How the Bill was won

Pradeep Sarkar knows his cinema — and he knows his audience. And that is possibly why his character, Lalita, in the new cinematic version of Parineeta, has to face what four out of 10 Indian women undergo — violence at home.

The film, of course, was set in the early Sixties. Now, over four decades later, the Indian government is all set to take on wife-beaters like Sarkar’s Sekhar, who slaps and shoves Lalita around. After a long, and what women activists describe as often frustrating, campaign, a law is being enacted to tackle domestic violence.

Last week, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government passed the proposed Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Bill 2005 at a Cabinet meeting. The Bill is expected to be tabled in the Monsoon session of Parliament which opens on July 25.

And that, activists stress, will be a recognition of a crime that has for long been socially endorsed. Even 10 years ago, when Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising raised the need for a law to fight domestic violence with a section of judges, there were some who couldn’t quite see the need for it. “What does it mean,” a few of them asked Jaising.

In 2005, the question is no longer being asked — for it is becoming increasingly clear that domestic violence is rampant in the country. Surveys conducted in the last few years underline that women, cutting across economic, social, educational, religious or geographic lines, face violence at home. A study carried out by the International Centre for Research on Women in 2004 found that 40 per cent of Indian women faced some form of domestic violence. The National Family Health Survey of 1998-99 found that 56 per cent of women thought that the beatings were justified.

The Bill is the result of a decade-long campaign by women’s groups, social and legal bodies and NGOs for a civil law against domestic violence. The activists have hailed the proposed Bill for it recognises an old position — that violence, actual or threatened, is not just physical maltreatment, but can be sexual, verbal or psychological abuse as well. The new Bill also gives a victim the right to residence and access to a protection officer, who is answerable to the courts.

Campaigners against domestic violence see the Bill as a major move forward. All these years, the law ignored the issue of domestic violence, which meant that victims had three options to follow. They could go in for a divorce, file criminal proceedings, or put up with violence. Most chose the last option.

“There was no law to protect women in India,” says Ranjana Kumari, chairperson of the Centre for Social Research. “And that is why, for the last decade and more, we have been consistently working on this,” she says. The issue first came up in the mid-Eighties. Those were turbulent years for women activists in India. Dowry had emerged as an issue of concern, and people had begun to talk about domestic violence. The activists argued that while there was a need for a law to punish those who killed for dowry, the law had to also step in to stop women from dying.

“We started talking about domestic violence right then, but the issue got fleshed out only in the Nineties,” says Ranjana Kumari, By the time women gathered in Beijing in 1995 for a brainstorming session on issues relating to gender, a law to counter domestic violence was being talked about in concrete terms.

In India, women’s groups were together — and separately — working against domestic violence. Discussions were held among women’s organisations across the country. Groups such as Breakthrough, an NGO working on gender issues, held workshops with students, teachers, homemakers and others to press the need to bring the problem out into the open. Innovative measures were followed to make public what was often a covert issue.

Breakthrough, for instance, persuaded publishing houses in the north to give away free bookmarks highlighting domestic violence with each book sold. Pizza-makers Domino’s agreed to deliver a small leaflet on the issue to every pizza buyer. “We have been trying to create an awareness on the need for a remedy,” says Vidya Shah, director, education, Breakthrough.

At another level, the activists continued to push for the Bill. The last few years were particularly exasperating. The efforts to bring a Bill against domestic violence came across a series of hurdles when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power at the Centre. A delegation presented a draft Bill to former law minister Arun Jaitley, but was told that the government would frame its own law.

But the NDA’s Bill, when it was tabled in Parliament, came as a severe shock to the campaigners. “We were hugely upset,” says Asmita Basu of Lawyers’ Collective, an organisation run by Jaising. In the first place, Basu points out, domestic violence had not been defined in the Bill. Second, under the Bill, only a “habitual assaulter” could be called an offender. “So action could be taken only if someone beat up a woman every day,” she says. “But nothing could be done in the case of a woman who was beaten up once — but so severely that she needed to be hospitalised.”

And worse, the Bill even gave a person the right to batter a woman if it was in self-defence. “This when, in a civil law, you don’t have the right to self-protection,” says Basu. “And the right to self-defence is never allowed to an abuser, but to a victim,” adds Jaising.

The activists kicked up a fuss. Letters were sent to the then human resource development minister Murli Manohar Joshi, MPs were petitioned and meetings held. Finally, the Bill was referred to a standing committee headed by then Opposition MP and now HRD minister Arjun Singh. “We lobbied with Members of Parliament and urged organisations to send their recommendations to the committee,” says Ranjana Kumari. The committee endorsed most of the proposed changes, and a new draft was prepared.

But in 2004, Parliament was dissolved and the Bill lapsed. When the UPA came into power, the campaigners took up the issue again. More consultations were held across the country and a new Bill was drafted. Women’s activists lobbied to have it included in the government’s Common Minimum Programme. Members of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s national advisory council pressed for it. Letters were written to Sonia Gandhi and consultations held with senior bureacurats in the HRD’s women and child department.

the National Commission for Women was drawn into the campaign, and NCW chairperson Girija Vyas pushed for the Bill as well. A meeting was held with the law minister. “We stepped in at every stage,” says Ranjana Kumari. Now, if all goes well, the Bill will be soon be a law. There is opposition, of course, because many still see it as a home-breaker. But its advocates believe that with support from the UPA and its allies, it will sail through.

But the real battle, Shah stresses, will start once the Bill is enacted. “We have to now see how the law can reach out to people,” she says. “We have to start the process of telling people about the Bill and how it can be used,” she says.

The Bill has a lot to offer women — it provides for compensation, promises relief and assures protection. But for it to be implemented effectively, the activists stress that they have to now work hard to publicise it.

And, the activists add, they have to ensure that domestic violence does not stay hidden behind closed doors. “The biggest challenge will be to unwrap the silence that covers domestic violence,” says Jaising. “The Bill will get introduced — but it’s going to be a very, very long journey.”