Gender Discrimination and Domestic Violence in India- And a Resolve

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I'm enthused by the activism through the blogging theme of Cause a Chatter, 2022.  Joined Blog A Chatter last year hadn't taken the opportunity out of laziness or hesitant being unfamiliar to join the Cause A chatter.  The year passed helped me come around Blog a Chatter.  This year, I am certainly into its idea of inclusivity, breaking through human-made social boundaries and barriers to establish an open worldview.   

I chose three topics for the quarter and set the goals, and I am getting set to go steady. 

My first topic is gender discrimination. 

What is gender discrimination? 

According to the Cambridge dictionary, it is a situation in which someone is treated less well because of their sex, usually when a woman is treated less well than a man.  According to Langston University, Oklahoma, it is the unequal or disadvantageous treatment of individuals or groups based on gender.  

So, gender discrimination can happen in any geographic region, situation, workplace, home, public, private, and a single post cannot discuss it in its entirety.  Here I consider its nature in Indian homes stressing female discrimination. 

Women empowerment in India. 

In India, females are a discriminated group historically and culturally-- the reasons pointed out as the lack of education and empowerment.  Hence, I first consider how India has addressed this in the past decades.  State and Civil Society's Response to Women's Movement gives the following information on the topic.

Programmes to develop and empower women in India had started long before the country became independent.  For example, the colonist government had outlawed discriminatory and inhumane practices against them at the will of the men from higher social status.  

Independent India prioritised this further and implemented multi-programmes and policies to better their social, political, and economic status.  Among them are constitutional and legislative provisions.  The Constitution of India has accepted gender equality as a fundamental right. 

And India has heeded well the call made by the UN that came with programmes to improve women's status globally.  UN declared 1975 as the year of International Woman and the decade following (1975 to 1985) the Decade of Woman.  

The following are the constitutional provisions in India to bring the women status at par with the men. 

On top of enshrining gender equality as a fundamental right, the constitution provides equality before the law and equal protection by the regulations.  (Article 14)

The prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sex Article 15 (1) empowers the State governments to adopt policies of positive discrimination in favour of women (Article 15 (2), protection of life and personal liberty (Article 21).  

On top of the above provisions and programmes, the government implemented impressive volumes of statutes for women's socio-economic, educational, political, and other developments in the last seven decades following independence, and all these have earned dividends.  Women in India achieved remarkable progress in education, contributing to the family income, taking the helm of the companies and corporate bodies inside the nation and worldwide.  In the corridors of politics and economy and boardrooms, their names resound.  And the government can claim to have achieved significant progress in women empowerment and gender equality based on the above in the public sphere. 

What is happening in private in the domestic sphere?

There is no dearth of statutory regulations to protect Indian women from gender-based discriminatory distress and violence in private/inside the homes.  Two such are, Prevention of Women from Domestic Violence against Act, 2005, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. 

The former Act provides a definition of ' "domestic violence" for the first time in Indian law, with this definition being broad and including not only physical violence but also other forms of violence such as emotional and psychological abuse.' The latter Act rules dowry illegal in a nation where marriage is a market to fix women's trade at a price tag around the man's neck.

With all these well-intended statutes and legal frameworks in place, one can logically conclude that gender discrimination and gender-based and dowry-related domestic violence are things of the past in India and homes are safe for women. 

 Is it really?  Let us look at the statistics of the past decade.  

 SOCISLSTORY reports, according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data in 2016, most crimes against women are recorded under "Cruelty by Husbands or his Relatives."

NFHS-4 (2015-16) data (Page 514) shows 52 per cent of women and 42 per cent of men believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife in at least one of the seven specified circumstances--"She goes out without telling him, she neglects the house or the children, she argues with him, she refuse to have sex with him, she doesn't cook food properly, he suspects her of being unfaithful to him, she shows disrespect for her in-laws."  The sample age group for women and men in the study was 15-49.  

What is the Stumbling Block?

Let me consider how State and Civil Society's Response to Women's Movement, I mentioned at the beginning, concluded its study.  "Although gender equality become statutory it could not change the mindset of common people, which was ruled by the age-old traditions that accorded a secondary position only to women in the society.  This may be one of the major reasons why gender equality could not be materialised in letter and spirit as provided in the constitution."

That fifty-two per cent of women and forty-two per cent of men support men's violence against women in 2016 confirms the above conclusion--tradition decides people's consciousness and behaviour--what is taught and learned at homes, communities, schools, and institutions. 

The percentage among the contemporary women in India, well-educated, skilled, ambitious, employed, salaried, is going up.  With that elevated status, marriage should open into a matured and contented stage in their lives.  Their wealthy parents are the reasons for their high achievements.  It is often sad to listen to how they deal with their married daughter's complaining about the violence from husbands and in-laws. 

24-year-old Vismaya V Nair, an Ayurveda medicine student in Kerala, was found hanging in the bathroom in her husband's home on 21 June 2021.  A little more than a year ago, she married Kiran Kumar on 31 May 2020.  Her parents revealed to the media and the Police that they knew her husband and the in-laws physically and mentally harassing her. 

Uthara, another 24-year-old Kerala woman, was murdered by her husband Suraj on 7 May 2020, using a cobra he bought from a snake handler after failing an earlier try using a viper.  After the murder, her family alleged she suffered domestic violence and dowry harassment by Suraj and her in-laws, about which they had knowledge.

Women getting torched by fire or acid rain, stabbed to death, bodies hacked into pieces and hidden away in the bottomless soil pit for one of the seven reasons or more mentioned in the 2016 study are almost daily incidents in Kerala, the premier state in India. 

Questions Need be Asked

 Can't we genuinely doubt they belong to the 52 and 42 per cent? 

Are those parents showing more obligation to protect culture, tradition, and social status at the torture and the loss of their daughters!!  

Are those parents not aware of that?

India celebrates a cultural tradition of the deliberate social stratification that accedes someone's gain at the deprivation of others--women enjoy a precarious position in that they gain in public and lose in private.    

Is There a Resolve?  

There is a need for resolve.  Women who are the potential participants in their homes and nation-building cannot meet death at the hands of misdirected men at their homes. 

Listen to Deepa Narayan, the social psychologist, talks about gender equality, domestic abuse and more in her TED Talk.

This post is part of Blog Chatter's Cause A Chatter.