Narrating Legal Reform: The Open Letter and the Anti-rape Movement in Perspective

This article examines a foundational moment in the history of the women’s movement in India and its engagement with the law: the open letter to the Supreme Court written in 1979 by four scholars of the law—Upendra Baxi, Lotika Sarkar, Raghunath Kelkar and Vasudha Dhagamwar. As part of an effort to commemorate Lotika Sarkar’s work and legacy, this article looks at the letter as an event embedded in a certain history of feminist mobilisation and legal reform, of which Lotika Sarkar remains an integral part. It attempts to understand and narrativise the contiguous political climate within which the letter was written, the legal critiques that it espoused, the kind of politics and affiliations it led to, the governmental responses it evoked and the new categories and concepts it introduced to the jurisprudence of sexual offences in India.