Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said he was shocked that India remains one of the few democracies that still fails to treat marital rape with the seriousness it demands, even as the country enforces some of the world’s toughest anti-rape laws.
Speaking at an event in Kolkata, the senior Congress leader warned that the exemption granted to husbands under current law continues to deny justice to women and shields violence under the guise of marriage.
According to PTI, Tharoor told the audience, “I am shocked to find that India is one of the few democracies in the world where the case of a husband raping his wife without her consent is not treated with the seriousness as it should have been.”
Tharoor said India’s anti-rape framework remains undermined by a legal exception that protects husbands even when they violate their wives. “Why should they be exempted?” he asked, arguing that conjugal ties cannot justify violence.
He said the current provision rests on “an outdated assumption that marriage is a sacred sacrament and that whatever happens within it cannot be classified otherwise.”
Calling the exemption a “travesty,” he warned it also gives impunity in cases where couples are separated but not legally divorced. “A lot of marital rape occurs among couples who are separated yet the husband returns whenever he wishes and forces himself on his wife and nothing can be done because the law still considers them husband and wife,” Tharoor said.
IT IS VIOLENCE, NOT CONJUGAL LOVE
Tharoor emphasised that marital rape cannot be normalised as part of marriage. “It is not part of conjugal love, it is violence,” he said to loud applause.
He added that India urgently needs a “proper law against domestic rape,” noting that even women ministers “did not look into this aspect” despite its importance.
Responding to a question, Tharoor said hostility toward migrants has grown sharply across the West and is now surfacing in India as well. “There is hostility to migrants, a xenophobia People feel their dreams are being thwarted by people not like them,” he said.
Tharoor urged Indian students going abroad to gain knowledge and then come back, telling them your city needs you, your country needs you.
He also thanked his family for helping him navigate political life and reiterated that he has never shied away from his values. “There is no point being a cookie-cutter politician I never said anything I did not believe in,” he said.
On whether he exercises diplomatic restraint at home, Tharoor joked, “I won’t say I am diplomatic at home,” explaining that private life allows freedom from constant political scrutiny.
– Ends
With inputs from PTI
Published By:
Aashish Vashistha
Published On:
Dec 12, 2025
