Brutal rapes often followed with murder are being reported in India on a daily basis. The heinous death of a 31-year old resident doctor working at RG Kar College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9 is but a continuation of an unending list of heinous crimes being committed against women.

An average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in India in 2022, according to data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The number only increased in 2023. The ghastly nature of sexual assault being inflicted on young and old alike has also increased exponentially.

“Brutality against women has increased manifold. Sexual violence seems to have become the new normal. Two to three cases of rape are being reported on a daily basis. We are witnessing a new India where there is a complete breakdown of law and order,” said Dr Ranjana Kumari, director of Centre for Women Studies.

The fact is that government agencies, both in the states and centre, are primarily responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Crime is no longer being investigated in a non-partisan manner, whether it be in West Bengal, Uttarakhand, UP or Maharashtra where local politicians succeed in putting pressure on the police force to go slow on the FIR and forensic report so that crucial evidence gets destroyed. This is what happened in the Ankita Bhandari case where the room in which Ankita was residing was demolished overnight by a bulldozer. A similar unsuccessful attempt was made in the RG Kar hospital, while in the Badlapur case of two minors being allegedly raped by the cleaning staff while attending school, the police made the parents wait for 12 hours before filing the FIR.

The sad reality of our times is that violence against women has become normalised. The statistics show an 837% increase in rape cases in the last five decades with the police having registered over 250,000 cases. Uttar Pradesh witnessed a 400% rise in cases of child........

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