Bhanwari Devi was born in a low-caste kumhar (potter) family in Bhateri, a small Rajasthani village located 55 km from the state capital, Jaipur. Most of the villagers belonged to the conservative Gurjar community, which is higher in the caste hierarchy than her own Kumhar caste. In the 1980s, child marriages were common in the village, and the caste system was dominant.In 1985, Bhanwari Devi became a saathin ("friend"), a grassroots worker employed as part of the Women's Development Project (WDP) run by the Government of Rajasthan. As part of her job, she took up issues related to land, water, literacy, health, Public Distribution System, and payment of minimum wages at famine relief works. In 1987, she took up a major issue of the attempted rape of a woman from a neighbouring village. All of these activities had the full support of the members of her village. However, in 1992, Bhanwari found herself alienated, when she took up the issue of child marriagewhich is still widely practiced in India despite being illegal.
In 1992, the state government of Rajasthan decided to launch a campaign against child marriage during the fortnight preceding the festival of Akha Teej, which is considered an auspicious date for marriages. Many child marriages take place during this festival. WDP members were tasked with convincing local villagers not to conduct child marriages, a task that Bhanwari took up, along with prachetas and members of the District Women's Development Agency (DWDA). The campaign was largely ignored by the villagers and faced disapproval from local leaders, including the village headman or pradhan.
One family which had arranged such a marriage was that of Ram Karan Gurjar, who had planned to marry off his one-year-old daughter. Bhanwari made attempts to persuade the family against carrying out their wedding plans. Since many Gujar families seemed determined to go ahead with child marriages, the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) and the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) started making rounds of the village. On 5 May, the day of Akha Teej, the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and SDO went to Bhateri village to stop the marriage of Ram Karan Gurjar's infant daughter. While they succeeded in preventing the marriage from taking place on the day of Akha Teej, the marriage took place at 2 am the next day. No police action was taken against this. However, the villagers associated the police visits with Bhanwari Devi's efforts. This resulted in social and economic boycotts of Bhanwari and her family. The villagers stopped selling milk to the family or buying the earthen pots they made. Bhanwari was forced to leave her job when her employer was roughed up, while her husband was beaten up by another Gujar.

The alleged gang rape

According to Bhanwari Devi, at 6 pm on 22 September 1992, while she and her husband were working in their field, five men of her village attacked her husband Mohan Lal, leaving him unconscious. The five men whom she named were: Ram Karan, Ram Sukh, Gyarsa, Badri and Shravan Sharma. When she came to her husband's rescue, she said, Gyarsa and Badri raped her, while the other three pinned her down on the ground.
Bhanwari reported the incident to Rasila Sharma, the pracheta (block-level worker), who took her to the Bassi police station to lodge a First Information Report (FIR). The FIR was lodged after surmounting police scepticism and indifference, a phenomenon several rape complainants have faced in the Indian context.

 

The court case

District court judgment

Five judges were changed, and it was the sixth judge who ruled that the accused were not guilty, stating inter alia that Bhanwari's husband couldn't have passively watched his wife being gang-raped. The judge infamously stated, “Since the offenders were upper-caste men and included a brahmin, the rape could not have taken place because Bhanwari was from a lower caste.” A state MLA organised a victory rally in the state capital Jaipur for the five accused declared not guilty, and the women's wing of his political party attended the rally to call Bhanwari a liar.The State Government decided to appeal against the judgment. The judgement led to a nationwide campaign for justice for Bhanwari Devi. However, by 2007, 15 years after the incident, the Rajasthan High Court held only one hearing on the case and two of the accused were dead.