AIPWA’s Nationwide Campaign (9–12 June 2025)
AIPWA’s Nationwide Campaign (9–12 June 2025): Demand for the Removal of the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women for Failing to Fulfil Her Responsibilities
AIPWA (All India Progressive Women’s Association) has expressed serious concern and condemns in the strongest terms the persistent bias and apathetic conduct of the National Commission for Women (NCW) and State Commissions, and their abject failure to secure justice for women.
Demanding the immediate removal of the NCW Chairperson, AIPWA National General Secretary Meena Tiwari said that the NCW’s role is utterly shameful amid the atmosphere of targeted hate and violence against women following the terrorist massacre of 26 innocent tourists in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor, and the events that followed. The Commission has betrayed its mandate.
Established in 1990, the NCW was envisioned as an autonomous, impartial statutory body—meant not only to stand against sexual harassment and gender-based violence and champion women’s rights, but also to compel the government to enact policies ensuring women’s socio-economic and political justice and equality. While the initial years showed some promise, its effectiveness has since drastically eroded. It has become a passive and politically compromised institution. Since the BJP assumed power, the NCW has been either blatantly partisan or entirely inactive. In recent years, whenever women sought justice from the Commission, it deliberately shielded rapists and sexual predators affiliated with the ruling BJP.
In case after case, women approaching the NCW for justice found no support. Take the example of JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna, NDA candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Karnataka—accused of raping and sexually abusing hundreds of women, with over 3,000 videos as evidence. Despite over 700 women’s rights activists and civil society members writing to the NCW demanding his arrest, the Commission took no action. Similarly, in the case of BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, when Olympian Sakshi Malik tagged the NCW on social media over the removal of security from protesting women wrestlers, the Commission again remained silent.
The NCW has shown similar indifference in the face of brutal atrocities against Adivasi women—from Manipur to Chhattisgarh—including gang rapes, sexual violence, and murders.
Its unforgivable silence until now was already disgraceful—but its conduct following the Pahalgam killings has crossed all limits. At a time of national crisis, the NCW stood against women, remaining silent when journalists questioning Pahalgam’s security failures faced reprisals, and when women advocating peace and social harmony were targeted. Wives and sisters of the Pahalgam victims, who appealed for calm and warned against fuelling anti-Kashmiri or anti-Muslim hatred, were subjected to trolling and abuse—yet the Commission offered no support.
In another shocking incident, Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad was jailed after the Haryana Women’s Commission filed an FIR against him for writing a Facebook post defending Colonel Sofia and Vyomika Singh, and for highlighting the silence around discrimination against Muslim women. Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah labelled Colonel Sofia “a sister of Pakistanis,” and a BJP leader called the bereaved wives of Pahalgam “cowards.” The NCW took no action in any of these cases.
These are not isolated incidents but part of a disturbing pattern—evidence of the NCW’s deliberate abdication of its constitutional mandate.
We therefore conclude that the National Commission for Women and its Chairperson have utterly failed in their duty during a time of national crisis. They have lost all credibility among the women of India. The Chairperson must resign—or be removed without delay.
AIPWA Demands:
- NCW Chairperson Vijay Kishor Rahatkar must resign immediately. If she refuses, she must be dismissed from her post.
- The NCW must urgently convene a consultation with national women’s organisations to restore its autonomous and democratic functioning.
- State Women’s Commissions must hold regular consultations with women’s organisations and act on their inputs to effectively deliver justice to women in their respective states.
- In states where the Chairperson’s post is vacant, the government must urgently appoint a new Chairperson in consultation with women’s organisations.
Meena Tiwari
National General Secretary
Rati Rao
National President
