“Rape within marriage is not illegal in India which says everything about the position of women. We are donated for marriage rather than enter it as a partner. The ownership is with the man and whatever he does after marriage is acceptable”, said Ranjana Kumari, a women’s rights campaigner who lobbied members of parliament on the issue. 

If the above statement does NOT grab you and make you feel like choking, I do not know what will.

That women are “donated” in marriage, to do with as the partner damn well pleases is both frightening and inhuman.

How can we enlighten our “educated” leaders who sit in Governments, in Courts and in Village councils everywhere to see and hear the inexcusable torture that is reflected in this statement?

If having mothers and sisters and daughters of their own is NOT enough to force the courts to take a tough stance or to force the responsible powers to change the laws what will?

Women will have to take to the streets in droves to demand the rights to their own bodies.

As it stands, there are NOT ENOUGH women for all the eligible males in India to marry and some of eligible men are lucky to get a wife.

On top of that, some of those LUCKY enough to have a wife, will mistreat her and torture her?

What must we do, say, to end such abominable behavior by these unthinking men?

I do not have the answers to these questions, BUT we must put our heads together and find some.

Please begin to try to answer these questions for yourself.

Love and light,

Indrani