NEW DELHI: The sexual assault bill introduced in Parliament, just 12 days before the Delhi gang rape, is out of sync with the spirit of zero-tolerance displayed by the protests at Raisina Hill and elsewhere. For, even as it tweaked the existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code(IPC), the bill retains the patriarchal mindset of the law enacted in 1860. While over 100 countries have criminalized marital rape, the bill shows India in a poor light as it perpetuates the notion that a man is entitled to rape his wife.Rather than outlawing non-consensual sex in all circumstances, the bill is content to make incremental reforms to the clauses allowingmarital rape (Sections 375 and 376 IPC). In the anachronistic outlook of IPC, marital rape is committed only when the wife is below 15. The bill improves on this by increasing the cut-off age for marital rape by one year.

The saving grace is that, although it forbids marital rape only in the aggravated circumstance in which the wife is below 16, the bill is unsparing when it comes to laying down the quantum of punishment. It proposes imprisonment from seven years to a life sentence for husbands raping wives below 16. This is an improvement on the existing clause under which a man raping his wife aged between 12 and 15 is liable to a term of no more than two years.

Another significant reform relates to the indefinite period between a judicial separation and a divorce. From the existing penalty of two years, the bill has raised the prison term to seven years for somebody who has raped his wife after they had been judicially separated.

The bill has also increased penalties for molestation (from two years to five years) and sexual harassment or eve-teasing (from one year to three years). However, as with marital rape, the bill has failed to rid these provisions of attitudes that don’t belong in the 21st century India.

In the provisions relating to molestation and sexual harassment, the bill has refrained from amending the expressly-stated notion that those offences are committed against the “modesty” of a woman. Section 354 IPC is about “assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty” while Section 509 IPC is about “word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman”.

The retention of this Victorian language — and the sexist notion of modesty — will continue to legitimize social sensibilities that are offended by a young woman staying out late in male company, as allegedly was the case the night on which the gang rape took place.