The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday slammed Minister of State for Home Haribhai Chaudhary for his controversial remarks on marital sex, terming them bizarre.
"I think the minister needs to be educated about the Verma Commission recommendations, which has suggested that marital rape be included in the Indian anti-rape laws. The logic is that rape occurs when the sexual act does not have the consent of the woman. The crucial issue here is consent, and a marriage certificate does not change that," CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat told ANI.
"A marriage certificate cannot become a license for forced or coerced sex. Therefore there is a requirement within the law to include the clause of marital rape. The minister is quite wrong and his arguments are quite bizarre. Is he trying to say that the Indian culture sanctions non-consensual sex?" she added.
The government had yesterday said that the concept of marital rape cannot be applied in India as marriage is treated as a sacrament or sacred as per mindset of the Indian society.
"It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors, including level of education, illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament," Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said while replying to a written question of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Kanimozhi in Rajya Sabha.
The DMK leader had through a question submitted in the Rajya Sabha asked whether the government would bring in an amending bill to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to remove the exception of marital rape from the definition of rape in the light of the U.N. agencies' findings and recommendations.