A Research of Atrocities against Women in Indian Modern Society: A Sociological Study

One of the important concerns of the activists of the area of women's issues and the academics world over has been to understand the cause of women's subordination. Both activists and academics agree that women at present have a lower status than men; that socially, economically and politically women are discriminated against and this state of affairs is unfair-injustice and must be changed. An analysis of the origin of subordinate status of women; why the lower status has still persisted; what strategies are to be devised to end this subordination and such queries are most relevant today; in spite of hundred percent literacy (?) and increased rate of women education, atrocities against women have become the most serious social evil of the contemporary society. If though literate (the effect of which is statistical data but not in practical day to day life) common women of the very social reality are unaware of the dynamic concept of equality of sexes which the Indian constitution guarantees. Few women of those who are aware use the law to fight back, they being traditionally oppressed and serve in all social institutions (like family, caste, community, religion, politics, etc.,) subjugated to man. Despite the promises of legislative favours the identities like women, Dalit and Tribal etc., experience discriminations involving cultural resources in forms subtler than that the commonsense can grasp. The relevance of knowing how the social structure reproduces such forms of discrimination is only proportional to the urgency of resisting such discriminations. Atrocities towards (and against) women are forms of oppression hindering the development of women and thereby resulting in gender injustice, this being ideologically supported by a value system, which is androcentric and gender insensitive. Deepening inequalities and struggles by the oppressed section to assert their rights (granted under democracy) have unleashed retaliations by the more privileged and, women situated as they are in the social matrix as non-free, dependent subjectivities, become specially affected ones. family, community, politics, religion, or any walk of life. If though law provides formal equality and property rights, cultural norms are against the decisive role of women at the time of sharing of properties. Interconnectedness of the property rights and the personal laws (whether it be of Hindu, Muslim or Christian) plays an anti-women role. It is clear that rules, positions, prestige and property are with men and norms, regulations and proper behaviour, obedient character are for women in a social system which is male-oriented and male-determined. Democratic rights, granted in principle, are nullified by the social institutions where women have subordinate status. The processes of development have increasingly separated the public from the private and has enlarged the public sphere with more formal institutions as against the earlier less formal community, caste, neighbourhood institutions. Public institutions often provide scope for women, for example law, to escape from traditional constraints. However access to formal institutions is limited for women and the ideologies of many public institutions themselves reinforce traditional subordination. Hence women are restricted from utilizing the facilities democracy offer and once again they become more cribbed and confined to the dark interiors of the whole society. "Both in its day-to- day conduct and in its enduring structures the social life today shows a staggering indifference to matters related to the protection of rights and securing of duties. Justice in social affairs is the harmonious blending of rights and duties of the concerned human agents and also the guarantee that no one is made underprivileged by this orchestration, i.e., no person or position enjoys advantage at the cost of the other. In this sense justice permeates the body of most of the human social institutions. Yet they hardly figure among the rights whose protection is guaranteed by the constitution. These rights sometimes receive articulations through social revolutions and political struggles. But most often they lie indistinct, muffled by the voice of common sense that is eagerly nurtured by our media establishment and cultural leadership….…. The question of justice deserves special attention in today's socioeconomic circumstance. Planning and development activities push greater and greater number of social groups to the margins. They are victims of collective forgetfulness. At a time when these groups begin to break their silence and assert themselves, it is only relevant and significant to inquire into the nature of this forgetfulness and consider the question of justice it raises, while pledging solidarity. Only a systematic research into the working of the social institutions, i.e., their modality and structure, can reveal in the figure of social life the rights and duties of its participants. The real forms that sustain and is sustained by the commonsense”. Atrocity is an act, which accompanies force, committed to prove or feel a sense of the force, which provokes or questions the values and feelings one treasure for the whole life, it is the violation of the guarantee that no one is underprivileged or disadvantaged by the orchestration of the harmonious blending of rights and duties of the human agents involved. The aim of atrocity is to induce the underprivileged sections to comply with the wishes of the more privileged, thereby. Any individual or group facing the threat of coercion or being disciplined to act in a manner required by another individual or group is subject to violence. This is not necessarily confined to physical violence by the creation of an atmosphere of terror, a situation of threat and reprisal. The concept of gender is constructed by and through humans that is socially effective as the division between female and male, which is deeply woven into the organization of institutions and everyday life. In the social arena the effect of which is that, it is not just a division but an asymmetry with men having more power and status. 'Gender' is not natural and it can be understood as the set of meanings, expectations and roles that a particular society ascribes to sex (sex is only the biological dichotomy between male and female, chromosomally determined and for the most part unalterable, nothing more than that). It is the socio-cultural make up and the human beings who internalize the same through socialization that recognize these situations as masculine and feminine characteristics – which are ascribed ones. Gender is a construct that can be clearly seen in the day-to-day human life realities. But as and when we try to disentangle the life situations it leaves behind so many complexities that construct and reconstruct the very human life. The concept that gender is constructed through self- reflexivity and it becomes effective only through the social, tempts us to analytically examine the arenas like gender- based roles, gender- relations, self, identity, the social, gender perceptions etc. Common sensually gender is understood as the division between man and woman, based on the bearing of their body at the time of their Janmam/Jananam, i.e. at the time of birth, human bodies having the male sex organs are commonly considered as males and those having female sex organs are considered females. But the process of gendering is something more than that and once named male/female it works almost independently of the bodies to which it belong. In all spaces such as that of socialization of children, social positioning, experiences, conceptual formations and cultural mediations it is tactile and present. Through the cyclic

human being has a role in the process of defining it's self. But it doesn't mean that the very same body is there in the definition of itself. The same can be applicable to gender also. I.e. the sexual appearance of a human body plays its part in the process of defining the gender. But it need not have any role in the definition of gender, the thereby social structuration, and legitimating of patriarchy. This shows that once constructed gender works independently of the sex. In effect, this constructs and reconstructs gender disparity creating social spaces of domination and prestige for men and the subordinate roles for women resulting in reinforcing & reifying the structural properties of the social and the patriarchal system thereby. Though it is structured in a peculiar way gender is determined not in an ultimately unchangeable & unquestionable manner. Perhaps, men and women who go through experience& thereby creates the upper and lower stratifications of being masculine & feminine may have the belief that it is quite natural and normal. The condition that they accept it without even an iota of doubt in turn becomes the basement for strengthening the gender disparity. The concepts of 'what a woman and what a man is' are historically contingent. Man – Woman relationship is a tacit contract, which should be equally advantageous to both. In whatever situation woman or man is socially constructed, in this contract, this ethics (of course, evolved through history) is of importance, in each and every actions and interaction. Man – Woman relationship is not unjust in itself. The institution of it may be unjust. To make the meaning of justice comprehensive equality is an important notion. If two are considered equals unjust treatment of one to the other creates crisis. Then it needs raising the question – what is justice. The constitution promises formal equality to man and woman but the structure and functions of the society through its institutions norms values and etc., is in a peculiar way that man is getting the privileges and advantages and woman is underprivileged and disadvantaged. There starts the enquiry – what is gender justice. This enquiry takes us to terms like patriarchy, discrimination, sexual division of labour and so on. Any hierarchical system of dominance and subordination victimizes the weaker sections and the victimizations can vary from subtle pressures and through the power of ideology and socialization or open brutal oppressions. Male violence against women is a worldwide phenomenon. Although not every woman has experienced it, and many expect not to, fear of cause of women‟s lack of participation in activities beyond the home, as well as inside it. Within the home, women and girls may be subjected to physical and sexual abuse as punishment or as culturally justified assaults. These acts shape their attitude to life, and their expectations of themselves There are various forms of crime against women. Sometimes, it begins even before their birth, sometimes in the adulthood and other phrases of life. In the Indian society, the position of women is always perceived in relation to the man, from birth onwards and at every stage of life, she is dependent on him. This perception has given birth to various social customs and practices. One important manifestation of these customs and practices has been that of Sati. It is seen as a pinnacle of achievement for a woman. This custom of self-immolation of the widow on her husband‟s pyre was an age-old practice in some parts of the counter, which received deification. The popular belief ran that the goddess enters into the body of the woman who resolves to become a sati. The practice of sati has been abolished by law with the initiative of Raja Ram Mohan Roy in the early decades of nineteenth century. However, there has been a significant revival of the practice of sati in the last few decades. Indeed, Rajasthan has been the focal point for this practice in recent years. Violence against women both inside and outside of their home has been a crucial issue in the contemporary Indian society. Women in India constitute near about half of its population and most of them are grinding under the socio-cultural and religious structures. One gender has been controlling the space of the India‟s social economic, political and religious fabric since time immemorial. The condition of widows is one of the most neglected social issues in India. Because of widowhood the quality of life is lowered for many Indian women. Three percent of all Indian women are widows and on an average, mortality rate is 86 percent higher among elderly widows in comparison to married women of the same age group. Various studies indicated that (i) legal rights of widows are violated, (ii) they suffer forceful social isolation (iii) they have limited freedom to marry (iv) restrictive employment opportunities for widows, (v) most widows get little economic support from their family or from the community. It is common to read news about violation or wrongs committed on women every day. Our orthodox society is so much prejudiced by age-old habits and customs that a violated woman, whether she is forced or helpless, has no place in the society. minutes a crime is committed against women in India. Every 26 minutes a woman is molested. Every 34 minutes a rape takes place. Every 42 minutes a sexual harassment incident occurs. Every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped. And every 93 minutes a woman is burnt to death over dowry. One-quarter of the reported rapes involve girls under the age of 16 but the vast majority are never reported. Although the penalty is severe, convictions are rare.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Atrocities against women spring from multifaceted factors of socio-cultural, political economic (and in turn physical and psychological) perceptions of the social system, regarding women‟s place and role. The social system in turn is conceived, perceived and perpetuated by the very human beings, who are differentiated into categories of women and men, self reflexively. The effectiveness of knitting these genders is purely social and it can be transformed only through the reflexive intervention of the interacting agents. The fundamental problem about any atrocity against women, is that it becomes a “crime” in the conventional socio-legal definitions of it, only when it is “reported” The very thought of atrocity mirrors a multitude of images from everyday life situations - a shivering 12 year old girl rounded by a group of eve-teasers, a girl (of any age) manhandled by a brother or father within the dark interiors of her own „home‟. Pale face of an everyday - battered wife, sufferings of a teen age - rape victim. Women passengers of public vehicles being harassed, moreover the „bride‟ standing head-downward in front of her “owner” - head to foot decorated - in a marriage etc. “An overview of violence against women” presented in the summer school of women studies held at Hyderabad (1996) suggests that “Violence is an act of aggression, usually in interpersonal interaction or relations”. It can be an “aggression against self - such as suicide, self-mutilation, negligence of ailments, Sex determinations tests leading to amniocentesis, food denial & so on. It suggests that „violence brings into question the concept of boundary maintenance‟ and a sense of self as well as perception of another‟s autonomy & identity. It implies that when the body - and indeed the self - is vulnerable to violation, individuals have a very different notion of “what is one‟s body and what is done to one‟s body. Indian scholars in women‟s studies have emphasized the dynamics of power and powerlessness involved in a „violent‟ act. According to such academics it is a coercive mechanism “to assert ones will over another, to prove or to feel a sense of power”. It can be perpetuated by those in power against the powerless or by the powerless in retaliation against coercion by others to deny their powerlessness. Going further Goving Kelkar situates violence against women “in the

Becker‟s (2005) model of effort allocation implies that an hour of a man‟s time produces more of value to an employer than an hour of equally skilled and experienced women who has greater responsibilities. This in true influences both employer‟s treatment of equally capable male and female employees and worker‟s subsequent decisions about investing time and energy in household versus market-work. The model implies that small initial disadvantages faced by women in the work-place can lead to extreme results in the division of labour in the household, occupational segregation and earning difference. Even a small amount of discrimination against women in the work place gives men a comparative advantage in market work. Likewise a small “natural” advantage in child–care activities gives women an advantage in household work. Kalarani (2005) her classified motivations behind the decision to work as monetary, social and personal factors. For the first preference she has assigned a score of 3, for the second preference 2, and for the third preference one. Her analysis shows that among the purposes „making use of education‟ ranks first followed by „job as an engagement for spare time‟, „Supplementing husband‟s income‟ and „to raise economic status‟ occupies the third rank. „Gross necessity‟ occupies the fourth rank and „to have independent income‟ the last rank. She has proved that there is correlation between age and motivation and education and motivation. Lalilthadevi (2006) points out that the need for extra income for family coupled with the demand for labour from industry is the greatest incentive for female workers. The availability of gadgets make household work light and less time consuming and enable women to work. Myrdal and klein (2006) conducted an international survey on behalf of the International Labour Office about the motivational forces. According to it, women work due to economic needs on the one hand and due to national necessity for increased production on the other hand. They further continue to state that a sense of vocation influences the desire of women to continue their work after marriage and some are inspired by the feeling of social responsibility and so they continue to be in labour force. In a study conducted by Kaur and Punia (2008) about working women of Hissar District of Haryana, it is observed that most of the working women apt for job

have independent income (9 percent) and the remaining due to miscellaneous motives. According to Franca Akarippadathu (2009) few allocation for socio-economic and sanitation is very low and during some years nothing is spent under this head. The amount is to be spent for starting new dispensaries and strengthening the old ones. For example in Kannampady only 5 families have san-itaries, toilets. The information they receive about it is mostly from radio. Further enquiries reveal that either husband or wife under mutual agreement take recourse to some permanent method of family planning to prevent another pregnancy. They generally go for it after the second child. Women work has remained a much researched debated area. The underlying assumption in arguments for women‟s employment is that economic independence is the first pre-requisite to moving towards gender equality. The concept viewed in the context of opportunity in employment on the board spectrum of women‟s employment at one and are women working all and paid jobs and other end are higher professional women works.

EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN IN INDIA

Incidences like sexual abuse by near relatives, co-habitation with near or dear friends and subsequent decline of marriages and issues relating to illegal pregnancy etc. are the real fact, the information of which remains mostly in darkness. In addition, girl students molested by teachers or repeated sexual abuse by antisocial activists are also an unfortunate reality. Women exploitation in the form of physical and mental torture on wives by husband is also common, mostly where women are simply a house wife and not associated with any employment. As a result, they are compelled to keep their head down in a speechless manner tolerating the cruelty of their husband helplessly. This ultimately makes them mentally disordered for which they often take the shelter of suicide or other means of malpractices that result very disgrace social, moral, ethical, and after all economic support to them. With the passage of time, days and society, there are a lot of movements relating to this exploitation of women but still men are forward in status as compared to women and Indian society is male dominated where female are being exploited spatially. According to Purana , there was violence against women in ancient India, but there was strong punishment for that offence irrespective of caste (Das, 1990). However, some main aspects of such exploitation may be highlighted as following society 3) Trafficking of women 4) Violence against women Exploitation of women are various forms and different natures. It include crimes involving sexual exploitation for economic gains like prostitution & trafficking, adultery, abduction, rape, wrongful confinement, and murder etc on the one hand and crimes related to women's property like dishonest misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, domestic violence, dowry extortion and outraging the modesty of women etc on the other. These crimes are not only injurious and immoral for the women but for the society as a whole. Domestic Violence: In Indian family the man is the master and women is the inferior and subordinate partner and societal pressure force women to maintain this status quo. Wife beating is the most prevalent form of violence against women in the Indian society and it is viewed as a general problem of domestic discord. Female Infanticide and Feticide: This is playing a significant role in lop sided sex ratio in India. Poor families in certain regions of the country sometimes resort to killing baby girls at birth, to avoid an unwanted burden on family resources. Sex selective abortion has also been common in the country. It's dangerous to abort the foetus after 18 weeks of pregnancy and quiet harmful for mother too at such a late stage. Dowry : The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 marks the first attempt by the Government of India to recognize dowry as a social evil and to curb its practice. The act was modified with the Dowry Prohibition Amendment Act of 1984, which has again been modified with Dowry Prohibition Bill 1986. Women's organization have played key role in this process of change. The 1961 Act define dowry and makes the practice of dowry-giving and taking, a punishable offence. Dowry is one of those social evils that no educated woman will own up with pride; still many are adhering to it. Practices of dowry tend to subordinate women in the society.

Atrocities against women, identified by the researcher through the review of literature and the secondary data are mainly the following: 1. Rape – a violation of female's integrity and dignity as a person by forced sexual 2. Dowry 3. Dowry tortures and dowry death 4. Seeing female body as a sex object 5. Sexual Harassment: Assault or unwelcome behaviour (whether direct or by implication) as (a) physical contact of advances (b) a demand for sexual favours (c) sexually coloured remarks (d) showing pornography (e) tempting to engage in prostitution, (f) pornographic films, web sites, advertisements, printed, audio, video, etc., and so on; the list never ends… 6. Domestic violence 7. Female child labour (organised, unorganized sectors and domestic Labour. 8. Sexual division of labour 9. Subordinate marital status: wife beating, looking down upon females, etc., 10. Any unwanted sexual experience or mental trauma experienced by women (at any age), that might have remained never disclosed. 11. Female infanticide 12. Suicides (reported to be) and murders of mothers and children (single and gang) 13. Kidnapping and abduction 14. Denial of opportunities – just for being females

Dalit women due to their socio, economic and political vulnerability have been exposed to multiple forms of violence throughout history. They face caste and gender based violence and discrimination as they are placed at the lowest strata of caste, gender and class hierarchies. In India, though we have constitutional and legislative safeguards to protect dalit women from discrimination and violence, they have been ineffective due to the deep rooted caste and gender biases within the enforcement agencies. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in its Concluding Comments on India noted concern about “the ongoing atrocities committed against Dalit women and the culture of impunity for perpetrators of such atrocities”1. It also calls upon the State party to increase Dalit women‟s legal literacy and improve their access to justice in bringing claims of discrimination and violation of rights. and atrocities from the caste system. They are extremely vulnerable as they have been socially excluded, denied access to resources and they lack effective political participation. They form the majority of the landless agricultural labor and the unorganized labour which forces them to be insecure and dependent on the dominant castes who are socially and economically powerful. Within the dalit community, Dalit women face more burdens due to caste and gender discrimination. Dalit women are subjected to systematic oppression and structural violence both from the general community and from within their own community and their families. Atrocities and violence against dalit women are used as means to reinforce this systemic caste and gender discrimination as well as to punish them when they challenge caste and gender norms. Since 2005, EVIDENCE has been involved in over 253 cases of violence against Dalit women. Observation of these cases shows that more than 70% of atrocities are committed as these women tried to assert their rights and challenge caste and gender norms2 . Violence is used to curb the assertion of the rights of dalit women in particular and of the community in general. Their socio-economic vulnerability combined with being a woman and Dalit also increase the incidence of violence on them. Research studies and other available data prove that violence against dalit women is on rise3. But the lesser number of registered cases and low level of conviction rates assert the fact that dalit women are denied access to justice when they face violence. Due to social sanction and the impunity that the perpetrators enjoy dalit women become more vulnerable to violence. For Dalit women who have suffered the multiple oppressions of caste, class and gender since birth, after facing the violence and its adverse effects on her and her family, it would really be a challenge and struggle for while seeking justice. Various factors act as obstacles to their access to justice. They would be influenced, pressurized, blocked, intimidated, stigmatized and revictimised. If they still take up the struggle for justice, it would really be a difficult path that they have to travel. The process of criminal justice starts with the registration of information about the violence by the police and ends with the judgement by the courts – to punish the accused and provide compensation to the affected.

Atrocity is an act which accompanies force, committed to prove or feel a sense of force, which provokes or

orchestration of the harmonious blending of rights and duties of the human agents involved. The aim of atrocity is to induce the underprivileged sections to comply with the wishes of the more privileged, thereby.

The independent and dependent variables considered in this study are explained below. The method of measuring them is also described

Gender justice is the dependent variable in this study. To understand the same, moments of injustice happening in terms of atrocities against women are enquired and analyzed. Measurement of the dependent variable is done taking the following major indices. a. Atrocious interventions in the lives of women by the male beings, which affect women's social and special mobility. b. Lack of freedom for women for economic activities c. Absence of the access to property d. Compulsion through the traditional roles and social institutions like marriage and family e. Lack of gender sensitive facilitating centres f. Lack of scientific sex education g. Lack of the self-actualization of women.

a) Gender: is the self-reflexively constructed and socially maintained set of meanings expectations and roles that a particular society and the human beings there in ascribes to sex which once defined acts mostly independently of the sex of the human being concerned. i.e., the ascribed state of being masculine and feminine. b) Age: The number of years completed by the respondent in his/her life since birth is considered as the age of the respondent. For doing the Survey, the second part of the research, four age groups were coined as those from 18-30; 30-40; 40-50; & 50 and above. include people of Hindu, Muslim and Christian religions. Christians are comparatively less as per the records.

e) Marital status: The respondents considered for the survey are categorized as married and unmarried.

1. The reported cases received from the FIR index of police station. 2. Deep interviews of 50 affected beings based on the reported cases. 3. Survey of 50 male and 50 female respondents selected at random.

The major tools of data collection used in this study are questionnaire for the survey and interview guide of unstructured questions as the situation demanded. Affected beings of the 50 cases were deep interviewed at their residence after establishing rapport with them. The survey and deep interviews helped us to have a systematic communication with the public, making our interaction more close and cordial.

Though the status of women in India, both historically and socially, has been one of the respect and reverence, but the hard truth is that even today, they are struggling for their own identity, shouting for diffusion of their voices and fighting for their own esteem. Every day, they cross among the fears and fraught for individuality. Despite the constitutional guarantee of equality of sexes, rampant discrimination and exploitation of women in India continues. The incidence of dowry deaths, woman sexual harassment, molestation and ill-treatment of women are on increase. It is high time now that women should get a respectable and dignified position in the Indian society. connection between the acts of aggression and the commonsense is so complex and intertwined that dismantling one from the other makes both muffled. The social properties, legitimized by and through the dominant ideology of patriarchy, interactions of the beings therein and thereby, commonsense, and atrocities against women, all these make the research situation more complex. This study helps us to conclude that events of atrocities against women are also the effects of the breeding, socialization and enculturation of children – both girl and boy in such a way that men are trained and taught to have masculine ascriptions, of dominating over women who are brought up so as to be subservient to men, which is counted among feminine characteristics. These add to the making of the mentality of human beings. Here social effectiveness of people is in such a way that the sexist social properties, reinforced and reproduced through social institutions, such as family, religion, education, sate, etc., maintaining the traditional social arrangements thereby. Atrocities against women whether it be acted out in the domestic atmosphere or any of the other social spaces, is considered commonsensically, reward able and “beating” women is regarded as part of “guardianship” of males.

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Associate Professor, Department Of Sociology, BSA College, Mathura