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The Domestic Violence act of 2005 came into effect in India on October 26. It is supposed to provide a recourse to women who suffer from domestic violence at the hands of their husbands and husbands' families.
But this being a Congress party government, they've botched it up, as usual.
Law comes into effect
Domestic Violence Act takes effect today
Special Correspondent
It also covers harassment of a woman by way of dowry demands
NEW DELHI: The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2006 comes into effect from Thursday, according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
Primarily meant to provide protection to the wife or a female live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband or the male live-in partner or his relatives, the law also extends its protection to mother, sisters and widows.
The Act covers abuse or threat of abuse, whether physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic. Harassment by way of unlawful dowry demands to a woman or her relatives also come under this definition.
The Ministry simultaneously issued another notification, which lays down the rules for the implementation of the Act.
They provide for, among other things, appointment of protection officers, service providers and counsellors.
Action to be taken in the event of a respondent breaching the protection order passed by a magistrate in favour of the aggrieved woman is also prescribed under the rules.
The Act seeks to cover those women who are or have been in a relationship with the abuser, where both parties have lived together in a shared household and are related by consanguinity, marriage or a relationship in the nature of marriage, or adoption, in addition relationship with family members living together as a joint family.
An important feature is a woman's right to secure housing. It provides for her right to reside in the matrimonial or shared household, whether or not she has any title or rights in the household.
This right is secured by a residence order, which is passed by a court.
The other relief envisaged is that of the power of the court to pass protection orders that prevent the abuser from aiding or committing an act or domestic violence or any other specified act, entering a workplace or any other place frequented by the abused, attempting to communicate with the abused, isolating any assets used by both the parties and causing violence to the abused, her relatives and others who provide her assistance from domestic violence.
All nice in principle. Now see how messed up it is in implementation.
The Minister within whose ministry's ambit this law falls was interviewed today by Karan Thapar, on a TV programme called "Devil's Advocate", where he mercilessly grills the interviewee.
The full text of the interview can be found here.
I'm quoting the first bit of the interview:
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. Will the UPA Government’s Domestic Violence Bill convert innocent husbands into offenders and criminals, and worse, will it empower motivated women to act viciously and get away with it? Those are the two key issues I should raise in an exclusive interview with the Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury.
Ms Chowdhury, let’s start with the definitions under this Act, which are so wide that they are worrying. To begin with, there is the whole question of what the Act means by domestic violence - it covers verbal abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse and anything that tends towards them. I put it to you, that’s so wide as to be either meaningless or dangerously self-embracing.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t know why you have to see it in two extremes. Why have you not ever noticed that women live in dangerously self-embracing situations? That it’s none of this, even if you see it as porosity in the Act or that the ambit is too wide. Please understand that women are burnt to death, beaten to insensibilities.
Karan Thapar:But the cure is not imprecision, the cure is not vagueness of legislation.
Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.
Karan Thapar:Let me explain why this Act is imprecise. For instance, emotional and verbal abuses are defined to include insults and ridicule. That means you can’t be sarcastic to your wife, it means you can’t call you brother-in-law an ass or a mother-in-law a nag even if both are those are correct. Surely, that’s a level of silliness, but it’s a part of your Bill.
Renuka Chowdhury: I want to tell you what you deem as silly is really not something that I have created today. Under the IPC section, speaking in a way that is denigrating to the status of women, which removes her from her dignity, is very much an Act under the IPC. So I don’t see what are you getting heated up about today.
Karan Thapar:But you are here interfering in normal conversation between two adults. As Soli Sorabjee writing in The Indian Express pointed out, you are reducing an important and serious issue to the level of silliness.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t think anything that happens to a women in the sense of her domestic violence can be termed as silly. It is over-trivialising and over-simplifying this Act. Please understand that despite all the checks, women are burnt, one in six women is raped, murdered, beaten to death, sent in to mental asylums. I don’t think that’s funny.
Karan Thapar: No doubt. But that’s not what your Act concentrates on. Look, for instance, at economic abuse. It is defined by the Act as deprivation of any economic or financial resource, which the aggrieved is entitled to by custom and it includes disposal of household effects. Under that language, if a husband was to sell the family television at a time when his marriage was going through a bad patch, it should be deemed to be domestic violence. Now, that’s ridiculous, but it is very much a part of the Act.
Renuka Chowdhury:Is it anymore ridiculous than the fact that well-to-do men suddenly turn around and claim that they have no money, that they are bankrupt because they have to pay alimony to a woman - where human dignity is involved.
Karan Thapar:But what your Act has done is to take trivial issues - that could happen quite innocently, inadvertently and turn them into offences and crimes.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t agree with you. We are saying, we are facilitating and setting up a legal framework where by we expect to…
Karan Thapar:A very bad legal framework, insufficient legal framework and an imprecise one.
Renuka Chowdhury: Please listen to me. Can I be allowed to talk or otherwise this is deemed as domestic violence, this is professional violence.
Karan Thapar: That’s the danger; you are proving my point.
Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.
Karan Thapar:A mere interruption becomes domestic violence.
Renuka Chowdhury:Interruption? This is an overrun! It is an interpretation of what is an interruption and verbal overrun.
Karan Thapar
on’t you think you are proving my point?
Renuka Chowdhury: You may think so, but let’s wait for what others think. But I want to tell you what I think. I think that if there is harmony within the house, there is nothing for anyone to fear. But if there is complete disharmony, where one partner is completely incapacitated, made to be dependent on another partner and they are harassed… you have no idea what harmony means.
Karan Thapar: That’s a biased statement which you are elevating into a principle of false philosophy. The reason that in fact it isn’t true is very simple: look at the range of people covered by your Act. It talks about aggrieved persons, and aggrieved persons are defined as any woman who is or has been in a domestic relationship. Then it defines domestic relationship as the relationship between two persons who live or have at any point of time lived together in a shared household.
Put them together and your Act covers not just wives, but wives who have been divorced, girlfriends who you have separated perhaps as long as a decade ago. Why are those included in the ambit of this Act?
Renuka Chowdhury: Why? Because, women even in those relationships have been harassed and held to ransom. There have been enough divorced women who have been divorced because of various reasons, and money is not returned.
Karan Thaparivorced women have a decree that is given by a court; an alimony that is given by a court; the divorce has been adjudicated; it is legal. There is no need for you to interfere.
Renuka Chowdhury: Fair enough. Let us assume there is no need for us to interfere.
Karan Thaparon’t assume, it’s a fact.
Renuka Chowdhury: Ok, if it’s a fact. But please tell me do you think a woman is given a divorce easily where a man doesn’t want (to give divorce). Go to the court and have a look.
Karan Thapar: When a divorce is given and granted by a court, there is no need to go further back in the picture. But you do.
Renuka Chowdhury: I tell you why we do it. If a man violates his custodial rights; if a man violates his restraint order; if after a divorce a husband keeps stalking me or harassing me; if a man turns up and smashes my windows - don’t you think that keeps happening, Mr Karan Thapar?
Karan Thapar:It may happen. But that’s not what your Act concentrates upon. Clause 3-C doesn’t just limit the ambit of the Act to former girlfriends you have separated from or former wives, it even talks about any person related to the aggrieved person. This means it’s not just the former girlfriend, arguably it’s her step-brother as well - this is becoming ridiculous at this stage. It means - let me interpret this for you - that a husband cannot threaten to verbally abuse. Note the words: just threaten to verbally abuse the step-brother of a former girlfriend who he parted with 10 years ago. That ambit is taking a major concern to a ridiculous extent.
The interview continues, and Karan Thapar demolishes whatever little is left of the act.
Did you know that 98% of the cases under a similar law, the Anti-Dowry law, are bogus and used by women to harass their husbands? 98%! Imagine how abused this particular law will be!
Threatening to call your ex-girlfriend's stepbrother an ass/idiot is now domestic violence! How much more ridiculous can this get!
But this being a Congress party government, they've botched it up, as usual.
Law comes into effect
Domestic Violence Act takes effect today
Special Correspondent
It also covers harassment of a woman by way of dowry demands
NEW DELHI: The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2006 comes into effect from Thursday, according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
Primarily meant to provide protection to the wife or a female live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband or the male live-in partner or his relatives, the law also extends its protection to mother, sisters and widows.
The Act covers abuse or threat of abuse, whether physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic. Harassment by way of unlawful dowry demands to a woman or her relatives also come under this definition.
The Ministry simultaneously issued another notification, which lays down the rules for the implementation of the Act.
They provide for, among other things, appointment of protection officers, service providers and counsellors.
Action to be taken in the event of a respondent breaching the protection order passed by a magistrate in favour of the aggrieved woman is also prescribed under the rules.
The Act seeks to cover those women who are or have been in a relationship with the abuser, where both parties have lived together in a shared household and are related by consanguinity, marriage or a relationship in the nature of marriage, or adoption, in addition relationship with family members living together as a joint family.
An important feature is a woman's right to secure housing. It provides for her right to reside in the matrimonial or shared household, whether or not she has any title or rights in the household.
This right is secured by a residence order, which is passed by a court.
The other relief envisaged is that of the power of the court to pass protection orders that prevent the abuser from aiding or committing an act or domestic violence or any other specified act, entering a workplace or any other place frequented by the abused, attempting to communicate with the abused, isolating any assets used by both the parties and causing violence to the abused, her relatives and others who provide her assistance from domestic violence.
The Minister within whose ministry's ambit this law falls was interviewed today by Karan Thapar, on a TV programme called "Devil's Advocate", where he mercilessly grills the interviewee.
The full text of the interview can be found here.
I'm quoting the first bit of the interview:
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. Will the UPA Government’s Domestic Violence Bill convert innocent husbands into offenders and criminals, and worse, will it empower motivated women to act viciously and get away with it? Those are the two key issues I should raise in an exclusive interview with the Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury.
Ms Chowdhury, let’s start with the definitions under this Act, which are so wide that they are worrying. To begin with, there is the whole question of what the Act means by domestic violence - it covers verbal abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse and anything that tends towards them. I put it to you, that’s so wide as to be either meaningless or dangerously self-embracing.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t know why you have to see it in two extremes. Why have you not ever noticed that women live in dangerously self-embracing situations? That it’s none of this, even if you see it as porosity in the Act or that the ambit is too wide. Please understand that women are burnt to death, beaten to insensibilities.
Karan Thapar:But the cure is not imprecision, the cure is not vagueness of legislation.
Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.
Karan Thapar:Let me explain why this Act is imprecise. For instance, emotional and verbal abuses are defined to include insults and ridicule. That means you can’t be sarcastic to your wife, it means you can’t call you brother-in-law an ass or a mother-in-law a nag even if both are those are correct. Surely, that’s a level of silliness, but it’s a part of your Bill.
Renuka Chowdhury: I want to tell you what you deem as silly is really not something that I have created today. Under the IPC section, speaking in a way that is denigrating to the status of women, which removes her from her dignity, is very much an Act under the IPC. So I don’t see what are you getting heated up about today.
Karan Thapar:But you are here interfering in normal conversation between two adults. As Soli Sorabjee writing in The Indian Express pointed out, you are reducing an important and serious issue to the level of silliness.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t think anything that happens to a women in the sense of her domestic violence can be termed as silly. It is over-trivialising and over-simplifying this Act. Please understand that despite all the checks, women are burnt, one in six women is raped, murdered, beaten to death, sent in to mental asylums. I don’t think that’s funny.
Karan Thapar: No doubt. But that’s not what your Act concentrates on. Look, for instance, at economic abuse. It is defined by the Act as deprivation of any economic or financial resource, which the aggrieved is entitled to by custom and it includes disposal of household effects. Under that language, if a husband was to sell the family television at a time when his marriage was going through a bad patch, it should be deemed to be domestic violence. Now, that’s ridiculous, but it is very much a part of the Act.
Renuka Chowdhury:Is it anymore ridiculous than the fact that well-to-do men suddenly turn around and claim that they have no money, that they are bankrupt because they have to pay alimony to a woman - where human dignity is involved.
Karan Thapar:But what your Act has done is to take trivial issues - that could happen quite innocently, inadvertently and turn them into offences and crimes.
Renuka Chowdhury: I don’t agree with you. We are saying, we are facilitating and setting up a legal framework where by we expect to…
Karan Thapar:A very bad legal framework, insufficient legal framework and an imprecise one.
Renuka Chowdhury: Please listen to me. Can I be allowed to talk or otherwise this is deemed as domestic violence, this is professional violence.
Karan Thapar: That’s the danger; you are proving my point.
Renuka Chowdhury:Absolutely.
Karan Thapar:A mere interruption becomes domestic violence.
Renuka Chowdhury:Interruption? This is an overrun! It is an interpretation of what is an interruption and verbal overrun.
Karan Thapar
on’t you think you are proving my point?Renuka Chowdhury: You may think so, but let’s wait for what others think. But I want to tell you what I think. I think that if there is harmony within the house, there is nothing for anyone to fear. But if there is complete disharmony, where one partner is completely incapacitated, made to be dependent on another partner and they are harassed… you have no idea what harmony means.
Karan Thapar: That’s a biased statement which you are elevating into a principle of false philosophy. The reason that in fact it isn’t true is very simple: look at the range of people covered by your Act. It talks about aggrieved persons, and aggrieved persons are defined as any woman who is or has been in a domestic relationship. Then it defines domestic relationship as the relationship between two persons who live or have at any point of time lived together in a shared household.
Put them together and your Act covers not just wives, but wives who have been divorced, girlfriends who you have separated perhaps as long as a decade ago. Why are those included in the ambit of this Act?
Renuka Chowdhury: Why? Because, women even in those relationships have been harassed and held to ransom. There have been enough divorced women who have been divorced because of various reasons, and money is not returned.
Karan Thapar
ivorced women have a decree that is given by a court; an alimony that is given by a court; the divorce has been adjudicated; it is legal. There is no need for you to interfere.Renuka Chowdhury: Fair enough. Let us assume there is no need for us to interfere.
Karan Thapar
on’t assume, it’s a fact.Renuka Chowdhury: Ok, if it’s a fact. But please tell me do you think a woman is given a divorce easily where a man doesn’t want (to give divorce). Go to the court and have a look.
Karan Thapar: When a divorce is given and granted by a court, there is no need to go further back in the picture. But you do.
Renuka Chowdhury: I tell you why we do it. If a man violates his custodial rights; if a man violates his restraint order; if after a divorce a husband keeps stalking me or harassing me; if a man turns up and smashes my windows - don’t you think that keeps happening, Mr Karan Thapar?
Karan Thapar:It may happen. But that’s not what your Act concentrates upon. Clause 3-C doesn’t just limit the ambit of the Act to former girlfriends you have separated from or former wives, it even talks about any person related to the aggrieved person. This means it’s not just the former girlfriend, arguably it’s her step-brother as well - this is becoming ridiculous at this stage. It means - let me interpret this for you - that a husband cannot threaten to verbally abuse. Note the words: just threaten to verbally abuse the step-brother of a former girlfriend who he parted with 10 years ago. That ambit is taking a major concern to a ridiculous extent.
Did you know that 98% of the cases under a similar law, the Anti-Dowry law, are bogus and used by women to harass their husbands? 98%! Imagine how abused this particular law will be!
Threatening to call your ex-girlfriend's stepbrother an ass/idiot is now domestic violence! How much more ridiculous can this get!
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