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After coming back from a tiring day in college, I was rummaging through newspapers, hunting for article ideas, when a small news article buried in the corner caught my eye.

It spoke of an old woman living in abject poverty, half-paralyzed, barely able to remember her own name, and having two sons looking for employment. It caught the attention of the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, who rushed aid to her doorstep, and promised monthly provisions. All she asked in return was simple: she wanted her sons to get government jobs so they could live a good life.

Not many know her significance in the development of feminism in India. Her name was just Mathura, a tribal girl whose brutal rape inside a police station in 1972 ignited India’s second-wave feminist movement and forced the country to rewrite its rape laws.

Today, she sits forgotten in a remote village hundreds of kilometres away from Nagpur, Maharashtra, her body broken by age and illness, her mind wiped clean of the fervour she once caused. It is ironical that our country has forgotten the woman who taught India the meaning of consent. To be denied dignity in her last years.

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

The night of 26 March 1972 was supposed to be ordinary. Mathura, a young Adivasi girl aged between fourteen and sixteen, worked as a domestic help in the house of one Noshi in Desai Gunj, Maharashtra. She had caught the attention of Noshi’s nephew, Ashok. Mathura’s brother refused this. Fearing that Ashok and his family were trying to “kidnap” his sister, Gama marched to the local police station and filed a complaint.

The police investigated the complaint. They summoned Mathura, Gama, and Ashok, and the rest of their families to the station that evening. Statements were recorded, and by 10:30 pm, everyone was told they could leave, except Mathura. She was told to wait, and the two officers on duty, Ganpat and Tukaram, both drunk, dragged the girl to a toilet, took turns raping her, and threatened to kill her if she told the truth to her family.

Stumbling out of the police station with torn clothes, her family wanted to set the police station on fire that very night. The policemen, realising the mess they were in, filed a panchnama (legal document containing evidence), claiming Mathura was “habituated to sex,” had no injuries, and had willingly stayed back.

This launched a year-long legal struggle for poor Mathura.

Two years after the panchnama was filed, in 1974, the sessions court convicted both policemen, sentencing Ganpat to five years and Tukaram to one year of rigorous imprisonment. Unfortunately, two years later, the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) in 1976 overturned the verdict for Tukaram and reduced Ganpat’s service, declaring that it was consensual and that the girl did not raise an alarm about it.

Then 3 years later, in September 1979, the Supreme Court of India, acquitted the accused policemen. The judgment, delivered by Justice Koshal, noted that Mathura had no visible injury masks and noticing the drunken policemen, took advantage of the situation. It was “consensual” according to these so-called judges. What’s the worse that could happen?

A few days after the Supreme Court’s judgment, four law professors wrote an open letter to the Chief Justice on 16 September 1979. This was published in newspapers and spoke critically of Supreme Court’s understanding of consent and laws favoring men over women.

This letter sparked feminist groups who fought for the law’s disregard for the treatment of women. In Bombay, the Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW) was founded. Countless women and feminists joined the protest, visited Mathura’s village, reached out to her, and supported her on this grueling journey to justice.

This lead to significant legal reform and the amendment of rape laws. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1983 was introduced on 25 December 1983 under Section 114(A) of the Evidence Act. It states that if a woman says in court that she claims did not agree to have sexual intercourse, the court must believe that she did not give consent, until further evidence from the other side. A hope that shows women’s voices are heard rather than repressed. New laws or revisions were made to Section 376 with Section 376 (A), Section 376 (B), Section 376 (C), and Section 376 (D) amended, making custodial rape punishable by law.

Mathura’s case was a landmark moment in the development of the feminist movement in India. Rape was not considered a main issue at the time, but with this case, feminist organizations voiced out their protest against oppression of women by men, and support for oppressed women increased and improved.

But, while we’re rejoicing at this, what happened to Mathura? Forty years later, Mathura is alone. No compensation, no acknowledgment, not even a pension for the service she rendered to half the population. It was only that TOI article published by Soumitra Bose that caught the attention of an icon that was left forgotten by society many decades later.

Her condition was dismal: a frail woman in her late fifties or early sixties, paralyzed on one side, living in a mud hut, lack of electricity or safe drinking water, dependent on her sons, who need jobs.

The Chief Minister and his relief workers provided food and shelter for her. When asked if she remembered the case, she smiled and asked for her sons to be given government jobs.

It’s miserable how we treat our revolutionaries. We respect them in their most victorious and then choose to abandon them to die in silence. She did not choose to be a revolutionary; she just wanted her suffering to end. Yet her suffering provided millions of Indian women a chance at justice.

We must remember her name and make sure the freedom fighters or revolutionaries of the next generation are respected and remembered even in times of need.

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