‘It Is Violence, Not Conjugal Love’: Tharoor’s Powerful Message on Marital Rape
Shashi Tharoor calls India’s marital rape exception outdated, unjust, and harmful to women’s safety and rights.
Senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday sharply criticised India’s continued legal exemption of marital rape, calling it “a travesty of justice” and placing the country among the very few democracies that still refuse to recognise non-consensual sex within marriage as rape. Speaking at a Prabha Khaitan Foundation event in Kolkata, Tharoor said he was “shocked” that despite having some of the world’s toughest anti-rape laws post the 2012 Nirbhaya case, Exception 2 to Section 375 of the IPC still grants husbands complete sexual impunity.
“The assumption that marriage is a sacred sacrament where anything goes on inside that cannot be questioned is completely outdated,” Tharoor told a packed GD Birla Sabhagar audience. “If a husband forces himself on his wife without her consent—whether they are living together or judicially separated—that is violence, not conjugal love. Why should the law give him exemption just because there is a marriage certificate?”
He highlighted that the exception becomes particularly cruel in cases of separated couples awaiting divorce. “You often see situations where talaq has been pronounced or the wife has left the matrimonial home, yet the estranged husband barges in and assaults her sexually. The police say their hands are tied because the law still considers them married. This is barbaric,” he said to loud applause.
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Tharoor lamented that even women ministers in successive governments have not pushed hard enough for criminalisation. “We need to stand up for women’s bodily autonomy unequivocally. Marital rape is rape—full stop.”
The Congress leader’s remarks come days after the Supreme Court concluded hearings on a batch of petitions challenging the marital rape exception and reserved its verdict. Activists have long argued that the 158-year-old colonial provision violates Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution by denying married women equal protection and dignity.
With global attention on the impending judgement, Tharoor’s outspoken criticism has reignited public debate, drawing support from women’s rights groups who accuse the government of stalling reforms to appease conservative vote banks.
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