This contribution is an attempt to contextualize the recently released NCRB data on violence against women in the form of “cruelty by husband”. In its annual report for 2023, the bureau revealed a concerning trend on crimes against women with 448,211 reported cases of crimes against women- a small rise from 445,256 cases in 2022, although consistent. The national crime rate was 66.2 incidents per lakh female population, based on mid-year projections of 67.7 crore females. The overall charge-sheeting rate for these cases was at 77.6 percent. Cruelty by husband or relatives (Section 498A IPC) made for the largest share with 133,676 cases (29.8 per cent). Additionally, there were 6,156 dowry deaths, 4,825 cases of abetment to suicide, and 8,823 instances of insult to modesty.
In other news, in a family law matter, the Chhattisgarh High court reaffirmed the archaic narrative that a wife's conduct of repeatedly pressuring her husband to abandon his parents amounted to mental cruelty. The bench comprising of Justice Rajani Dubey and Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad also observed that such conduct underscores mental cruelty, particularly in the context of “Indian joint family values”, where compelling a spouse to forsake his parents is held as cruelty. There have been multiple case laws under various jurisdictions where women's urge to have an independent marital home was treated as a conduct of cruelty. This kind of legal patterns coexist in an ecosystem of Indian family laws where a woman could often be pressurised by their husbands into returning to abusive homes through “restitution of conjugal rights”, although the right exists for both husband and wife. These patterns and courts' pro-traditional familial positionalities like the Chhattisgarh HC's make sure that women have least mobility, voice or agency while being within an abusive marital space or situation- a space or situation in form of domestic household that essentially runs off women's physical, emotional and reproductive unpaid labour. A National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 2019-2021, report reveals that 29.3 per cent of married Indian women between the ages of 18 and 49 have experienced domestic/sexual violence while 3.1 per cent of pregnant women aged 18 to 49 have suffered physical violence during their pregnancy. The case matter in the writ petition filed in 2019 challenging the constitutionality of restitution of conjugal rights, in Ojaswa Pathak v. Union of India is still ongoing and is being seen as an avenue of challenging the notions of “moral sanctity of marriages” as opposed to individual autonomy.
Cut to- the growing and ever so expanding culture of “manosphere”, both in India and globally- where men are writing, rather, podcasting their accounts of being the victims of feminism, “women victimising them with their discriminatory laws” and how modern-day women are digressing from their biological and “natural” roles. Men are being told through digital chambers to reaffirm their hegemonic masculinities and recall their “alpha” roles in the society. But toxic masculinity is not limited to fringe online subcultures but is entangled with longstanding hierarchies of caste, religion, and gender in a country like India. This subculture has very much shaped, propelled and facilitated the never-ending culture of violence against women and members of the LBTQA+ communities. It is, we are afraid, only going to get worse with the next NCRB reports on crimes against women, if it is not contained timely. Complicit are also the influencers who have been earning fortunes out of performances based out of a so-called ideal everyday life of morals-abiding homemakers whose primary duties are cooking, feeding and maintaining household.
For crime rates rooted in domestic marital spaces to not escalate, the society must pause and review the ongoing contexts and cultural politics at work that are unfortunately providing a breeding ground for misogyny and violence leading to crimes against women. These are questions not just for law makers but also for the state, political parties and cultural stakeholders to watch and reprise themselves of, if they really care about women.
Author is Assistant Professor, School of Law, UPES, Dehradun, India.
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