a woman, the pain, the burden, the labour, you will smile and laugh because they will package your horrifying future in fairytales, song and dance, couture, grand palaces, fitting tributes to motherhood being the greatest experience in the world, so much so that you will hope and pray and eagerly await this time of your life. You will dream of a love that sweeps you off your feet, you will dream of a man who sees you for who you are, you will put aside your ambitions and dreams and “hobbies” and your individuality to fit into his life and be part of his family. You will water yourself down to the barest bits, till you are palatable, till you fade into a corner, till you are unrecognizable from who you once were. This will be the biggest tragedy of your life.

But it will be grand and you will look so pretty and everyone will be so happy so you will silence the tiny voice at the back of your head, wear your Sabyasachi and go meet the love of your life and leave your life and individuality behind with great pomp and show. At first, it will seem beautiful, this new life. You will love the feeling of love; you will enjoy the affection this man will shower on you. You will take his last name, and his dishes off the table, and his dirty underwear and his parent’s expectations and you will run with them. You will submerge yourself in these and allow the validation and placation you feel all around you, not to mention the warm glow of love to slowly fill the void in your soul that came from who you once used to be. You will serve him and his family in the kitchen during the day and you will serve him in his bed at night. You will enjoy it, and you will call it your choice and you will vociferously declare that you are the master of your fate and that love is everything and family is everything and you will be a willing slave to the expectations put upon you by this “family”. Nothing you ever do in this house will be enough. No amount of labour, no amount of effort, no matter how out of your way you go, you will be considered an outsider that is just doing your duty, and not well enough. You will bear his children and if you don’t want to, he will rape them into you. You will push yourself and push yourself and push yourself and that niggling voice will now come back screaming and swinging. You will hold your child that tore you open coming out, you will love it, and you will swallow the pain.

But the child will bear his name, the child will be his legacy, the child will be part of his family, and you will be only the cavity through which it came into the world, and the labourer that will raise it. The voice will by now consume you. You will fight it, fight to close your eyes to the reality fight to tell yourself that this is still your choice and the love that has faded in the background and been replaced with responsibility and expectation and servitude still exists and you are staying because of it, not because you are bound, not because there is no choice anymore and there never was but because you love him.

You love him? And this is your family. Is it? You will start rebelling and fighting and crying. You will fight and rage and cry, but you will still serve him in the kitchen in the morning and in the bedroom at night. You will think you can say no and so you will try to say no one day, and that will be the day you will learn. You will learn that he can do with you as he pleases. You will learn that whether he wants to shove his dick in you or his fist, it is all the same and it is all permissible because he is your husband, because you wore the Sabyasachi in a beautiful palace, and the flowers rained down and you walked down the aisle and sold yourself to his mercy. You will know that your blood, your bones, your voice, the tendons and muscles and your hands and legs, your back and front all belong to him and he can use any of them as he sees fit. The men that were supposed to protect you, the woman that brought you into this world, you will soon recognize them as the butchers that prepared you for slaughter.

Like a lamb you went beautiful and trusting and now on the chopping block with your spine broken. You will cry and bleat but the judges and the juries and the executioners will watch as he brutalizes you for his pleasure or for his power or for a fantasy and they will let him. And when he has gotten off and left you bloody and for dead, when he’s ripped you open this time not to bring life into the world but to take yours out, when that voice has been silenced forever and your vessel has served his purpose to him, you will be discarded. They will see his hands stained red with your blood, and they will look at your broken body and your gaping cunt and they will declare him not guilty.

Those men that protected you did it so one man and one man only could stake his claim on you, so he will be your first, your last, your only and your first breath was drawn to serve him and your last breath also served him, so is it a crime for a man to do as he sees fit with his property?

No. Is it a crime for a man to feel overwhelming passion for his wife? No. You, my love, were made for this. You didn’t know and the handcuffs were red and looked a lot like love and they were made of blood but you didn’t know. You didn’t know that the only good wives are the ones that die in silence on the inside before their death ever comes for them.

You didn’t know that often the wolves that own our bodies and drink our blood say ‘I love you’ and ‘Happy Anniversary’ and those who say they will save and protect and love us sell us to the wolves for a bent spine followed by a pat on the back.

(The author is a student of law in Mumbai and can be contacted at parulekarpriyanka02@gmail.com)

Related:

A Licence to Violate: Chhattisgarh HC’s ruling on marital rape exposes a legal travesty’

The post D*ck or fist appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A heinous crime and a judicial betrayal

The case in question is as gruesome as it is tragic. A woman was subjected to brutal sexual violence by her husband, which led to severe internal injuries and ultimately her death. In her dying declaration, she explicitly accused her husband of forceful sexual intercourse, an allegation corroborated by medical reports stating that she suffered from peritonitis and rectal perforation—injuries directly linked to the assault. Despite these damning details, the Chhattisgarh High Court overturned the trial court’s conviction and acquitted the accused of all charges, including culpable homicide, rape, and unnatural sexual offences.

The trial court in Bastar’s Jagdalpur had convicted the man under IPC Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 375 (rape), and 377 (unnatural sexual offences), sentencing him to 10 years in jail. However, the High Court, in a deeply flawed reading of the law, ruled that the marital rape exception under Section 375 must also apply to Section 377. Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas held that because Indian law does not criminalise non-consensual sex within marriage, it cannot criminalise non-consensual unnatural sex either. This interpretation effectively grants husbands unchecked power over their wives’ bodies, insulating them from criminal liability even in cases of brutal sexual violence.

A judicial leap of absurdity

Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas, in his ruling, contended that the marital rape exception must extend to unnatural sexual offences under Section 377 of the IPC, as recognising consent for one while ignoring it for the other would be “inconsistent.” He argued that Exception 2 under Section 375 explicitly exempts a husband from being prosecuted for rape, thereby establishing that consent is not a legal requirement within marriage. Extending this logic, the court held that if forced vaginal intercourse by a husband is not considered rape, then non-consensual unnatural sex within marriage should not be treated as an offence either.

“Thus, it is quite clear that at the same time, as per the definition of Section 375 of IPC, the offender is classified as a ‘man’. Here in the present case, the appellant is a ‘husband’ and victim is a ‘woman’ and here she is a ‘wife’ and parts of the body which are used for carnal intercourse are also common, therefore, the offence between husband and wife cannot be made out under Section 375 IPC as per the repeal made by way of amendment and in view of repugnancy between both the sections,” the bench added to the judgment.

The High Court further justified its decision by invoking a legal principle stating that when two provisions are inconsistent, the newer one takes precedence and nullifies the older law. While both Sections 375 and 377 were introduced simultaneously in the IPC, the 2013 amendment expanded the definition of rape while retaining the marital rape exception. Based on this, the court concluded that the modified provision effectively overrode Section 377 in the context of marriage, making non-consensual anal or oral sex between spouses legally permissible.

On the culpable homicide charge, the prosecution had relied on the woman’s dying declaration, which was recorded before an executive magistrate just hours before her death. In this statement, she had accused her husband of brutal sexual violence, which resulted in fatal injuries. However, the High Court dismissed this as unreliable, arguing that the declaration did not explicitly link the injuries to forced intercourse. Justice Vyas noted that while the trial court had accepted the dying declaration as evidence, the magistrate who recorded it testified that the victim had provided additional details separately. The High Court, in an astonishing twist, ruled that because a dying declaration should stand on its own without requiring corroboration, any additional statements made outside of it could not be relied upon.

Labelling the conviction under Section 304 (culpable homicide) as “perverse,” the court quashed the sentence, declaring that the trial court had failed to establish how the offence was proven beyond doubt. It criticised the lower court for convicting the accused without providing a clear basis for how Section 304 was applicable, ultimately ordering the husband’s immediate release from jail.

Further bolstering its decision, the court reiterated that since Exception 2 to Section 375 remains part of the statute, sexual intercourse between a husband and wife—no matter how violent or non-consensual—cannot be considered rape unless the wife is under 15 years of age.

“It is quite vivid that when everything is repealed under Section 375 of IPC then how offence under Section 377 of IPC would be attracted if it is committed between husband and wife,” the judgement stated.

It failed to acknowledge that the Supreme Court, in its 2017 Independent Thought ruling, had already struck down this age limit, declaring that sex with a wife under 18 years constitutes rape. The High Court, however, ignored this precedent, relying instead on an outdated and legally untenable reading of the law.

Justice Vyas took the argument even further, questioning how a husband could be prosecuted under Section 377 if every form of sexual intercourse between spouses was legally protected under the marital rape exception. He insisted that when the legislature retained the exception in 2013, it effectively nullified any conflicting interpretation that could criminalise a husband’s sexual acts against his wife. By this reasoning, he concluded that no offence under either Section 375 or 377 was made out against the accused, since the law does not recognise a wife’s lack of consent as relevant in marital relations.

The complete judgment may be read here.

A Pattern of Judicial Misogyny: The Madhya Pradesh High Court’s precedent

The Chhattisgarh High Court’s ruling is not an anomaly—it reflects a wider pattern of Indian courts failing married women. In a similarly outrageous judgment, the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Meghna Agarwal Vs. Anurag Bagadiya and another (2022) granted anticipatory bail to a husband accused of forcibly sodomising his wife, citing the marital rape exception. The court reasoned that Section 377, meant to criminalise unnatural sex, could not apply within marriage unless extreme cruelty was established. This interpretation disregards the fundamental principle that any non-consensual act—whether vaginal, oral, or anal—constitutes sexual violence.

By treating marriage as a protective shield against prosecution for sexual crimes, Indian courts are actively enabling spousal rape. These rulings institutionalise a grotesque double standard: a married woman’s suffering is deemed legally irrelevant in situations where an unmarried woman would receive full protection under the law.

Institutionalised discrimination against married women

The most glaring problem with this ruling is its blatant discrimination against married women. If the victim had been a minor or an unmarried woman, the accused would have been found guilty of rape. If the accused had committed the same acts against a stranger, he would have been punished under Section 377. The only reason he walks free today is because the victim was his wife—an outrageous legal position that strips married women of their fundamental right to bodily autonomy.

The present ruling also contradicts the Supreme Court’s Independent Thought judgment, which recognised marital rape in cases where the wife is below 18 years of age. In November 2024, in the case of S v. State of Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court ruled that sex with a minor wife is rape, reaffirming that the legal age of consent is 18, irrespective of marital status. Justice G.A. Sanap categorically rejected the argument that marriage grants automatic sexual rights over a wife’s body. Similarly, in other instances, courts have recognised that non-consensual sexual acts within marriage can be prosecuted under different sections of the IPC. Yet, the Chhattisgarh HC has chosen to take a regressive approach, doubling down on an archaic and indefensible legal exception. If forced sex with a minor wife is rape, why should force sex with an adult wife be any different? The ruling reinforces the deeply patriarchal notion that marriage gives a husband unchallenged ownership over his wife’s body, a mind-set that has no place in a constitutional democracy.

The Supreme Court’s deafening silence

This verdict also highlights the Supreme Court’s prolonged inaction on the marital rape issue. For over two years, petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the marital rape exception have been pending before the apex court. The government, instead of addressing the issue head-on, continues to argue that criminalising marital rape would be “excessively harsh” on husbands. This reluctance to act allows judgments like the Chhattisgarh High Court’s to flourish, reinforcing the idea that Indian wives have fewer legal protections than other citizens.

Worse still, the recently enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which replaces the IPC from July 2024, retains the same marital rape immunity and removes Section 377 altogether. This ensures that even the narrow protections married women had under the IPC will now cease to exist, further embedding this archaic injustice into law.

A dangerous precedent for women’s rights

The Chhattisgarh HC’s verdict is not just a legal travesty—it is a dangerous precedent that further erodes the rights of married women. By normalising the idea that consent is irrelevant in marriage, the ruling effectively sanctions sexual violence within matrimonial relationships. It also sends a chilling message to victims: the legal system will not protect you if your rapist is your husband.

If Indian courts and lawmakers truly believe in gender equality, they must abolish the marital rape exception and recognise a woman’s right to say no, irrespective of her marital status. Until then, judgments like these will continue to legitimise spousal sexual violence, condemning countless women to a lifetime of abuse with no legal recourse.

This is not just a failure of the judiciary—it is a failure of the Indian legal system to uphold the fundamental rights of half its population.

Related:

The Debate around Section 498A: Misuse or inappropriate application?

State-sanctioned brutality? Dalit communities targeted in Parbhani “combing operations”, women, children abused

Young persons & women among the most acutely unemployed: PLFS Annual Report, 2024

The illusion of the glamourous Malayalam cinema falls apart: Justice Hema Committee report provides insight into systematic harassment and exploitation of women actors

The post A Licence to Violate: Chhattisgarh HC’s ruling on marital rape exposes a legal travesty’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Chhattisgarh High Court (HC) ordered the Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) to stop all bauxite mining activity at the Pathrai village in Surguja district’s Sitapur block on December 3, 2019.

The public sector undertaking (PSU) had started mining in the area where around 50 Individual Forest Rights titles had been granted to claimants. Another 50 claims under the Forest Rights Act (2006) are still pending.

The CMDC had received the go-ahead for Stage II Forest Clearance on June 19, 2018 based on the District Collector’s letter of August 27, 2015 which confirmed that no rights under the FRA were pending and no rights holders were straying into the mining area.

Tribals belonging to the Oraon and Manji tribal groups inhabit Pathrai, which falls under the Schedule V of the Indian Constitution. It is governed by the Panchayat (Extension to Schedule Areas) Act, 1996, under which no mining activity can take place without the consent of the Gram Sabha.

However, advocate Kishore Narayan on behalf of the tribals said that the CMDC had twisted their way around to begin the mining activity in the area. Down to Earth reported him as saying, “First, the CMDC obtained a forged ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NoC) from the Gram Sabha. They told the Gram Sabha that its members would have to give their signatures to reject the mining plan. Instead, they got the NoC document signed. The villagers approached the court after CMDC started mining activity around 15 days back.”

According to the Forest Rights Act, 2006, the Gram Sabha has been assigned to initiate the process for determining the nature and extent of individual or community forest rights or both that may be given to the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. The Gram Sabha also is the authority on receiving claims, consolidating and verifying them and preparing a map delineating the area of each recommended claim in such manner as may be prescribed for exercise of such rights.

Apart from the allegedly fake NoC obtained from the Gram Sabha, the FRA title holders were sent notices by the sub-divisional officer saying that they were not eligible to be granted forest right titles and that they should appear before the office.

However, the FRA does not talk about cancelling of titles granted to forest dwellers and there aren’t any provisions under the Act for doing so!

Petitioner Peter Ghincha, who is a village resident and the holder of an FRA title over 0.2 hectares of land said, “It is submitted that the notices have been issued to circumvent legal requirements for mining in the area where people have been issued forest right titles.”

How forest rights are violated

In 2016, the Chhattisgarh government facilitated coal mining in the Ghatbarra village in the same Surguja district by giving away tribal land to the Rajasthan Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (RVUNL) and Adani Minerals Private Limited. In an order passed on January 8 that year, the government cancelled the community land rights of the tribals in the village that were granted to them under the FRA, 2006.

As stated above, under the FRA, there can be no revocation of either community or individual rights once granted under the law. The government can only divert the forest land for another purpose with prior consent of the tribals.

In 2019, a Right to Information (RTI) report filed by News 18 revealed that in Tamil Nadu, the forest right claims of 10,656 tribals and other forest dwellers had been rejected by the government. The RTI reported that due procedure wasn’t followed in the rejected cases and the review process for the same had begun.

In February 2019, the Supreme Court had ordered a mass eviction of more than a million forest dwellers in response to a petition against the constitutional validity of the FRA, 2006. The petition filed by retired forest officers and environmental groups had said that the FRA obstructed conservation efforts.

The order sparked massive outrage from tribals and activist groups. Activists claimed that most tribals being extremely poor and illiterate couldn’t produce substantial claims to their lands and some of them weren’t even aware of rejected claims to file further appeals.

In Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, forest rights dwellers face constant delays in formation of village-level forest committees. The district level communities are known to impede rights by rejecting proof of forest use by communities, obstructing community rights and approving smaller tracts of land that what is claimed, Bar and Bench reports. In December itself, the Orissa government arbitrarily rejected forest rights claims of 6,313 traditional forest dwellers.

In some cases in Chhattisgarh, forest rights titles have been rendered useless after the government has allocated land for mining; while in the others forest rights titles itself aren’t granted saying that the land has already been allocated for mining.

Poll Position

31% of Chhattisgarh’s population consists of tribals. This is a number that can surely work to the advantage of political parties.

In the 2018 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, the BJP lost its share partly due to the FRA. The Congress, which in its manifesto, had promised to implement the FRA won 68% more of seats of the 39 total seats reserved for the SCs.

An analysis by IndiaSpend noted that the BJP had been extremely poor at recognizing rights of tribal and forest dwellers under the FRA. The BJP had been wiped out in SC / ST constituencies, with important tribal assembly segments like Surguja and Bastar voting for the INC.

The report noted that though the then Shivraj Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh had implemented the recognition of individual titles under the FRA, the high number of rejections (more than 60%) had increased resentment in the people. Here too, the Congress claimed the win.

In Jharkhand, too, the dissatisfaction of tribals with regards to the slow implementation of the FRA is said to be a deciding factor, deciding the fate of the BJP. The FRA is critical to at least 3.8 million people in Jharkhand, which is 52% of the total voters. In 2014, it won 42% of the critical seats, but if it only relies on its Hindutva nationalism narrative and not talk about root issues like the FRA, it is likely to lose its vote share.

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 is an important tool for forest dwellers to hold over their traditional tribal lands that have and continue to provide them with all that is necessary for their livelihood. However, in this fight for jal, jungle and zameen, they have been shortchanged by governments and defrauded from their fundamental rights. The government thinks it will be granted impunity and arm-wrest its way towards the evictions of these forest dwellers just for the fact that they are tribals and their circumstances can be exploited. However, with the current order of the Chhattisgarh HC, a new hope has risen. Whether or not the government will toe the line is to be seen.

Related:

Thousands of Adivasis demand the implementation of FRA 2006

Compilation of Forest Rights Act, Rules, and Guidelines

Odisha govt cancels forest applications of over 6000 tribal families

In Jharkhand, Forest Rights Could Decide Votes In 77% Assembly Seats

Odisha govt cancels forest applications of over 6000 tribal families

The post Chhattisgarh HC orders PSU to stop all mining activity appeared first on SabrangIndia.