The decision of the Supreme Court of India to stay the release of the convict in the Unnao rape case, following sustained pressure from women’s rights activists, has been widely welcomed. And rightly so. Any intervention that prevents further injustice matters.
But this moment also demands an uncomfortable recognition: without these unsung heroes, the system would have carried on as planned.
Justice in India does not operate as a default. It operates selectively, activated by visibility, interrupted by protest, and restrained only when power outside the system intervenes.
The real question is not why activists raised their voice. That is their role.
The harder question is: why was their intervention necessary at all?
The proposed release was not an administrative slip. It emerged from a process that unfolded quietly, procedurally, and away from public scrutiny. The system did what it often does—move forward without asking whether justice would be served, only whether formalities had been met.
Had activists not stepped in, the release would likely have proceeded without resistance. That possibility should unsettle us far more than it currently does.
This was not a failure narrowly avoided.
It was a routine outcome disrupted by resistance.
The Indian justice system rarely denies survivors outright. Instead, it exhausts them.
It delays.
It fragments accountability.
It multiplies hearings, appeals, parole reviews, and technical assessments.
The objective is not always acquittal. Often, it is attrition.
Survivors are expected to endure years—sometimes decades—of procedural limbo. The system counts on fatigue to achieve what intimidation could not. Silence, after all, is easier to manage than protest.
This is how control is exercised—not always through overt denial, but through time.
Women’s rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and civil society groups are often described as watchdogs. The term is comforting—and misleading.
They are not watching a system that works.
They are substituting for one that does not self-correct.
They read court orders because no one else is accountable for doing so.
They raise alarms because silence is interpreted as consent.
They mobilise public attention because justice without visibility is easily buried.
Their labour is not voluntary heroism. It is unpaid structural repair work—performed repeatedly, without authority, protection, or institutional backing.
The fact that the system depends on this intervention again and again is not evidence of democratic health. It is evidence of abdication.
The Unnao case also forces us to confront a difficult truth: justice in India is deeply hierarchical.
It responds differently depending on:
political proximity
caste location
economic power
social capital
media attention
Where power exists, safeguards multiply.
Where it does not, procedure becomes punishment.
Money buys time.
Caste buys credibility.
Political influence buys silence—or speed, depending on what is required.
For survivors without these forms of capital, the law is not an equaliser. It is another arena where power must be contested.
Justice, in such a system, is not denied.
It is priced.
Public outrage is often celebrated as democracy in action. But when outrage becomes a prerequisite for justice, something has gone deeply wrong.
A system that works only when watched is not accountable.
A system that responds only when shamed is not impartial.
A system that moves only under pressure is not just.
Civil society should complement institutions—not compensate for their absence.
Yes, the Supreme Court intervened.
Yes, activists did what they have always done—step in when the system falters.
But the real question remains unanswered:
How many cases proceed exactly as intended because no one intervenes?
How many survivors are worn down quietly, without headlines or petitions?
How many injustices pass through the system unchallenged because power did not find them inconvenient?
Until we confront this honestly, justice in India will remain what it too often is today—not a right guaranteed by law, but a privilege negotiated through power.
And no democracy should be comfortable with that.
Dr AL Sharada is the director of Population First and spearheads the media advocacy campaign for gender sensitivity, Laadli, which had initiated conversations with many influencers in print and electronic media, script writers, and other content developers through awards, fellowships, workshops, and consultations.