4. Bhanwari Devi Rape Case

A low caste kumhar woman, Bhanwari devi, was working as a saathin ("friend"), a grassroots worker employed as part of the Women's Development Project (WDP) run by the Government of Rajasthan. She was just doing her job, when she took up the issue of child marriage. She used to go door to door to convince people not to marry off their young daughters.

However, her efforts to end the system of child marriage were not at all appreciated by the Gurjars, the higher caste of the village. When Bhanwari Devi tried to stop a child marriage of the Gurjar family who were marrying their one year old daughter, she was made to suffer dire consequences.

Though the marriage did take place, but Bhanwari Devi faced a social and economical boycott from the entire village.

But the worst was yet to come.

In September 1992, while she was working with her husband in their field, her husband was attacked by fiver Gurjar men, and she was gang-raped in front of her husband by them.

At each step, from police stations, to hospitals to even courts, Bhanwari Devi was called a liar and her dignity shred to pieces, after she reported the incident.

A nationwide campaign for justice for Bhanwari Devi followed. And yet after 15 years, in 2007, Rajasthan High Court held only one hearing on the case and two of the accused were dead.

A PIL by various women's groups at the Supreme Court under the collective platform of Vishaka resulted in what are popularly known as the Vishaka Guidelines. The judgment of August 1997 provided the basic definitions of sexual harassment at the workplace and provided guidelines to deal with it. It is seen as a significant victory for Bhanwari Devi's fight for justice.