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Let’s get this straight first – it was not the Women’s Reservation Bill 2026 which was rejected by the opposition parties in parliament last week, but the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, which aimed at implementing 33% women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, via delimitation. The Bill failed the test as the Modi government did not secure the required two-thirds majority. It proposed to raise the Lok Sabha seats to 850 to the disadvantage of southern and eastern states. Not surprisingly, the Bharatiya Janata Party government went on an overdrive to spuriously claim it had done its best to push the women’s bill but failed to say that the actual reservation bill of 2023 was passed the same year and that opposition parties had supported the bill in its entirety.

It was the Modi government’s surreptitious act of entwining the women’s bill with delimitation that opposition parties objected to.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too went on national television to broadcast a political harangue against the opposition, in blatant violation of norms of not using state television for party politics, that too in the midst of state elections. In his address to the nation, Modi accused the opposition of “female foeticide,” singling out the TMC and DMK who will both go to polls in a weeks.

Notably, Modi “sought forgiveness” from “India’s mothers and daughters” and added that “a woman may forget everything but never an insult to herself.”

Perhaps it would do the country and its women good if Modi would follow his pious and virtuous utterances and seek forgiveness for the utter horror that has befallen women — here are five times Modi should have apologised to India’s women but never did.

Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh

Remember how two-time world champion medallist Vinesh Phogat and Olympic medallists Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia were dragged off the streets and flung into police vans for protesting against the Modi government’s refusal to act on serious charges of sexual harassment, assault and intimidation and stalking against six-time BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh?

The cases had been filed by seven female wrestlers, and initially included a minor. Singh, an Uttar Pradesh bahubali, was then the president of the Wrestling Federation of India.

According to police records, between 1974 and 2007, as many as 38 cases were registered against Singh, accusing him of theft, dacoity, murder, attempt to murder, and criminal intimidation. He was acquitted in most cases according to his election affidavit. He was also arrested for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and booked under the anti-terrorism law TADA for harbouring shooters of a Dawood Ibrahim gang, but was later acquitted in both cases.

Not surprisingly, it was almost a year later that charges were framed by a Delhi court against him, in 2024, for sexual assault and harassment of the female wrestler complainants. A separate case under the POSCO Act was later retracted, leading many to consider a cloud of intimidation. And despite the public outrage against both Modi and Union home minister Shah for their noted inaction against a member of their party, it was an unmoved Modi and Shah who gave his son Karan Bhushan Singh a party ticket to fight from the Kaiserganj seat in the 2024 general election. Worse, Singh’s close side Sanjay Kumar Singh was elected the new president of WFI in 2023. Phogat announced her retirement after the appointment of the new president.

And so the political backing continues with Modi-Shah passing on the baton to the son who now wields political influence in the region. In fact, despite the international wrestling association asking for an investigation, Brij Bhushan even appeared as a guest of honour at last year’s Pro Wrestling League launch despite court cases, blatantly exhibiting his political patronage from Delhi.

Bail and parole for godmen

The list of predatory self-styled swamis and gurus is legion, from Asaram in Gujarat convicted in 2018 for raping a minor in 2013, and a life sentence in 2023 for another rape case from 2001 to 2006. It was only in January 2023 that a court in Gandhinagar sentenced Asaram to life, but magically he has has got several temporary bails on health grounds. In fact, all through 2025, the Supreme Court too upheld the Gujarat high court’s bails several times, and in November 2025, Asaram was released yet again for six months on medical grounds.

To everyone’s shock he made a high profile visit to Ayodhya in March 2026 followed by a darshan at the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. Asaram claimed that he undertook the visit because it prevented one from going to hell even as social media exploded with horror of a convicted sexual predator walking around freely without inhibition.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of Dera Sacha Sauda, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 for raping two female followers and is also serving a life sentence for the murder of a journalist who exposed the goings-on in the ashram. However, he was granted a 40-day parole in January this year, making it his 15th temporary release from Sunaria jail, in Rohtak, Haryana. He has spent 406 days out of jail from 2017 to 2025. The fact that his repeated paroles have often coincided with local or state elections in Haryana and Punjab has raised questions among the opposition.

Virender Dev Dixit, the 82-year-old self-styled godman, was accused of rape by two minor girls and for illegally confining several minor girls and women at his “spiritual university” in Rohini, Delhi. He was finally arrested in 2018 but escaped the net and was absconding despite a CBI lookout notice. It was in 2023, the CBI finally told the special court Dixit had died that year; and that it will now seek abetment of trial.

Garlands for Gujarat rapists

Where was the outrage over the reception received by 11 convicts who were all serving a life sentence for the gang rape of a five-month pregnant Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter during the murderous Godhra riots in Gujarat, in 2002.  The savage attack on her did not end here – Gujarat police summarily dismissed the case against the criminals; the case was finally moved to Maharashtra in 2004 for a fair trial, and charges were finally framed in January 2008, and upheld by the Bombay high court only in 2017.

In March 2022, two BJP legislators, a former BJP councillor and a BJP member from the women’s wing sought remission of the convicts, and on Independence Day, the same year, the 11 convicts were released on grounds of good behaviour. The convicts were greeted with fanfare of garlands and sweets, and the Gujarat government told the Supreme Court that it had sought the approval of the Centre, and was granted so by the home ministry, under Amit Shah. But the global outrage that followed got the Supreme Court to quash the remission saying it was based on “misguided facts” and overturned the remission order, but it took two years for the 11 convicts to be back in prison, in January, 2024.

The reaction in Kathua

Political patronage of convicts can only be dreamed of but convicted criminals of sexual violence have been supported often, as was seen yet again during the vociferous protests by BJP legislators in the conviction of the rapists and murders of the eight-year-old belonging to a Muslim nomadic tribe. She was kidnapped, drugged and raped over several days, and brutally murdered in a temple in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir.

BJP supporters and leaders took out a rally holding the Indian flag in defence of the rapists – there were seven, one was a minor, the son of the temple priest – while the BJP women’s wing took out protests raising slogans against the prosecution lawyer. Two BJP state ministers, who had addressed a Hindu unity rally protesting the arrest of the rapists, were forced to resign following the public outrage. Finally, three years later, the special court convicted three men to life for rape and murder of the eight-year-old. Three police officers were found guilty of destroying evidence and were sentenced to five years in prison. The minor was let off by the court.

It has always been the indomitable spirit of victims that have brought sexual criminals to book, as was in the case of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar who was still an MLA when he was accused for the kidnap, rape, illegal confinement of a minor girl. Sengar continued to torment and kill despite being named by the victim.

First, the girl tried to lodge a complaint with the local police for months; then, exhausted by threats and coercion by Sengar’s goons and police, the girl attempted self-immolation in front of the BJP chief minister’s house saying the police were refusing to register her case. It stirred local authorities and woke up the national media. Meanwhile, her father was picked up by the police and thrown into prison as the perpetrator of the crime. The day after she tried to kill herself, the father was brought dead to the hospital after succumbing to injuries in police custody. The police finally registered a case against Sengar and said it was not filed earlier because of discrepancies in the girl’s statement.

But even as the girl doggedly pursued the case, she was hit by another catastrophe – while on her way to depose before a local court, the car in which she was travelling along with her two aunts and lawyer was suspiciously hit by a truck. The aunts died and she and her lawyer was grievously injured. The case had now dragged for over two years. The Supreme Court finally transferred the case to Delhi for a fair trial; the CBI filed a chargesheet against Sengar for rape, and another chargesheet against him, his brother and accomplices for framing the father and his custodial death. Three years after the crime, Sengar was convicted with a life sentence for rape; a year later he along with other accused were convicted for 10 years for the murder of the girl’s father.

As of today, Sengar is incarcerated even as the Supreme Court reviews the appeal of the suspension of his conviction.

© The Wire