The Battle to Make Marital Rape a Crime in India

Just days after her wedding in Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh, a young bride was found dead. On February 4, 2023, her husband, Nitil Omare, from Jalaun district’s Orai region, allegedly took enhancement pills — medications often marketed to improve sexual performance — before their wedding night and brutally assaulted her.

For days, her injuries went untreated. It was only after confiding in her sister-in-law that the extent of her condition came to light. By the time she was taken to a hospital in Kanpur, her health had deteriorated beyond recovery. On February 10—just a week after her wedding—she died. Doctors examining her were shocked, noting that her wounds resembled those seen in cases of gang rape.

Yet, despite the severity of the assault, Omare cannot be prosecuted for rape. Under Indian law, marital rape is not recognized as a crime. A colonial-era provision in the Indian Penal Code explicitly exempts husbands from being charged with raping their wives—a legal loophole that, according to women’s rights advocates, prioritizes marriage over a woman’s bodily autonomy and constitutional rights.

“The government argues that criminalizing marital rape will destabilize the family, but the truth is, it is violence that destabilizes families — not its recognition,” said Mariam Dhawale, General Secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and one of the petitioners in a landmark case now before India’s Supreme Court. “If we accept violence as an inherent part of family life, then we must question what kind of family structure we are aspiring for.”

Dhawale’s organization, AIDWA, stands at the forefront of a landmark legal challenge to India’s marital rape exception. Since 2017, the organization has defended a legal petition challenging the constitutionality of marital rape, arguing that the law, as it stands, denies women bodily autonomy within marriage. As the Supreme Court deliberates on the case, stories of global reach like that of the Hamirpur bride are forcing a nation to confront a fundamental question: can marriage itself justify violence?

Dhawale explained that AIDWA has faced significant challenges throughout the legal battle. Many women who approached the group with their cases refused to go public, fearing identification and the stigma of taking a stand against their husbands. This fear is not unfounded, she explained, as survivors who seek justice often face intimidation from the police, who resort to victim-blaming and moralizing. 

“Women are frequently told that ‘it was just their husband’ and [are] pressured [by police] to return to their marital homes.”

After a split verdict in the Delhi High Court in 2022, AIDWA’s case was escalated to the Supreme Court, where it continues to face opposition from the central government. In October 2024, the government submitted an affidavit arguing that while a husband doesn't have the right to violate his wife’s consent, classifying such acts as rape would be “excessively harsh.”

Advocates warn that marital rape reflects a broader pattern of indifference toward gender-based violence in India, where data shows rising rates of domestic and intimate partner abuse countrywide. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) published in 2021 by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, nearly one in three Indian women aged 18 to 49 has experienced spousal abuse, with 6 percent suffering sexual violence and 14 percent facing emotional violence.

Despite this alarming reality, India — alongside Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan — remains among the few countries that have not criminalized marital rape. Since marital rape is not legally recognized in India, it is challenging for advocates like Tiwary to know how many women have been victims of the crime. 

“Violence is black and white. There is no grey area there. While it's true that every law can be misused, that shouldn’t stop us from recognizing the harsh reality that someone's personhood is being snatched away every day,” said Monika Tiwary, who is a counselor at the Delhi-based NGO Shakti Shalini, which supports survivors of gender and sexual violence.

When Tiwary works with survivors, many of them don’t even recognize marital rape as a form of violence, which Tiwary believes makes it all the more important for the government to assist advocates in raising awareness. She recalled a conversation with a survivor: “I asked her how she felt when her husband forced himself on her. Her response still haunts me. She said she felt like her whole body was on fire.”

Oftentimes, survivors of marital rape endure triple marginalization, explained R. Priya, who is a lawyer at the Western District Court of Delhi, and asked for anonymity.

First, there is a pervasive lack of awareness coupled with familial pressure to maintain silence,” said Priya. “Most of the time, survivors either do not recognize it as rape or refrain from calling it so to protect their own and their family’s reputation in society.”

Second, even when survivors of marital rape in India find the courage to report the crime, they often face significant institutional barriers. Police, constrained by a legal exception that shields husbands from rape charges, may encourage women to resolve the issue privately or direct them to file domestic violence complaints, often overlooking the severity of the crime. 

Last, if the case makes it to court, survivors endure long legal battles that often re-traumatize victims of the crimes they endured, and where Courts, prioritizing the sanctity of marriage, have often suggested legal separation or private settlements within the family rather than addressing the criminal nature of the offense. This tendency to suggest separation or private settlements can prevent the crime from being properly acknowledged and leave survivors without justice.

This approach perpetuates a cycle of denial and inaction, leaving survivors without meaningful justice.

Despite these obstacles, AIDWA remains committed to its fight, representing the culmination of decades of feminist activism against what many see as India's most glaring legal blind spot — one that affects millions of women whose suffering remains invisible under the law.

“The AIDWA sincerely hopes that the Supreme Court will correct the injustice inflicted on women by recognizing marital rape as a crime,” Dhawale told More to Her Story. “The exception given to marital rape has subjected women to inhuman torture for a very long time now. It is high time that such brutality of a patriarchal society is brought to an end.”