Karuna Nundy wrote an open letter to Indian women last year, laying out the protections in the country's constitution if they are raped, assault, seeking an abortion, or demanding fair treatment from an employer. You will back yourself when nobody else will.
I was thinking about my niece, my friend, my cousin, my client, and I was sitting on the balcony of the Supreme Court of India.
Her readers were receptive to that message. A month after the letter was published in Vogue India, a woman in Delhi found Nundy's number online and called her. She told Nundy she had been raped by her husband every night since they got married. She felt she had two options, either to end her life or revolt, and she had never done that before.
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The woman didn't want to report her husband to the police or the courts, but she wanted to leave. Nundy agreed to help her. Nundy filed an affidavit at the local police station stating that the woman had left home and did not want to be contacted by her family if they contacted the police to look for her. The woman says that Karuna Nundy listened to her story and helped her get on a flight.
The experience made it clear that the institution of marriage should not include the license to rape.
The law wouldn't agree right now. In India, it is not a crime for a man to have nonconsensual sex with his wife. A national survey published by the government found that almost all of the female sexual violence survivors surveyed had been attacked by their former or current husband. The current laws criminalize any form of sexual assault and domestic violence but prevent the crime from being called rape if it is between a husband and wife.
It is one of the problems in the law that goes to the heart of the worst patriarchy, according to Nundy.
The brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman on a public bus in Delhi that drew international headlines in 2012 accelerated Nundy's work on these issues. The first time that people of all ages, genders, and sexualities came out against sexual violence and violence against women was in 2012 in her city. It felt as if this was not just a woman's problem or a girl's problem. This is a problem for everyone.
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Nundy has emerged as a leading voice for gender justice and freedom of speech, contributing to the reform of anti-rape laws and fighting cases against sexual harassment in the workplace. The fight to criminalize marital rape began years ago. The RIT Foundation filed the first petition at the Delhi High Court. The All India Democratic Women's Association, which Nundy is representing in court, along with three individuals, including a survivor of marital rape, were some of the petitions that followed in 2017. Most cases in India are not heard in court for years.
The judges are expected to make a decision on whether to close the legal loophole on rape within marriage in the coming months.
Nundy grew up in Delhi. She says she was raised in a way that made her feel good, but her mother didn't set any expectations for her.
At the age of 15, Nundy received rape threats from a fellow student. Her mother reported the incidents to the head teacher. It was a defining moment for Nundy, as she says that generations of women are raised by parents to believe they can do anything and then come face-to-face with sexual violence.
After graduating with a degree in economics from St. Stephen's College in Delhi, Nundy went to work as a television reporter and fell in love with Ingmar Bergman.
After graduating from law school at Cambridge University, she went on to complete a master's degree in law at Columbia University in New York. There she discovered critical race and gender theory and clerked for the District Judge who was one of the few women to preside over the U.N.'s tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Nundy was inspired by McDonald's success as a Black commercial and human-rights lawyer. She worked for the U.N. as a global advocacy officer and wanted to contribute to international human rights and constitutional law.
Nundy would be moving back in with her family after six years abroad. She drew up an agreement that listed what was negotiable, like washing the dishes, as well as what wasn't independence. Being home allowed Nundy to spend time with her mother and to take life at her own pace.
Nundy and her team of four lawyers work across 30 to 40 civil, commercial, and human-rights cases in India, while internationally, she serves on panels for media and freedom of speech at Columbia University and the International Bar Association.
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The Indian judiciary is still a man's world. The Supreme Court has only 11 female judges out of a total of 258, and the presence of female lawyers inside courts is still uncommon. Nundy deals with this by overpreparing, with a more robust legal strategy, and by filing long, detailed briefs.
At a time when India's online spaces are especially rife with the harassment of women, Nundy's public profile has made her a target of online trollies. In March 2021, the U.S.-based nonprofit Freedom House changed India's name to "partly free" after independent journalists, activists, and lawyers faced increasing threats.
Nundy doesn't think twice about blocking her troll. Nundy is guarded about her private life to protect her family, but also for self-preservation.
At a time when the Indian state and courts are increasingly deciding what women can and can't do, the marital-rape case will be heard. In December, the government raised the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, which some feminist activists argued could backfire. In March, a court in the state of Karnataka upheld a government order banning Muslim girls from wearing headscarves. Muslim girls were more at risk of dropping out of school than before the epidemic, and since 2020 their number has declined.
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The exception for rape within marriage has remained despite increased campaigning in recent years. The criminalizing of marital rape was one of the recommendations made by a government-appointed committee. There wasn't a consensus on the issue of marital rape when the government refused to address it.
The Indian Penal Code was enacted by British colonials in 1860 and has an exception for marital rape. Matthew Hale, the chief justice of England from 1671 to 1676, argued that consent to marriage itself implied consent to sex, which, once given, could not be revoked. The U.K. and other British colonies have overruled this in the past, but in India the issue is still being debated.
According to the latest research, nearly 9 in 10 Indians, including women, agree with the idea that a wife must always obey her husband. In January, Nundy's efforts were opposed by a small group of Indian men who launched a marriage strike on social media. The Save Indian Family Foundation encouraged men to boycott marriage, saying that rape laws could be used to make false convictions.
The Indian government seems to agree. The government argued against making rape a crime because it could affect the institution of marriage. The judicial bench asked the government if there were parallels between cases of rape among a married couple and non married individuals.
According to the World Health Organization, one-third of women face violence at the hands of a partner. In countries where rape is a crime, reporting and conviction rates are low. The goal of the petitions is not just to change the law. There are many girls and women who don't know that rape is a form of abuse. She says it's important to make both men and women aware of the fact that there has to be consent in having sex.
Nundy believes that the law can change what society considers normal. She said that devaluing the ability of women to give consent has consequences in both directions.
Nundy knows she is just at the halfway point of her career and life.
With reporting by Eloise Barry.
We can be reached at letters@time.com.
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