Article

In Maharashtra, a domestic worker files a case of domestic violence against her husband who brutally beat her up with a steel rod and a brick. A government school teacher in Tamil Nadu files a case against her husband, a peon employed in the Tamil Nadu water board. .

He is charged for beating up his wife with a stick and umbrella after a quarrel at night. Within days of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DVA) coming into force, women are taking recourse to its provisions.

DVA represents a landmark in the achievement of gender equality for Indian women in two fundamental ways. First, it rubbishes the myth that the Indian family is a safe haven for all its members. This fact is evidenced by the broad range of harms covered under the new law, including abuse of the elderly, child sexual abuse, and violence against divorced or widowed women.

Empirical evidence of the widespread existence of these brutalities in the home has been available for years and finally found expression in law.

Second, the law delinks domestic violence from the confinements of dowry harassment and dowry murders. Until now, victims of domestic violence were invariably forced to link the violence to a demand for dowry in order to access legal remedies under the Indian Penal Code.

The only other option was divorce on grounds of cruelty. DVA provides civil law relief for domestic violence which is recognised as occurring for all sorts of reasons, across every class, religion and caste, in rural areas and urban centres.

The law has some fairly revolutionary features. For the first time, marital rape is legally recognised as a form of domestic violence. While cri-minal law has still not been amended to enable a woman to file a rape case against her husband or domestic sexual partner, she is now given access to new civil remedies, including securing a protection order or injunction against her abuser.

DVA recognises child sexual abuse as an offence, and hence for the first time offers some space in law for the recognition of a child's rights to be free from violence in the home.

Domestic violence is not confined to wives, but includes mothers, daughters, sisters, widows, divorced women living in the home, as well as those who are in an informal relationship with the accused, including a bigamous relationship. It covers all domestic relationships in a 'shared household'.

A shared household is very broadly defined to include one where the abused person lives singly or with the abuser. Presumably, the Act would also cover a man who abuses or beats up a sex worker with whom he has had a long-standing relationship, such as a pimp, or an ongoing sexual relationship, though the scope of this provision would need to be tested in the courts.

A case can be filed against any male adult person as well as other relatives of the husband or male partner. Women are not just considered victims, but also can be perpetrators of violence against other members of the household, including children, the elderly and daughters-in-law.

The Act is not confined to physical violence but also includes verbal, emotional and economic violence. Verbal violence includes accusations against a woman's character or conduct, or preventing her from taking up a job or forcing her to leave a job, or taking away her income.

Arguably complaining against attacks on a woman's character would be a right equally available to a married woman, mistress or sex worker, if they fall within the definition of 'domestic relationship'. Insults for not having a male child, bringing dowry are extremely significant protections.

Acts that constitute emotional violence include not providing food, clothes, and medicines for one's children, preventing a child from attending school, college or any other educatio-nal institution, forcing a person to get married when he or she does not want to, or preventing a person from marrying the person of his or her choice.

The fact that these acts are categorically described as acts of violence in the law is pro-bably more important in terms of their educative impact, than the actual prosecutions that will take place under these specific provisions.

Complaints of domestic violence can be filed by neighbours, social workers, or relatives on behalf of the victim. And the magistrate is given a broad array of powers, including issuing protection or injunction orders, providing monetary relief or payment maintenance.

While the penal provisions dealing with dowry focus on incarceration, the DVA gives women an opportunity to keep the perpetrator at a distance, but not in jail.

Women can no longer be evicted from their homes by the abuser, and can seek an order to reside in the same house or be allotted a part of it for her personal use even if she has no legal claim or share in the property. The abuser can also be prohibited from entering the aggrieved person's place of work or, if that person is a child, the school.

DVA covers acts that are violative of a woman's dignity or any other unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.

In a country where sex, not just sexual violence, is considered bad, indecent, and something in which 'good people' do not indulge or talk about, the courts may find themselves determining dignity or sexuality along highly puritanical lines, that would neither benefit women nor be conducive to promoting healthy adult sexual relationships.

Protection from sexual wrongs needs to be accompanied with education about sexual rights.