No Nation for Women: Ground Reportage on Rape from the World’s Largest Democracy

Numbers convey, in part, why India is referred to as one of the world’s rape capitals—one woman is raped every fifteen minutes; and in fifty years, there has been a staggering rise of 873 per cent in sexual crimes against girls. Yet numbers reveal only a part of the truth. Beyond statistics, there are stories, often unreported—of women in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, who are routinely raped if they spurn the advances of men; of girls from de-notified tribes in Central India who have no recourse to justice if sexually violated; of victimized lower-caste girls in small-town Baduan, Uttar Pradesh. There are also stories of custodial rape, non-consensual incest and trafficking. Priyanka Dubey travels through large swathes of India, over a period of six years, to uncover the accounts of disenfranchised women who are caught in the grip of patriarchy. Equally, she asks if after the globally-reported December 2012 gang-rape of Nirbhaya in New Delhi, India’s gender narrative has shifted—and if it hasn’t, what needs to be done to make this a nation worthy of its intrepid girls.