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All the while, even as the rape of an Adivasi child galvanized the women’s movement and produced legislative reforms, Mathura herself remained on the sidelines. She is reported to have moved to a different village, remarried and started a family. All those years ago, Mathura did what most other women of her time would not have had the resolve to do for fear of a social backlash, police apathy, judicial delays and a host of other reasons. She filed a rape complaint and followed it through to its logical conclusion. The Supreme Court – famously described at the time as the ‘last resort for the
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Throughout the proceedings and thereafter, Bajaj emphasized the broader significance of her case to the women’s rights movement. However, Sections 354 and 509 of the IPC were grounded in Victorian conceptions of modesty and honour. These sections typecast women as meek and modest, with crimes arising from the violation of this notion of modesty. The disquieting consequence of framing crimes of sexual assault and harassment in this way was that they appeared to afford protection only to women that retained the quality of modesty.
‘National security’ is a shield that protects legitimate government action, but it can often be a cover for a multitude of sins.
