16 August,2026 07:25 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanisha Banerjee
Going through heartbreak and emotional abuse by her ex, days after giving birth to her daughter, Avnika Singh was often told by peers that she didn’t “look sad enough”. Pic/Nishad Alam
What does a rape survivor have to look like to be believed?
The question has acquired renewed urgency after the Bombay High Court overturned the 2021 acquittal of former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal, convicting him in the 2013 sexual assault case. In doing so, the court sharply criticised the Goa trial court's approach to the complainant's behaviour, including its reliance on assumptions about how a survivor should respond to sexual assault. The High Court rejected the notion that a survivor's credibility can be measured against a template of fear, distress, or "appropriate" behaviour.
That template of the "ideal victim" is familiar far beyond the courtroom. Why did she wait to report? Why did she continue speaking to him? Why did she go back to work? Why did she look normal? Why could nobody tell that she went through trauma? The questions often shift attention from the alleged perpetrator to the woman's conduct.
Research and guidance on sexual violence have repeatedly warned against precisely these assumptions. UN Women notes that victims who recount assaults in a detached manner can be viewed as less credible, while women are routinely judged for their clothing, sexuality, lifestyle, or where they were when the assault occurred.
But trauma does not always look like trauma. A woman survivor can cry, freeze, dissociate, withdraw - or she can carry on with her day. Sometimes looking fine is not evidence that nothing happened. A blog by Avery Lane Women's Rehab points out why women treat trauma differently. "Trauma interacts with the expectations and pressures women face in daily life," it states, "Many women are socialised to ignore their own needs, avoid conflict, and keep relationships intact even when they feel unsafe."
And this is exactly what Avnika Singh and Rubina Saha [name-changed] went through in different circumstances.
"I don't want that victim mentality. I want to live my own life. I'm very resilient that way," says 29-year-old marketeer and single mother Avnika Singh. Her appearing fine was not an indication that she was not hurting. In October 2024, days after delivering her daughter, Singh went through heartbreak followed by emotional abuse by her ex. She describes the period that followed as one of depression, postpartum recovery, and emotional abandonment, but says very few people around her knew what she was going through.
"I have been taking care of myself so much," she says. Singh threw herself into fitness, clean eating, an executive MBA during maternity leave, a new job, and marathons. She deliberately keeps her daughter off social media and says that even people she knows do not realise she is a mother. Her outward appearance, she says, concealed the extent of her trauma.
"I don't want to look sad," she explains, "I have made myself do a hundred things." Singh also recalls being blamed by her family members and peers because she did not "look sad" enough. At her lowest point, she says, she had suicidal thoughts and once wanted to jump from the 37th floor. Therapy, work, and rebuilding her life became ways of coping.
However, sometimes domestic abuse is also invisible to society. "I couldn't tell anyone about it because I had to call it abuse before that to myself," says 31-year-old Rubina Saha, who spent eight years in a domestically violent and financially abusive relationship. For years, the abuse existed alongside what looked like an otherwise functional life. Saha continued working and providing for both herself and her ex even as she experienced emotional and physical abuse, describing her state as a "functional freeze".
The violence escalated from being pushed and having her hand shoved away to being kicked in the stomach and choked. Over the course of the relationship, she recalls being pinned against a wall and slapped repeatedly. Her ex also remained persistent in not using protection during sex, resulting in her undergoing two abortions. "It was like he wanted to discipline me sexually at times."
Yet, it was not her own family who recognised what was happening. The intervention came unexpectedly from those who knew the violence first-hand - her former partner's family members. Three years ago, they sat Saha down and asked if she was okay. Having themselves experienced abuse, they recognised the subtle signs that others had missed. "That's when I was able to get out of the relationship," she says.
What stays with Saha is the contrast, "Looking at me, my abuser's family members could see that I'm going through something, but my own folks couldn't see that I'm going through it. That was the most heartbreaking part for me." Her experience also complicates the idea of what an abused woman is expected to look like. She kept working, functioning, and appearing outwardly capable, even while living in a state of fear -and dissociation.
"When you create this sort of disillusionment and a fear bubble for a person, you are disconnected from your main reality," Saha says, "People around me thought that I am either behaving erratically or smoking so much that I'm losing my mind, that kind of a stupid thing."
Advocate Pooja Dongre explains the mechanisms of how a court looks at a survivor and the circumstances around her
For Advocate Pooja Dongre, a practising advocate in Mumbai, the law does not prescribe a particular way for a survivor to behave after sexual assault. A woman may report immediately, remain silent, continue working, maintain contact with the accused or appear emotionally composed. "The correct approach, in my view, is not to ask, âHow should a victim have behaved?' but rather, âWhat does the entire evidence on record establish?'"
Delayed reporting, she explains, is a circumstance courts can examine, but it is not automatically fatal to a prosecution. Fear, stigma, family pressure, financial dependence, threats and the psychological difficulty of approaching the criminal justice system can all contribute to delay.
The same applies to continued contact with an accused. "Human behaviour after trauma is complex. A survivor may continue contact because of an existing relationship, emotional dependence, family circumstances, financial dependence, fear, pressure, social circumstances, or simply because she is trying to continue her ordinary life," she says. Dongre cautions against treating subsequent communication as proof of consent or fabrication.
She also stresses the distinction between minor inconsistencies and contradictions that affect the core of a case. "Human memory is not a recording device," she says, particularly when an incident is traumatic. Ultimately, Dongre says, courts must balance sensitivity towards survivors with the accused's right to a fair trial. "Sensitivity does not mean lowering the standard of proof, and a fair trial does not mean subjecting a survivor to stereotypical assumptions."
Nutritionist Aditi Prabhu points out how trauma and sexual abuse creep into your body due to stress and affect your gut and appetite
For Aditi Prabhu, a clinical and sports dietician and founder of NutroDynamix, the effects of sexual trauma can continue in the body even when a survivor appears to be functioning normally.
Prabhu explains that trauma activates the body's stress response, including the HPA axis and changes in cortisol and other hormones. Because of the connection between the brain and gut, prolonged stress can affect digestion, gut motility, and appetite, while also aggravating gut conditions, affecting immunity and blood pressure.
A survivor may continue working, and socialising normally while experiencing changes that others cannot see. "Trauma can show up as physiological, behavioural and psychological responses. It can affect your gut health," she says, citing disturbed sleep, hypervigilance, changes in appetite, headaches, and body aches among possible responses. "As a dietician, traumatic experiences are rarely something that comes up in nutrition consultation. So, creating a safe, non-judgmental space is important especially because many people don't realise the physiological impact of trauma."
Detailed history-taking is therefore crucial. Symptoms that appear unrelated can sometimes reveal "the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle" behind physical and physiological struggles that surfaced long after the trauma itself.
Counselling psychologist Akshada Anikhindi explains how survivors often dissociate and continue with their daily life before being able to address it
The expectation that trauma must be visible is precisely what makes survivors who appear "normal" so easy to doubt, says Akshada Anikhindi, counselling psychologist at The Candid Therapist. "Carrying on is usually the response, not the absence of one," she explains. Survivors may dissociate, compartmentalise or simply continue with daily life because acknowledging what happened can feel too overwhelming.
Anikhindi recalls discovering a photograph from a 2019 work party in which a senior colleague had his hand on her backside. She had no memory of the incident, despite remembering the evening as a pleasant one. She says her mind had effectively separated the two realities because acknowledging the assault would have meant confronting someone she admired and continuing to work around him. "The mind removes what would cost too much to know," she says.
The impact, however, can surface through the body through disturbed sleep, tension, digestive problems, panic attacks, or an unexplained intolerance to certain touches or smells. Sometimes the story emerges only months or years later.
"So no, delay says nothing about whether it was real. The mind postpones what it cannot afford to feel and presents the bill when circumstances allow," Anikhindi says. A survivor may remain functional for years before feeling safe enough to confront what happened. "What was delayed was the feeling, not the fact," she says. "The harm was complete on the day it happened."
Neha Kumari, a transwoman, has experienced two cases of sexual assault which she has not shared with anyone yet
I am fine now," says 26-year-old Neha Kumari, a transwoman from Jharkhand who lives alone in Mumbai and is looking for work. But behind that seemingly simple statement are two incidents of sexual assault that she has kept completely to herself.
A while ago, while working a night shift for Instamart, Kumari says a man, around 45, sexually assaulted her, forcefully putting his hands inside her clothes and kissing her.
Six months ago, she says, another man dragged her into a store and forced her to perform oral sex. "I begged him to let me go," she says, adding that she never consented.
Kumari told only her lawyer about the second incident, who advised her to file a police complaint. But being alone in Mumbai, with limited money, and no parents or strong support system, she says she could not bring herself to do so.
"I am scared people will laugh at me for letting this happen. I don't want to tell anyone around me because once people know that you are a survivor of sexual assault, they look at you differently," she says, "That's why I am hiding everything about this."
To those around her, she confides, "Nobody can tell what happened to me."
Director of NGO Majlis, Audrey D'Mello talks about how survivors are judged in court on the basis of how they behaved after the incident
Audrey D'Mello, director of Majlis, lauds the Bombay High Court's intervention in the Tarun Tejpal case. She calls it significant as it challenges the assumptions that had shaped the Goa Sessions Court's treatment of the survivor. Majlis, an all-women team of lawyers and social workers working primarily on domestic violence and sexual abuse, had supported the survivor when her statement was recorded in Mumbai.
D'Mello says the Sessions Court's reliance on the survivor's past sexual history and telephone records was deeply disappointing. "It was really disappointing the way the Goa Sessions Court went into a past history and made so many derogatory comments," she says. The High Court, she notes, emphasised that a survivor cannot be expected to "look a certain way" and that her past sexual history should not determine how her allegation is assessed.
According to D'Mello, this expectation extends beyond sexual assault trials. "They expect a victim to look a certain way," she says, adding that women can be blamed simply because they do not display the expected characteristics of a victim.
The pressure begins long before the courtroom. "This treatment doesn't start at the courtroom; it starts way before," she says, pointing to insensitive treatment at police stations and during medical examinations. For many survivors, reporting can mean confronting shame, guilt, family pressure, and even being blamed for "breaking" the family apart.
