How Caste, Religion, and Culture Influence Legal Protections for Women

Women in India occupy a complex legal landscape where constitutional guarantees of equality coexist with a web of religious personal laws, uncodified customary practices, and extra-legal social bodies that frequently undermine those very guarantees. Caste, religion, and culture are not merely social identities – they actively shape what legal protections a woman can access, and more critically, what justice she can realistically expect. Understanding how this triad operates within the legal terrain is essential to understanding gender-based violence in South Asia.

The limitations of personal law 🔗

India does not operate on a single, unified family law. Instead, a personal law system governs matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship – and the law that applies to a woman depends on her religion. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists fall under Hindu family law; Muslims are governed by uncodified Sharia-based law; Christians and Parsis have their own separate statutes. This plurality is a legacy of colonial administration, when the British codified separate legal tracks for different religious communities.

The problem is structural: all of these personal laws carry a patriarchal bias, and the operation of religious personal laws largely outside the reach of constitutional scrutiny has left women vulnerable. On paper, Articles 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution guarantee equality before the law and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex or religion. In practice, courts have been reluctant to strike down personal law provisions as unconstitutional, sometimes treating sex equality as a concern that must yield to cultural and religious diversity.

How specific laws disadvantage women 🔗

The discriminatory effects vary by community but follow a consistent pattern. Muslim personal law permits polygamy exclusively for men and limits a woman’s inheritance to half that of a male heir. Under the old Hindu law framework, women in joint family structures faced restricted inheritance rights; while reforms like the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 improved daughters’ rights over ancestral property, uneven implementation means the gap between law on paper and lived reality persists.

The practice of nikah halala – under which a Muslim woman who wishes to remarry her former husband must first consummate a marriage with another man – remains an area feminist scholars have consistently flagged as deeply violative of women’s dignity. Triple talaq, the practice of instant divorce by a husband pronouncing the word three times, was declared unconstitutional in the landmark Shayara Bano v. Union of India case, with the Supreme Court holding the practice arbitrary and violative of Article 14. Notably, however, the Court framed its reasoning in terms of arbitrariness within religious law rather than explicitly on gender equality grounds – a pattern scholars have repeatedly pointed out as a limitation in how Indian courts approach women’s rights under personal law.

The debate over a Uniform Civil Code 🔗

The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) – envisaged under Article 44 of the Constitution as a directive principle – has long been proposed as the solution to this fragmentation. Advocates argue that a UCC would replace diverse personal laws with a single, unified legal framework, creating uniform legal standards for marriage, divorce, and inheritance that protect all women equally regardless of religious affiliation. Critics, including many minority communities, argue it risks becoming a vehicle for majoritarian imposition rather than genuine gender justice. The debate remains unresolved, and in the interim, women continue to navigate a legal system where their rights often depend on which religious community they were born into.

The role of extra-legal bodies 🔗

Beyond formal personal laws, a parallel system of social authority operates across large swaths of rural and semi-urban India. Khap panchayats – caste-based councils found predominantly in Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Punjab – are among the most visible examples. These councils are officially regarded by the Indian state as extra-constitutional, yet they continue to operate as parallel sociopolitical systems enforcing arbitrary “social justice” in rural areas.

Khap panchayats are not elected bodies of government and have no formal legal standing, yet they exert substantial social influence within the communities they serve. Their jurisdiction is self-declared, rooted in the claim that they are guardians of culture and caste tradition. In practice, their authority falls most heavily on women.

What khap panchayats prohibit and enforce 🔗

The primary targets of khap diktats are marriage choices. In areas governed by khap panchayats, love marriages are considered taboo, and couples are not permitted to marry within the same gotra (lineage) or any gotra from the same village. Inter-caste and inter-religious marriages are treated as violations of community honour. The enforcement mechanism ranges from social boycotts and heavy fines to, at the extreme, sanctioning or facilitating the killing of the couple or the woman involved.

Women’s organizations have documented the complicit and even partisan role of local state agencies in honour killings, with police and local elected bodies often colluding with khap decisions rather than opposing them. This collusion illustrates what scholars describe as a “weak patriarchal state” – one in which the formal machinery of law enforcement defers to patriarchal community authority rather than constitutional rights.

The Manoj-Babli case from Haryana’s Kaithal district in 2007 illustrates the consequences starkly. The couple married against a khap panchayat order, obtained court-ordered police protection, were nonetheless kidnapped, killed, and their bodies found floating in a canal. A landmark 2010 judgment sentenced five accused to death – the first time an Indian court imposed capital punishment for honour killing. But legal scholars note that this verdict was an exception rather than a norm; in the majority of cases, perpetrators face minimal consequences.

Judicial response to khap authority 🔗

The Supreme Court of India has been unambiguous in its condemnation. In Lata Singh v. State of UP (2006), the Court referred to khap panchayats as “kangaroo courts, which are wholly illegal.” In the landmark Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018), the Court ruled that any attempt by khap panchayats or any assembly to prevent two consenting adults from marrying is absolutely illegal, and directed state governments to lay down preventive, remedial, and punitive measures. The Court was explicit: “no third party” – not parents, society, or khaps – has the right to harass or cause harm to a consenting adult couple.

Despite these rulings, the absence of legislative codification, combined with institutional and societal complicity, has rendered these protections largely symbolic. Many couples continue to live in fear, with some going into hiding and others being killed before any protective measures can be activated.

Efforts to address violence legally: the Prevention of Atrocities Act 🔗

For Dalit and Adivasi women – who sit at the intersection of caste and gender discrimination – the state’s primary legislative response is the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, commonly known as the SC/ST Act or the PoA Act. The Act was enacted to prevent discrimination and violence against marginalized communities, rooted in Articles 15 and 17 of the Constitution, which prohibit caste-based discrimination and abolish untouchability.

The Act is wide in its coverage. It criminalizes physical assaults, sexual offences, economic and social boycotts, public humiliation, forced labour, and acts designed to strip Dalit or Adivasi individuals of their dignity. It specifically recognizes the intersectional vulnerability of SC/ST women, including provisions criminalizing sexual violence and exploitation by those in positions of dominance. The 2015 amendment expanded the Act further, adding offences such as dedicating Dalit women as devadasi, tonsuring of the head as a form of humiliation, and the perpetration of witchcraft atrocities – a practice that disproportionately targets tribal women in certain regions of India.

The enforcement gap 🔗

Despite this robust legislative framework, implementation has been deeply inadequate. In 2022 alone, there were 51,656 registered cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and 9,735 against Scheduled Tribes – and these numbers only capture reported incidents. Under-reporting is endemic. Social collusion, fear of retaliation, and intimidation by dominant caste perpetrators prevent many victims from coming forward.

When cases are registered, the conviction rate is strikingly low. The conviction rate under the SC/ST Act stands at merely around 25%, with very high case pendency. The Supreme Court itself noted that “many acquittals are a result of improper investigation and prosecution of crime, leading to insufficient evidence” – and that “high acquittal rates motivate and boost the confidence of dominant and powerful communities for continued perpetration.”

Courts have also consistently narrowed the scope of the Act through interpretation. For instance, while prosecuting cases, some courts have required that caste bias be the sole and provable motive – a threshold that is nearly impossible to meet, particularly in cases of sexual violence against Dalit women. This rigid approach fails to account for intersectional discrimination, where violence is simultaneously driven by caste identity and gender. Research has consistently shown that where police were not active perpetrators of violence against Dalit women, they frequently colluded with perpetrators by failing to enforce the law.

Why legislative protections alone are insufficient 🔗

As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar observed, “when law enforcement agencies – the police and judiciary – do not seem to be free from caste prejudice, expecting the law to ensure justice to victims of caste crime is rather an impractical solution to a perennial problem.” This remains the central challenge: laws are only as effective as the institutions that enforce them, and those institutions themselves operate within a caste-structured society.

The SC/ST Act, the Supreme Court’s rulings against khap panchayats, and judicial interventions in personal law cases all point toward the same conclusion – legislative progress has been made, but cultural and institutional resistance has severely limited its reach. The Act intersects with gender issues by recognizing the unique vulnerabilities faced by women within these communities, but addressing intersecting dimensions of oppression based on caste and gender requires far more than codification.

What is needed is a transformative shift – in how law enforcement understands caste-based discrimination, in how courts interpret intersectional harm, and in how the state treats customary bodies that directly undermine constitutional rights. Feminist scholars have long stressed that it is women’s rights activists and grassroots legal advocacy – not the state or religious communities acting on their own – who have most consistently pushed for meaningful reform. That dynamic continues to hold.

What do you think? When personal laws rooted in religious tradition contradict constitutional guarantees of gender equality, which should take precedence – and who gets to decide? And given that low conviction rates and police complicity continue to shield perpetrators of caste-based violence, what would meaningful institutional accountability actually look like?

References

1. https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-5423-gender-inequality-in-various-religious-personal-laws-in-india.html
2. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215&context=ilj
3. https://ijlsss.com/navigating-religious-diversity-under-various-personal-laws-the-uniform-civil-code-and-women-rights-in-india/
4. https://iasmania.com/personal-laws-gender-justice/
5. https://www.ijlra.com/details/gender-inequality-and-religious-personal-laws-in-india-by-mythri-raj
6. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26330024231219703
7. https://www.legalbites.in/topics/articles/honour-killing-and-role-of-khap-panchayats-in-modern-india-553493
8. https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/constitutional-law/khap-panchayat-law-essays.php
9. https://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2505C77.pdf
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Caste_and_Scheduled_Tribe_(Prevention_of_Atrocities)_Act,_1989
11. https://thelaw.institute/law-and-vulnerable-groups/sc-st-act-1989-prevention-atrocities-offences/
12. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-news-analysis/report-on-atrocities-against-scs-and-sts
13. https://www.legalservicesindia.com/honour-killing-in-india-causes-laws-and-cases/
14. https://chahalacademy.com/sc-st-prevention-of-atrocities-act
15. https://clpr.org.in/blog/the-sc-st-prevention-of-atrocities-act-1989-dilution-by-the-courts/
16. https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/India/SCST_PoA_Act_20_years_report_card_-_NCDHR.pdf
17. https://www.livelaw.in/articles/scst-prevention-of-atrocities-act-ensuring-justice-equality-marginalized-communities-262017
18. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24730580.2018.1453750