Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to the 2021 annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 31,677 rape cases were registered across the country, or an average of 86 cases daily, a rise from 2020 with 28,046 cases, while in 2019, 32,033 cases were registered. Of the total 31,677 rape cases, 28,147 (nearly 89%) of the rapes were committed by persons known to the victim. The share of victims who were minors or below 18, the legal age of consent, stood at 10%. According to Delhi Police data from 2019 to 2020, 44% of rape victims identified the accused as a relative or family member.
The government also classifies consensual sex committed on the false promise of marriage as rape. Most rapes go unreported in India, although the willingness to report rapes may have increased in recent years, after several incidents received widespread media attention and triggered local and nationwide public protests. This led the government to reform its penal code for crimes of rape and sexual assault.
According to NCRB 2021 statistics, Rajasthan reported the highest number of rapes among Indian states, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Among metropolitan cities, the national capital of Delhi continued to have the highest incidence of rape at 1,226 cases in 2021, while Jaipur had the highest rape rate (34 per 100,000 population). Kolkata had the least number of registered rape cases among metropolitan cities, with the lowest rape rate.
Definition in Indian Penal Code
Before 3 February 2013, Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code defined rape as:
§375. Rape. A man is said to commit "rape" who, except case hereinafter excepted, has sexual intercourse with a woman in circumstances falling under any of the six following descriptions:––
Firstly. –– Against her will.
Secondly. –– Without her consent.
Thirdly. –– With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested, in fear of death or of hurt.
Fourthly. –– With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband, and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.
Fifthly. –– With her consent, when, at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent.
Sixthly. –– With or without her consent, when she is under sixteen years of age.
Explanation. –– Penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse necessary to the offence of rape.
Exception. –– Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.
The above definition excluded marital rape, same sex crimes and considered all sex with a minor below the age of sixteen as rape.
After 3 February 2013, the definition was revised through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, which also raised the legal age of minors to eighteen.
§375. A man is said to commit "rape" if he:–– (a) penetrates his penis, to any extent, into the vagina, mouth, urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (b) inserts, to any extent, any object or a part of the body, not being the penis, into the vagina, the urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (c) manipulates any part of the body of a woman so as to cause penetration into the vagina, urethra, anus or any part of body of such woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (d) applies his mouth to the vagina, anus, urethra of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person, under the circumstances falling under any of the following seven descriptions:
Firstly. –– Against her will.
Secondly. –– Without her consent.
Thirdly. –– With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested, in fear of death or of hurt.
Fourthly. –– With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.
Fifthly. –– With her consent when, at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome Substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent.
Sixthly. –– With or without her consent, when she is under eighteen years of age.
Seventhly. –– When she is unable to communicate consent.
Explanation 1. –– For the purposes of this section, "vagina" shall also include labia majora.
Explanation 2. –– Consent means an unequivocal voluntary agreement when the woman by words, gestures or any form of verbal or non-verbal communication, communicates willingness to participate in the specific sexual act;
Provided that a woman who does not physically resist to the act of penetration shall not by the reason only of that fact, be regarded as consenting to the sexual activity. Exceptions –– 1. A medical procedure or intervention shall not constitute rape; 2. Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.
After the 2013 reform, marital rape within a cohabiting marriage continued to be exempt from criminal liability in India. Article 376B of the 2013 law made forced sexual intercourse by a man with his wife – if she is living separately – a crime, whether under a decree of separation or otherwise, punishable with at least a two-year prison term. Forced sex by a man with his wife may also be considered a prosecutable domestic violence under other sections of Indian Penal Code, such as Section 498(A) as well as the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005. The crime of sexual assault on a child, that is anyone below the age of eighteen, is further outlined and mandatory punishments described in The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012.
As CNN reported in 2020, a man convicted of raping a woman faces a minimum 10-year prison sentence. This may increase to a life sentence or even a death sentence depending on the circumstances and details of the crime. If the victim is transgender, however, the rapist is punished by a maximum of two years in prison, as defined by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019.
All sexual acts between the members of the same sex, consensual or forced, were previously a crime under Section 377 of the Indian penal code, after the 2013 Criminal Law reform, with punishment the same as that of rape but it was later overturned in a landmark judgement of the Supreme Court on 6 September 2018 which stated all consensual sexual acts between adults who have met the age of consent are not violative of Section 377, hence decriminalising gay sex in India.
Like Indian Penal Code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita retains the marital rape exception. It retains the value laden phrase ‘outraging the modesty of women’ instead of replacing it with the gender-neutral term ‘sexual assault’. It provides inadequate protection to victims of non-consensual intimate imagery. It does not include any provision for offences involving rape of males or of transgender individuals.
Rape statistics
India has one of the lowest per capita rape rates in the world. One rape was reported every 16 minutes in India in 2019. This figure was 15 minutes in 2018. In 2019, the national average rape rate (per 100,000 population) was 4.9, slightly less than 5.2 in 2018 and 2017. However, the small dip may be attributed to data for West Bengal not being available. As of 2019, Nagaland (0.8), Tamil Nadu (1.0), and Bihar (1.3) had the lowest rape rates among the states of India, while Rajasthan (15.9) had the highest rape rate. These statistics do not take into account rapes ending in murder and attempts to rape, which are counted separately by police in India.
- Due to non-receipt of data from West Bengal in time for 2019, data furnished for 2018 has been used
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Rape of minors
Using a small sample survey, Human Rights Watch projected that more than 7,200 minors – 1.6 in 100,000 minors – are raped each year in India. Among these, victims who report the assaults are alleged to suffer mistreatment and humiliation from the police. Minor girls are trafficked into prostitution in India, thus rape of minors conflates into a lifetime of suffering. Of the countries studied by Maplecroft on sex trafficking and crime against minors, India was ranked 7th worst.
- Due to non-receipt of data from West Bengal in time for 2019, data furnished for 2018 has been used
Sources :
Estimates of unreported rapes
Most rapes go unreported because the rape victims fear retaliation and humiliation, both in India and throughout the world. Indian parliamentarians have stated that the rape problem in India is being underestimated because many cases are not reported, even though more victims are increasingly coming out and reporting rape and sexual assaults.
Few states in India have tried to estimate or survey unreported cases of sexual assault. The estimates for unreported rapes in India vary widely. The National Crime Records Bureau report of 2006 mentioned that about 71% rape crimes go unreported. Marital rape is not a criminal act in India though sexual intercourse with wife aged between 15 and 18 years is considered as rape. Madiha Kark estimates 54% of rape crimes are unreported. A UN study of 57 countries estimates just 11% of rape and sexual assault cases worldwide are ever reported.
Convictions
Only one in four reported rape cases in India result in convictions.
Notable incidents
Ajmer rape case
In 1992, the Ajmer rape case was one of India's biggest cases of coerced sexual exploitation, with more than a hundred underage schoolgirls estimated to have been sexually molested and raped. Most accused were from the Ajmer Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti.
2012 Delhi gang rape case
The gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a public bus, on 16 December 2012, sparked large protests across the capital Delhi. The victim was with a male friend who was severely beaten with an iron rod during the incident. This same rod was used to penetrate her so severely that the victim's intestines had to be surgically removed, before her death thirteen days after the attack.
The following day, there was an uproar in the Indian parliament over the incident. MPs in both houses had set aside their regular business to discuss the case and demanded strict punishment for those who carried out the attack. The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, demanded that "the rapists should be hanged". Thousands of people, mostly young, participated in a massive demonstration on 22 December in protest. Police arrested six men suspected of rape. One of them, a 17-year-old juvenile, was jailed while among the five remaining culprits (who were adults), one committed suicide before trial while the other four were hanged in 2020 for murder.
2013 Mumbai gang rape
In August 2013, in the Shakti Mills gang rape case, a 22-year-old photojournalist, who was interning with an English-language magazine in Mumbai, was gang-raped by five persons, including a juvenile, in the deserted Shakti Mills compound, near Mahalaxmi in South Mumbai, where she had gone with a male colleague on an assignment. This caused protests throughout the country since Mumbai with its very active nightlife was previously considered a safe haven for women. The city sessions court found the accused guilty and sentenced the three repeat offenders to death, making them the first in the country to get the death sentence stipulated under the newly enacted Section 376E of the Indian Penal Code. However, on 25 November 2021, the Bombay High Court commuted the three death sentences to life imprisonment.
Ranaghat case
On 14 March 2015, a 71-year-old nun was gang raped in Ranaghat, West Bengal, by intruders at the Convent of Jesus and Mary. The six intruders were recorded on CCTV during their crime of ransacking the chapel, destroying religious items, looting cash and the gang rape. Six men were arrested and charged with the crime by 1 April 2015, and identified to be Bangladeshi Muslims.
Delta Meghwal rape case
On 29 March 2016, the corpse of Delta Meghwal, a 17-year-old Dalit girl, was found in her hostel's water tank. Following the registration of the police case the hostel warden, physical education teacher and principal were arrested by Bikaner police and kept under judicial custody. The State eventually acceded to a CBI inquiry after the issue became politicised.
Kathua rape case
On 17 January 2018, Asifa, an 8-year-old minor girl, was raped and murdered in Rasana village near Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir. The incident made national news when charges were filed against eight men in April 2018. The arrests of the accused led to protests from groups, one of which was attended by two ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party, both of whom have now resigned. The rape and murder, as well as the support the accused received, sparked widespread outrage.