No Nation for Women

Book excerpt: No Nation for Women takes a hard, close look at what makes India unsafe for its women — from custodial rapes and honour killings to rapes of minors and trafficking — the author uncovers many unpalatable truths behind what we are familiar with as newspaper headlines only... Numbers convey, in part, why India is referred to as one of the world’s rape capitals — one woman is raped every 15 minutes; and, in 50 years, there has been a staggering rise of 873 per cent in sexual crimes against girls. And beyond the numbers and 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; of frequent dislocation faced by survivor families in West Bengal; of political wrath turning into rape in Tripura. 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 and violence. 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 women.