Astha Kunj in South Delhi is a 22-acre park, originally created to link three places of worship: the Kalkaji temple, the Iskcon temple and the Bahai Lotus temple. It is sadly ironical that a young girl on her way home after celebrating her seventeenth birthday with a friend, was brutally attacked and gang-raped by three men in the area.Other incidents of rape preceded or followed it in the same month. From Bihar to Chennai there is ample proof that women’s definition as sexual objects, who can easily be subjected to forced sex, is now a pan-India phenomenon. What has contributed greatly to this crime is a burgeoning porn industry easily available to men of all ages through social media platforms.So the rape of women, especially minors, is now an indigenous phenomenon in India, not exceptional in cities or villages. Even worse, social media is also being used to put out actual visuals of the act by some sickos. This has happened in Chennai and then in Bihar’s Jamui. The clips went viral within hours.What was the official reaction from the double- or triple-engine governments to these crimes? A Janata Dal (United) minister, whose party is a major coalition partner of the ruling party in Bihar, termed it a mere chhut-put ghatna (a sporadic incident).In the capital city, a 16-year-old was reported to have been gang-raped and murdered in Swaroop Nagar on September 10, followed by two incidents of rape on September 21, one involving a 6-year-old and the other 17-year-old girl. As I write this, a girl from Mukherjee Nagar has lodged a police complaint about a bid to kidnap her and her friend by four car-borne young men.In all cases, the police and politicians assured the victims and the public that the culprits, as soon as they are caught, will be given the harshest punishments! Make what you will of it. The fact that our state has long deemed rape a non-bailable offence means that the alleged culprits should be arrested as soon as they are apprehended and presented in a magisterial court for further action.Here, again, there have been a spate of observations by honourable judges of several high courts that cast doubts over the victim’s testimony and her personal character.Also read: 17-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped on Birthday by Three in Southeast Delhi, Accused Posed as CopsThe Allahabad high court, for example, while adjudicating in 2026 on a 2025 case, ruled that the man charged with grabbing the victim’s breasts and undoing the drawstring of her pyjamas should be categorised as “outraging her modesty” and not an actual attempt to rape. In September 2026, the Allahabad high court again noted that the victim, a post-graduate student, had “herself incited trouble” by visiting the accused in his house, and granted bail to the accused.The Bombay high court granted bail to an accused saying that it believed the victim, though a minor, had “sufficient knowledge” and had joined the man voluntarily. To its credit, the honourable Supreme Court has termed such orders “highly insensitive”. But such verdicts, and the stay subsequently imposed on them, clearly point out that there is a world of difference between how the high courts and the Supreme Court view rape.But the issue of marital rape being declared a crime is still pending before the top court. It recognises the individual autonomy of a married woman but points out that Section 375 of the IPC (Section 63 of BNS) exempts marital intercourse with coercion or by force as rape. It is deemed consensual unless the wife is a minor.Going back to the rape of minors and unmarried women, how many of the victims or their families can afford the long legal processes for getting their case heard in the apex court? The porn industry and Bollywood films like ‘Animal’, along with the belittling of certain ideologies by the ruling parties, have deepened the already existing misogyny in the society against defiant liberal women fighting back against their tormentors.If one goes through the vile reactions of trolls against women in the public space whom they have been encouraged to consider ‘Dimaagi Naxals’ (liberated left-leaning feminists), one realises that, to most trolls, women’s sexuality is a ‘thing’ to be easily stolen, sold, bought, shared with friends for a good laugh.According to reports, the police say that the three men accused in the Astha Kunj rape had been noticed earlier by locals as regular tormentors of girls passing through the park and may have pre-planned the attack. Two of them kept vigil while one of them raped the girl and then it was the next one’s turn. Thereafter, according to police reports, two brothers from the trio went to an eatery to eat a meal and wipe their phones. The third man went home. All washed their clothes to erase evidence.Also read: Marriages Aren’t Ordained in Heaven, and Marital Rape Won’t Be Solved There EitherIn a similar case in Chennai, the perpetrator was identified from a ‘reel’, not by the victim. So the rich perpetrator, a maker of granite slabs, was set free. Since the police and the judiciary both remain male-dominated, rape in India gets largely defined from a male viewpoint where there is still a lot of confusion over consensual sex and women having a free will on par with that of men.This is not just an existential question; it creates a legal problem that later becomes the victim’s problem. That is, if she is willing to come forward and lodge an FIR to say that, even if she knew her rapists, she went with them unsuspectingly.If young men come from male-centric families, they are already raised with a sense of their own higher worth. And when they are introduced to pornography by their buddies, many go rogue. In a number of cases, unbelievably young schoolboys have violated minor fellow students alone or with friends.The time has come when taking out candlelight processions on streets demanding justice will not push a largely male executive to ensure that our district- or state-level judiciary treat all alleged rapists to swift and just trials.We must, as women and as members of a modern society whose educational institutions that hold regular courses on women’s issues, realise that whether the courts dub a rape case as one based on (coerced) consent or defend a perpetrator because his political mentors say the act was a mistake (Ladke hain, ladkon se galtiyan ho jati hain), women need to challenge a toxic maleness being weaponised by pornography and wrapped in a higher sense of male worth.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.