IN A basement at Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in Parel, 25-year-old nurse Aruna Shanbaug was found lying in a pool of blood early on November 28, 1973. Rushed to the casualty ward by her colleagues, she had suffered multiple injuries including contusion to the brain stem and a cervical cord injury. The investigation that followed revealed that a day before she was found, Aruna had been on duty at the hospital’s Cardiovascular Thoracic Centre, which had an experimental cardiovascular dog surgery laboratory.
Alone in the basement, she was changing out of her uniform before she left for the day when her colleague Sohanlal Walmiki, a contract sweeper, sexually assaulted her. Medical examination revealed that a dog chain was tied around her neck during the attack and twisted, which led to oxygen supply being stopped to her brain. Aruna was found over 12 hours after the attack, when the next shift reported for duty in the morning. Since the assault had led to severe brain damage, doctors treating the nurse soon realised that she would never talk or walk again – the damage to her brain had put her in a vegetative state with no scope for improvement.
The recent rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata has led many to draw parallels with Aruna — on how little has changed for women, including the safety and security of women health workers in public hospitals. During a recent suo motu hearing on the Kolkata incident, Supreme Court Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud made a reference to the Aruna Shanbaug incident when he said, “Due to ingrained patriarchal biases, the relatives of patients are more likely to attack the women doctors and they are more susceptible to sexual violence too… the Aruna Shanbaug case is a case in point.”
Sohanlal Walmiki, a contract sweeper, was convicted for assaulting and robbing nurse Aruna Shanbaug in the basement of Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in November 1973. File/Gajendra Yadav
Aruna used to live with her sister and niece in Worli in 1973, trying to save on the cost of rent and food to be paid for the staff quarters at the hospital. When she did not return home on November 27, 1973, her sister, used to her irregular work timings, did not worry. The next day, she received a call from the hospital informing her that Aruna had been assaulted.
At the time of the incident, Aruna was engaged to a doctor at the hospital. Perhaps the stigma associated with sexual assault then — which she was tested for but Walmiki was never charged for — prevented those around her from filing a complaint on those charges
When Walmiki was arrested by the police a few days later, he was charged only on two counts — Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 397 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code, since he was found to have stolen some of Aruna’s belongings, including a watch and a chain, after the assault. During the trial in a Mumbai sessions court, Walmiki was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment (the maximum under the two charges). After completing his term, Walmiki was released. All this while, for over four decades since 1973, Aruna remained confined to a single room in a ward for general internal medicine patients.
In 2011, the nurse was at the centre of a discussion on euthanasia. Given her condition, journalist-writer Pinki Virani filed a petition seeking euthanasia for Aruna. The Supreme Court was to decide on the guidelines to permit passive euthanasia (termination of life) by withdrawal of life support measures to terminally ill patients. KEM Hospital’s staff opposed Virani’s plea before the court, stating that she meant a lot to them and that they had no problem looking after her. The court said while Aruna met most of the criteria for being in a permanent vegetative state, the staff’s decision to not withdraw life-sustaining treatments to her should be respected.
The Supreme Court’s verdict in the cases states, “On 2.3.2011, the matter was listed again before us and we first saw the screening of the CD submitted by the team of doctors along with their report. We had arranged for the screening of the CD in the Courtroom, so that all present in Court could see the condition of Aruna Shanbaug. For doing so, we have relied on the precedent of the Nuremberg trials in which a screening was done in the Courtroom of some of the Nazi atrocities during the Second World War.”
Aruna remained at the hospital till she passed away in 2015 at the age of 66 due to pneumonia. She remained under the care of the nurses, including some who had worked with her, for 42 years. For all those years, Aruna and the assault she had faced remained in public memory. From time to time, her health and her status as one of the longest surviving patients with her medical condition ensured that she was not forgotten.
After Aruna’s death, journalists traced Walmiki to a village in Uttar Pradesh. While speaking about the incident, Walmiki denied that he had sexually assaulted Aruna. After her death, demands were made to enhance his punishment, but it was not legally possible since he had already faced trial and completed his sentence on the charges he faced.
After the assault in 1973, nurses and other staffers at the hospital went on strike, demanding better working conditions and additional security. In 2022, during an online event, healthcare workers discussed how not much had changed for women medicos — be it at public hospitals or healthcare centres in urban or rural areas. One doctor was quoted as saying that locations of changing rooms, access to bathrooms and the lack of security continue to be matters of concern. Another said hospitals were big structures “like a maze”, with many areas being poorly lit and unsafe for women.
Over 50 years after Aruna was assaulted, women continue to face violence at their workplaces or in the course of their work. In 1992, Bhanwari Devi, an employee of the Rajasthan Women and Child Development department, was gangraped by upper caste men for trying to stop a child marriage. The concerns raised then led to the Supreme Court framing the Vishaka Guidelines on sexual harassment at workplace. In 2013, after the gangrape of a photojournalist on an assignment in Mumbai’s Shakti Mills, then state Home Minister R R Patil had recommended police protection for women journalists — a proposal rightly criticised as “impractical” for all working women whose jobs require fieldwork. Instead of better accountability from existing systems, including making access to justice easier, women’s groups say short-term reactions like these continue to keep women at work at risk.
