The Promise and the Paradox

India’s journey toward gender justice has been long and layered — marked by progressive laws, constitutional guarantees, and strong civil society activism. Yet, despite a robust legal architecture, women continue to face discrimination, underrepresentation, and violence across social and economic domains. Gender justice, therefore, cannot rest solely on statutes and court verdicts; it must extend into social attitudes, institutional structures, and everyday empowerment.

The post-pandemic years and recent global debates around inclusion, pay equity, and digital safety have further underscored the need to move “beyond legal reform” toward a more holistic and intersectional vision of justice.

Legal Framework: Laws Around Violence, Inheritance, and Workplace

India has built a comprehensive legal framework to protect and empower women:

• Violence and Protection: The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005), Criminal Law (Amendment) Act (2013), and POSH Act (2013) address domestic abuse, sexual violence, and workplace harassment.
• Inheritance and Property Rights: Amendments to the Hindu Succession Act (2005) granted daughters equal rights in ancestral property.
• Marriage and Family Laws: Provisions under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (2006), Dowry Prohibition Act (1961), and MTP (Amendment) Act (2021) aim to safeguard women’s bodily autonomy and dignity.

However, the gap between law on paper and law in practice remains wide. Implementation often falters due to patriarchal policing, slow judicial processes, and inadequate institutional sensitivity.

Gaps in Implementation and Social Attitudes

Legal protection alone cannot undo entrenched patriarchal norms. Despite criminalization, domestic violence cases remain underreported, and conviction rates for rape hover around 27% (NCRB 2023).

Social attitudes — rooted in gendered expectations, son preference, and “honour” notions — perpetuate silence and stigma. Women’s participation in the workforce and public spaces is shaped as much by familial control as by economic opportunity.

Moreover, implementation agencies — from police to panchayats — often lack gender sensitization. True justice, therefore, requires behavioral change, not just legal compliance.

Initiatives like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and One Stop Centres are steps forward, but need local ownership and monitoring to ensure real impact.

Economic Empowerment: Access to Work, Finance, and Assets

Economic independence is the cornerstone of gender justice. Yet, India’s female labour force participation remains low — around 28% (PLFS 2023) — due to unpaid care work, safety concerns, and limited access to formal employment.

Women’s access to credit, property, and digital finance remains unequal, though initiatives like Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana, and Stand-Up India have empowered millions.

Asset ownership among women — land, houses, or businesses — is still minimal, affecting their social bargaining power. Policies encouraging joint land titles, credit guarantees for women entrepreneurs, and universal childcare infrastructure are essential to ensure that legal equality translates into economic agency.

Intersectionality: Caste, Religion, and Rural–Urban Divide

Gender justice is not uniform; it is deeply shaped by caste, class, religion, and geography.

Dalit and Adivasi women face multiple layers of exclusion, often experiencing violence that intersects with caste hierarchies. Muslim women encounter both patriarchal control and communal prejudice. Rural women struggle with access to sanitation, health care, and mobility, while urban women confront glass ceilings and online abuse.

An intersectional approach — one that recognizes how gender interacts with social and economic inequalities — is crucial to designing policies that leave no woman behind.

Role of Education, Health, Media, and Grassroots Movements

Education and health are foundational to women’s empowerment. While India has achieved near gender parity in primary education, dropout rates rise sharply at secondary and tertiary levels due to early marriage and household duties.

Health outcomes also reflect inequality — with anaemia affecting over 57% of women (NFHS-5) and limited access to reproductive services in rural areas.

Media and digital platforms, meanwhile, have become both tools of empowerment and spaces of vulnerability. Social media movements like #MeTooIndia and grassroots campaigns such as Gulabi Gang have challenged entrenched power structures and expanded public discourse around gender rights.

Grassroots activism, supported by self-help groups, NGOs, and local governance, remains the most potent catalyst for sustainable change.

Policy Ideas: Gender Budgeting, Affirmative Action, and Monitoring

India introduced gender budgeting in 2005–06, making it mandatory for ministries to evaluate spending through a gender lens. Yet, allocations often remain symbolic rather than transformative. Strengthening gender budgeting through data transparency, performance metrics, and local audits is critical.

Affirmative action — such as 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023) — marks a landmark step toward political empowerment. The next challenge lies in ensuring effective representation and capacity building for women leaders.

A robust monitoring framework — integrating gender-sensitive data across education, employment, and health — will be essential for evidence-based policymaking and accountability.

Conclusion: Toward Transformative Gender Justice

Gender justice in India must evolve from being a legal mandate to a societal mission. True equality requires redistribution of power, not just legal parity.

Moving forward, India’s focus must be on implementation, attitudinal change, and intersectional inclusion — ensuring that women not only have rights on paper but the real freedom to choose, lead, and thrive.

As India aspires to be a developed nation by 2047, gender justice must remain central to its democratic, economic, and moral progress — a measure not just of growth, but of genuine equality.