What Is Rape In India? Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Breach of promise to marry is rape.
If you love her and leave her, you've raped.
If you marry her and divorced her
You've not committed a rape of her.

A rape charge hinges on the absence
Of free and unequivocal consent.
How is the consensual sex, not led
To marriage, to be tried as a rape?

Sex has been yoked to marriage by culture
And outside sex is a stigma to women.
Now sexual autonomy is available to them.
She can live in a live-in relationship.

Breach of to promise is no rape;
Failure of marriage is no rape.
Divorce of marriage is no rape.
Sex by force or threat alone is rape.

To try a man for rape for failure
Of marriage following consensual sex
With a knowledgeable woman is bad.
The rape charge is a last stab of justice.
08.02.2016