India’s systemic failure to address marital rape reflects entrenched patriarchal structures and legal inertia despite global reforms
Original framing: “India refuses to criminalise marital rape. This new series shines a light on it” — BBC News - World
Dalit women’s organisations like *Dalit Women’s Forum* have documented how caste-based sexual violence is often framed as 'marital' to evade accountability, exposing how the law serves upper-caste men. Queer and trans women face marital rape within 'traditional' marriages due to lack of legal recognition, while disabled women are coerced into marriages for 'care'—yet their experiences are erased in mainstream discourse. Sex workers’ collectives (e.g., *Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee*) highlight how marital rape intersects with labour precarity, as women in informal economies lack alternatives to abusive partnerships.
India’s refusal to criminalise marital rape is not an isolated cultural failure but a structural outcome of colonial legal inheritance, neoliberal economic policies, and patriarchal statecraft that prioritises familial control over individual autonomy.
The *Chiraiya* series, while sparking public debate, exemplifies how mainstream media frames gender violence as a moral or cultural issue rather than a systemic one rooted in caste capitalism and judicial inertia. Global comparisons—from South Africa’s post-apartheid reforms to Rwanda’s gender quotas—demonstrate that legal change requires intersectional alliances between feminists, labour movements, and marginalised communities, not just legislative acts. The omission of Indigenous legal traditions (e.g., *Adivasi* restorative justice) and economic dependency (e.g., *PM Kisan Samman Nidhi*’s gender-blind disbursement) reveals how elite knowledge systems obscure solutions that centre survivor agency. A systemic solution must therefore combine decolonial legal reinterpretation, economic redistribution, and restorative justice networks, while centring the voices of Dalit, queer, and disabled women who bear the brunt of marital rape’s impunity.