Literally within days prior to India’s latest election results coming in, heralding that a new government will rise to power, an Indian court made a ruling that reinforced how norms governing women’s rights in India still have hurdles to clear. The court ruled that marital rape is not a crime. The ruling says that if a man and a woman are married, yet separated and living apart and a man sexual assaults the woman, he is not committing a crime. Furthermore, if a woman simply says no to intercourse with her husband, and her husband forces himself on her, no crime has been committed. This specific case was brought by an unidentified woman who said that a marriage had been performed unknowingly, after she was drugged. She says that after the ceremony, for which she was intoxicated, her new husband sexually assaulted her against and then fled. The court’s ruling stated that, “the sexual intercourse between the two, even if forcible, is not rape and no culpability can be fastened upon the accused."

Far too long have India’s laws and officials have not done enough to promote and protect women’s rights. Patriarchal notions of male entitlement are repeatedly reinforced through lawmaker’s attitudes and judgments, as evidenced by the aforementioned ruling. While there are many progressive laws that seek to empower women and protect their rights, weak implementation of these laws mean that they’re little more than words on a piece of paper. That, coupled with this latest ruling, tells Indian women that they do not possess the same rights that men have and are subject to second-class status. This ruling is an affront to women’s rights. It arrests any discourse of equality, legitimizing the right of a man over a woman’s body when married and gives a man complete control and right over a woman’s body after marriage. The ruling tells women – or girls over the age of 15 – who are married or who will soon enter into marriage, that once they are legally married, they lose the right to decide if, when, and how often they will have sex with their husbands.

Ironically, according to the New York Times, the ruling in the case was issued under a new fast-track court, created after the gang rape of a woman on a Delhi bus less than two years ago, to help address problems associated with violence against women. The aftermath of this incident included several changes made in criminal acts related to various forms of violence, as recommended by the Justice Verma Report, but the recommendation to criminalize marital rape was rejected. While the Indian Parliament has taken several steps to enact stricter penalties for crimes against women, this most recent ruling underlines the fact that women are still not viewed as equals. And while this ruling affects any female over the age of 15 who is married, it reminds us that many of the women this ruling affects are still girls.

According to UNICEF, as of 2013, nearly 48 percent of Indian women are married by age 18, many of whom are forced into marriage early by their family and to a spouse they did not themselves choose.  It has been noted in various studies that girls who are married early experience higher rates of gender-based violence experience, are at greater risk to die during child birth, and have reported higher rates of depression. The Indian court’s ruling now tells girls who are - or who may have been - child brides in India, that they have no legal right to challenge their husband if they’re sexually assaulted.

As the newly elected government sets out its priorities, it is of utmost importance that India’s new Prime Minister seek to ensure that all of Indian’s women are safe and that new laws seek to protect women from all forms of violence that have been insufferably the norm. This is a chance to “push the reset” button and to ensure that gains in women’s rights, not reductions, are par for the course under the new government.

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