Gender violence has a particular socioeconomic, cultural and political context. “Women become instruments through which the social system reproduces itself and through which systemic inequality is maintained.”(1) While women are also victims of general violence in society, they are specifically targeted by the family, community and the state

Historically, power relations responsible for violence against women include economic and social forces, which exploit female labour and the female body. The violence that women face take varied institutional forms and is increasing exponentially today. The family – which is often seen as  a source of nurturance and care, is often a site of violence. Female infanticide, wife battering, dowry harassment, incest, and many other violent acts are regularly perpetrated within this so-called ‘private sphere’ of a woman’s life.

Religion, tradition and customs have therefore often been used to suppress and violate a woman’s basic rights. Genital mutilation, honour-killings, witch-hunts are but some examples.(2)

The New World Order with its tools of development and progress, including some aspects of modern science and technology, free markets, rational knowledge system and the militarised state,  seems to be intensifying existing violence and creating grotesque new forms against the already vulnerable – particularly women. The growing number of dowry murders, that are a direct outcome of increasing consumerism and devaluation of women; female foeticide that is fostered by new forms of reproductive technology; the total destruction of women’s livelihoods in the process of industrialising agriculture; the absolute exploitation of women’s skills and labour in sweatshops of the corporate free market; are but some cases of the growing violence against women. Violence in various forms is getting accentuated under the New Economic Policy being pursued by the State. Thus the State, far from being the protector and custodian of the rights of its people, has become its greatest violator. While on the one hand it is granting more rights to women, on the other it is also creating conditions where women are being rendered more vulnerable and increasingly violated.

All theories of violence against women have to take into account the changing nature of the state and the shifting identity formations of caste, class, ethnicity, religions and gender in the context of globalisation and the construction of the global village. This understanding of violence has slowly been evolving since the seventies when the issue of personal violence against women gained a centrality in public and political discourse.

The context of the early campaigns was the post-emergency period when civil liberties groups, progressive organisations and political parties brought to light numerous instances of police atrocities, torture and lawlessness.

Rape

The issue of rape has been the preoccupation of most contemporary feminist movements all over the world. The focus has been on rape, “firstly because sexual assault is one of the ugliest and most brutal expressions of masculine violence against women, secondly because rape and the historical ‘discourse‘ around it reveal a great deal about the social relations of reproduction and thirdly because of what it shows about the way in which the woman’s body is seen as representing the community”.(3)

Custodial or police rape was one of the earliest issues around which the first autonomous women’s groups began to get organised. The Rameeza Bee rape case in Hyderabad in 1978, (in which Rameeza was raped by several policemen and her husband, a rickshaw puller, was murdered because he protested); the Mathura case in 1980 (where the Supreme Court acquitted the policemen who were guilty of rape of a 14 year old tribal while in police custody on the ground that her “character” was “loose”); Maya Tyagi (a 23 year old woman who in June 1980, was arrested, raped, stripped and paraded through the streets of Baghpat, Haryana after her husband was killed in cold blood, with the justification that he was a dacoit) - were some of the highly publicised cases around which women’s groups initiated major campaigns. Women’s groups began to be formed through out the country including the Forum against Rape in Bombay, Stree Shakti Sanghatana in Hyderabad, Stree Sanghaarsh in Delhi, AWAG (Ahmedabad), Penna Urimai Iyyakkam(Madurai), Vimochana(Bangalore), Nari Mukti Sanstha(Assam) etc.

The protest actions led to many changes in the law and in enforcement. The law relating to rape was amended.(4) Rape, which was suppressed under the guise of maintaining “family respectability” became a social issue in the public domain. As more and more incidents of caste-rape, landlord rape, rape during  communal riots began to be reported, it became evident that rape symbolised systemic domination. Rape by the personnel of the various arms of the State - the police, the forest officials, the security forces etc. exposed the basic “masculine” nature of these bodies and the nexus between patriarchy and power.

The pervasiveness of violence against women and its varied manifestations meant that strategies to counter this were urgently needed. The struggle against violence also took into consideration that gender violence was not just a criminal act of abuse of physical force, but that it served to preserve patriarchal hierarchies.

Dowry

While rape was one of the earliest issues around which women’s groups mobilised, dowry murders became another flash point. Systematic investigation by women’s organisations in different parts of the country revealed that what was perceived as kitchen accidents or suicides, in which increasing number of young brides were losing their lives, were infact cold blooded murders. Protest in front of police stations, campaigns in neighbourhoods where these deaths happened, social boycott of the in-laws, close monitoring of investigation procedures and evaluation of the law related to dowry were some of the actions initated.(5)

There have been differing perceptions of dowry as a system and an institution, but what is non-debatable is the growing violence associated with dowry. Dowry harassment and dowry related deaths have also spread across society cutting across barriers of caste, class and religion. It is also increasingly obvious that dowry in its present form is a sharp departure from its earlier form of Streedhan or bride price that existed in earlier pastoral and the present Adivasi communities.(6) Both these customs acknowledge the value and worth of women, her labour power within the home and her role in the community. The polarisation of the personal and the public in the era of industrialisation reduced the role of women to the personal sphere which is “non-productive” and hence non-profitable. Women’s work too got gradually further and further devalued. Dowry then replaced Streedhan and bride-price as compensation and bribe to bolster the value of a commodity with little market value. Dowry was also seen as a bribe to the son-in-law to keep the daughter, who, after a certain age is totally unwanted in her parental home.

Home Truths: Domestic Violence

Another form of invisible violence that has been given a public face by the women’s movement is that of wife-battering which was  again held to be a personal domestic issue between husband and wife – both by society and by the law. It has been imbued with a “normalcy” that almost defines it as an occupational hazard in marriage.(7) This issue was voiced as a sign of unequal relations between husband and wife and a form of violence and control exercised by men over women. The Left-affiliated women’s groups however considered it to be another form of violence demonstrating the degenerative aspects of capitalist society. Whatever the understanding both autonomous women’s groups and women’s wings of progressive organisations have brought this issue into the public realm through demonstrations, pamphleteering, dharnas, social boycotts and also pressuring the community, panchayats, employers, trade-unions to take action against violent husbands. Many counselling centres, shelters, legal aid cells etc have also sprung up to help battered women.(8) Centre’s like the Women’s Centre, Bombay; Saheli, Delhi represent the kernel of constructive activity along with the agitational politics of the movement. They became the mobilisng nucleus to bring in more women. The state has also responded by amending the Criminal law to introduce Section 498(A),which makes cruelty by a husband or his relatives a cognisable non-bailable offence.

To counter these trends of violence, women have sought to understand these phenomena in all their complexities and adopted different approaches and strategies and sought different allies. They have put social-pressure on abusers, they have opened support centres and worked with the police to set up special cells. They have also not been afraid to demonstrate and hold rallies on the streets pursuing justice for victims of violence. Public hearings have been held, governments have been lobbied to take cognisance of the issue, and through writing, debate and various other means, activists have brought into public discourse the issue of violence against women and what women are doing about it.

Prostitution: Some Questions for the Movement

The issue of prostitution is a contentious one, that has touched many areas. “Morality, law and order, labour, sexuality, public-health, family have all been concepts that have figured in debates on this issue.... For feminists, prostitution is a particularly difficult issue. On one hand, prostitution implies the objectification of women’s bodies and sexuality. On the other hand, there is the prostitutes need for decent working conditions.”(9)
 
Over time various approaches have evolved ranging from rescue and rehabilitation to attempting to destigmatise and decriminalise women in prostitution whose own agency is sought to be affirmed within the framework of rights.(10)

Within this ambit a broad spectrum of equally debatable issues have emerged – the issue of legislature, decriminalisation, sexual control and choice, the need to redefine prostitution as work and the women as sex-workers.

Debates on the issue of legislation for instance have also polarised  the movement. Those who support legalisation feel that this would lead to the woman in prostitution being less exploited while affirming her dignity and choice. They also feel that bringing it overground would help to monitor and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

Others are more sceptical. They feel that legalisation would only strengthen the trafficking network and that if the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act were abolished altogether there would be little legal ground to punish those who perpetrate child prostitution, forced prostitution and trafficking.

While the differences are many, there is consensus that the central focus should be the women in prostitution, who are victims of punitive provisions of the law and their access to basic human rights. Many groups also stress that there is a need to delink prostitution from trafficking of women, which has all along been seen as one.

Meanwhile many groups, primarily those working on issues of HIV/AIDS, have initiated efforts to mobilise and organise sex-workers, to get their voice heard. Prominent among such efforts are the Sex Workers Forum of Kerala and the sex-workers of Sonagachi Calcutta, who have organised themselves into the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee and the sex-workers of Maharashtra and Karnataka who have come together under the umbrella of VAMP (Vaishya AIDS Muqabala Parishad).

Efforts are also on to effect a dialogue among sex-workers, women’s human rights activists, feminists and lawyers to arrive at a deeper understanding of the issues involved through the experiences of women in prostitution. A recent international workshop entitled “Understanding Hidden Realities” held at Kolhapur, by groups like Asian Women’s Human Rights Council (AWHRC), SANGRAM, and Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), is one such example. Apart from looking at issues of decriminalisation, legislation, relevance of “rehabilitation” etc. the workshop also reviewed the proposed SAARC Convention on trafficking which is still built around implicit moralistic presumption that prostitution is immoral and that trafficking is merely a problem of cross- border movement and therefore a violation related to territory and state borders. It therefore suggests repatriation and rehabilitation as the only form of justice available to women who may have either been forcibly trafficked or “voluntarily” consented to migrate for reasons of poverty or better opportunities to survive.(11)

The essence of all these efforts is to go beyond victimology positions, and to look at the women as women who have a right to self-worth and dignity.

Missing Girls: Sex Pre-Selection

Sex-pre-selection is one of the most blatant and basic forms of violence against women – where they are sought to be eliminated even before birth. While many would like to believe that the most apparent forms of oppression of women are particular to a traditional or feudal society, it is increasingly obvious that modernisation too puts a woman’s life in peril.

Modern technologies like amniocentesis are being used to determine the sex of the child leading to abortions of female foetuses. The population control lobby feels that since abortion is legal in India, sex-selected abortions cannot be banned. Some use the woman’s rights and pro-choice argument to justify this stand.

The pro-choice argument is dubious as in reality it is not the free choice of the woman concerned but the choice of a patriarchal system of which this act is one symptom.

In an effort to counter the steep rise in female foeticides an alliance of progressive doctors, lawyers, feminists, journalists and other activists called the Forum against Sex-determination and Sex Pre-selection was formed. The agitation against sex-pre-selection highlighted:
a)  issues of safety: when dangers of repeated abortions were being underplayed.
b)  issues of technology: where technology is seen as neutral whereas in fact such trends would push genetic engineering for eugenic goals (race improvement by helping the better “stock” to prevail)
c)  issue of coercion by state in family planning which further legitimises a gendericide.

The agitation led to the enactment in 1994 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act. The practice of sex pre-selection though, continues to be rampant and has in fact spread from the big cities to smaller towns and even villages.

The premium on boy children and the burden of dowry is also leading to an increasing incidence of female infanticide. In Devra village, in Rajasthan, not a single girl had been born in the entire village for over 110 years (12). The provisional report of the Census 2001 points to the downwardly spirally sex-ratio differntials from 945 in 1991 to 927 per1000 in 2001.

Groups that have worked with the Kallars in Salem and have studied the practice of female infanticide that the community has become notorious for, observed the crucial role of “development” of that region (in the form of the green revolution) in marginalising the role of women in agriculture. This accompanied by the newly acquired tradition of dowry that is seeping into an increasingly impoverished community is leading to the killing of female children. Instead of looking at the larger socio-economic context within which this “practice” is present and responding appropriately, the State has instead passed a legislation that criminalises the mother, a move that would further drive the practice underground.(13)

What do we do to Our Girls?
The movement against female foeticide served to point to the more widespread neglect of the girl child. Viewed as destined to move to “another” house, she is neglected in terms of nutrition and health, or education and reduced to being a temporary, free and flexible household and agricultural worker.

Historically, reformers like Rammohan Roy and Vidyasagar took up the issue of the girl child only peripherally, as their focus was more on the “wretched condition of the Hindu Women”. Even today the girl child continues to be captured in an idiom of loss.

“With the women’s movement and the child rights movement converging to highlight the precarious condition of the female child from infancy to adulthood, the girl child has received some official and public attention over the past few years.”(14). The year 1990 was declared as the Year of the Girl Child by the countries of South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC). And 1991-2000 as the Decade of the Girl Child. The Government of India, on its part announced a National Plan of Action for the Girl Child.

Special notice was also taken of girls in difficult situations -like in wars/conflicts and working girls, especially those in hazardous occupations and girl sex workers, and girls in remand homes.

Besides the issues of nutrition and education, women’s groups stressed the role of the entire socialisation process. Academics, activists and media persons explored along with feminists the process of how patriarchal values are internalised and differentiation based on gender is justified, practiced and perpetuated. The high incidence of sex abuse of the girl child has also been singularly responsible for the “subjugated psyche”, which is often carried forward to the workplace.

Sexual Harassment at Work
Sexual harassment at the workplace though rampant, has also largely remained invisible and has been dismissed as “natural”. It is considered as an occupational hazard, or as the price one pays for joining the work-force. Women in all sectors, across the board, be they junior staff or from the highest echelons of the bureaucracy, work in a hostile environment and face sexual harassment every day.

Women have begun speaking up and taking action against harassment. In 1996 Shehnaz Sanhi of Saudi Arabian Airlines, became the first employee in the country to win a legal battle against her employers on grounds of sexual harassment. Many  women like the secretary of Apparel Export Promotion Council, and Nagratna a clerk in the pay and accounts office in Hyderabad,  have waged long brave battles against powerful employers on this issue. Dr. Sushma Merh’s (Delhi University) case against Dr. S.C. Bhatia led to the setting up of the Wad Committee which indicted him. In spite of this, it took an extensive campaign to actually have him dismissed.

If the Mathura rape case opened the flood gates of protests against rape, Bhanwari Devi’s case galvanised women’s groups into action on the issue of sexual harassment. Bhanwari was a “Sathin” in the Women’s Development Programme of the Government of Rajasthan, who was gang-raped in the course of her work which was mainly prevention of child marriage.(15) Her fight for justice raised a number of crucial issues related to the vulnerability of women in their work place.

The campaign to secure her justice brought together many different organisations women’s groups, trade unions, human-rights centres and others. They went on to draw up a set of guidelines on this issue which the Supreme Court subsequently ratified. Having received the Union of India consent, they are binding and enforceable in public and private sector workplaces until any further legislation is enacted. These guidelines quite clearly recognise sexual harassment to include non-verbal conduct with sexual overtones. Under the guidelines, the employer is expected to take certain preventive measures and constitute a Complaints Committee. There are however those who feel that the “judgement is reactionary and sets a dangerous precedent. By using certain constructs like ‘outraging the modesty and decency of a woman’ the whole notion of Indian womanhood as seen by the Supreme Court is Victorian and puritanical.” (16)

There are also doubts about the implementation of the guidelines especially in the informal sector – in rural areas or construction sites. Even so, most women’s groups have welcomed the guidelines, as they afford an opportunity for action and to press for women’s rights as workers.

Even as women’s groups have been agitating against specific acts of violence and injustice, they have been attempting to bring broad-based structural changes within the family and community: changes in attitudes as well as changes in the law – making the State responsible and accountable for violence against women. In the process of seeking these larger changes the women’s movement has also addressed itself to related forms of injustice and violence in society for example, that of communalism and fundamentalism, caste violence, maldevelopment and globalisation, militarisation and nuclearisation of the State. In the following chapter we take up different themes related to the State, politics and development, beginning with gender specific legal and social reforms addressed by the women’s movement.