Conflict in the Shared Household: Domestic Violence and the Law in India

Lawyers Collective, Women’s Rights Initiative, prepared a draft law—The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA)—in consultation with women’s groups from across the country to ensure emergency relief to women facing domestic violence. This law was passed by the Indian Parliament in 2005 and was brought in force by the government on 26 October 2006.

Conflict in the Shared Household takes stock of the progress made towards achieving the objectives of the PWDVA during the first decade of its implementation. It examines the nature of structural inequality that perpetuates and condones domestic violence as a lesser ‘wrong’ and traces the history of the fight against domestic violence in India, focusing on legislative developments and themes relating to state accountability in terms of providing a supportive framework.

The essays discuss critical issues such as right to residence, marital rape, rights of cohabitees or relationship in the nature of marriage, secular nature of the PWDVA, and its harmonious existence with personal law and criminal law. The volume also covers areas where the PWDVA has been successful in providing protection alongside challenges yet to be overcome, such as the response mechanisms and budgetary constraints in its implementation.

List of Tables and Figures

Foreword by Prabha Sridevan

Acknowledgements

Section I: Causes and Consequences

1. Unscrambling the Images: Conflict in the Shared Household

    Indira Jaising

2. Some Thoughts on Domestic Violence: Using Violence to Regulate a Patriarchal Family

    Uma Chakravarti

3. Mapping Legislative Changes

    Asmita Basu

Section II: Critical Issues

4. ‘But … Where Will I Live?’: Domestic Violence and the Right to Reside

     Pinki Mathur Anurag

5. Of ‘Keeps’ and ‘Concubines’: Rights of Cohabitees under Domestic Violence Act

    Brototi Dutta

6. Marital Rape As Domestic Violence: A Case for Criminalizing Marital Rape

    Ajita Sharma

7. Towards Uniformity of Rights: Muslim Personal Law, the Domestic Violence Act, and the Harmonization of

    Family Law in India

    Saptarshi Mandal

Section III: Expectations from the Law and Its Enforcement

8. Analysing Orders Granted under the PWDVA, 2005

    Aparna Chandra

9. Long Road to Justice: Implementation of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005) in Haryana

    Monica Sakhrani, Trupti Jhaveri Panchal, Radhika Chakraborty, and Manisha Kande

10. Nature of Services Available to Women Survivors: One Stop Crisis Centres—Review and Recommendations

      Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Sangeeta Rege

11. Changing Contours of Fiscal Policy and Budgets to Address Violence against Women: An Analysis of Two States

      Kanika Kaul

Notes on the Editors and Contributors

Index