The Woman Who Changed India's Rape Laws
More than five decades after her rape inside a Maharashtra police station ignited nationwide protests and forced the rewriting of India's sexual assault legislation, the woman known to the world only as 'Mathura' now lives completely alone in a fragile hut in an obscure village in eastern Maharashtra. At 72 years old, she suffers from paralysis on her left side, her voice often fading into fragments, with little food in her house and no fire in her stove.
The Case That Shook India's Legal System
On March 26, 1972, a 14-year-old Mathura walked into the Desaiganj police station in Gadchiroli district with her brother and employer from Wadsa, where she worked as domestic help. Illiterate and not yet past puberty, she never anticipated leaving the police station as a victim of custodial rape. The trial court convicted the two policemen - constable Ganpat and head constable Tukaram - but the Bombay High Court acquitted one officer.
When the case reached the Supreme Court in 1979, the bench overturned the conviction of both policemen, reasoning that the girl had not raised an alarm, shown signs of struggle, or sustained injuries - and therefore must have given consent. This verdict sparked outrage that extended far beyond courtrooms, with women pouring into the streets of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Nagpur to protest.
Legal Legacy and Personal Tragedy
The public anger following Mathura's case forced India to confront the legal vacuum around custodial sexual violence. In 1983, Parliament amended the Indian Penal Code through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which introduced Sections 376(A-D). These new provisions defined custodial rape, reversed the burden of proof in such cases, mandated in-camera trials, protected survivors' identities, and imposed stricter punishment.
Before 1983, there was no legal category called "custodial rape." Mathura's case provided the legal articulation for crimes of this nature. There was no burden on the accused to prove innocence, and no protections existed for a survivor's identity. Today, these safeguards exist - but the woman who triggered their creation has been left behind.
Justice B R Gavai, shortly before stepping down as Chief Justice of India, described the 1979 Supreme Court verdict as one of the "darkest moments in the institution's history" and "a moment of institutional embarrassment and lasting shame."
Present Day Reality: Forgotten and Excluded
Mathura now lives approximately 100 kilometers away from the epicenter of her ordeal, in an inconspicuous hamlet surrounded by scrub forest. Her home consists of a one-room structure made from salvaged tin sheets, old tarpaulin, and uneven bamboo poles. The roof admits wind, the door barely closes, and she lies on a wobbly charpai throughout the day.
Her left side became paralyzed following a stroke several years ago, which she describes as the moment she lost her final scraps of agency. She can no longer cook and doesn't remember when she last purchased vegetables. A worn-out passbook, last updated in February 2022, shows a balance of Rs 2,050 in her bank account. Her Aadhaar card is missing, and she doesn't know how to obtain a new one.
Her fingerprints, worn and wrinkled with age, fail to register on biometric machines. There have been no government remittances since January. She survives on inconsistent rations from the local depot, when they arrive. India operates several social welfare schemes for the elderly and destitute - including the National Social Assistance Programme, Atal Pension Yojana, Ayushman Bharat, and Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana. However, all require digital verification through Aadhaar, bank linkage, mobile OTPs, and physical visits to distant offices - none of which Mathura can access.
Local villager Yeshwant Ninawe explained: "She doesn't have a smartphone. She can't walk. She can't read or write. She has no one to take her anywhere. Her thumbprint doesn't work anymore. That alone disqualifies her from digital India."
Ninawe added, "She never begs, but she doesn't know how she survives. Activists and social workers come, take pictures, promise to return. No one does. She didn't get compensation. Not a single rupee. Nothing ever stayed in her life except shame. Everything was temporary - except humiliation."
Mathura's story refuses to disappear from India's collective memory. In the 1970s, firebrand women's rights activist Seema Sakhare marched through Nagpur holding signs that read: "Mathura is every woman." She called Mathura "a symbol of every oppressed voice that fights without speaking."
When asked about the night that changed Indian legal history, Mathura looked away for several seconds and said in Marathi: "Ata kay karnar? Baas, sagla sampla aahe. (What can be done now? Everything is over)." Then she added, almost mechanically, "Ghara madhe anna cha kan naahi, khane ko kuch naahi." (No grains or vegetables at home. Nothing to eat.)
Chandrapur district collector Vinay Gowda, when informed about her situation, stated: "We conduct regular follow-ups for schemes and budgetary sanctions. We have systems like Aaple Sarkar Seva Kendra and volunteers at gram panchayat level. I will ensure that her case is looked into personally." However, similar promises have been made in the past without being fulfilled.
Mathura's sons provide little support - one works as a laborer in Nagpur while the other remains unemployed. They visit sporadically, but she neither expects nor demands anything from them. She no longer views the law or the state as entities that will intervene. For Mathura, survival has become a day-to-day struggle, memory has transformed into a burden, and mobility is no longer possible.
