Answer:

The gravest issue which has confronted the Indian society over the years is the violent order against women. "Violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women" and that "violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men". These include violence carried out by ‘individuals’ as well as ‘states.’

It has got manifested in the form of rape; domestic violence; sexual harassment; coercive use of contraceptives; female infanticide; prenatal sex selection; as well as harmful customary or traditional practices such as honor killings, dowry violence, female genital mutilation, marriage by abduction and forced marriage.

Some forms of violence are perpetrated or condoned by the state such as war rape; sexual violence and sexual slavery during conflict; forced sterilization; forced abortion; violence by the police and authoritative personnel; stoning and flogging. Many forms of violence such as trafficking in women and forced prostitution are often perpetrated by organized criminal networks.

In Indian context, past year has seen a much delayed yet needed discussion on women security & related issues in the civil society, media & legal domain which fuelled the establishment of Justice Verma committee, the passage of sexual harassment at workplace bill and a proactive supreme court taking up gender related issues in a big way. Yet, the paradoxical finding has been a study in 2011 conducted by the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) on gender attitudes which showed that 68 per cent of the Indian men surveyed agreed that women should tolerate violence to keep their families together, while 65 per cent believed that sometimes a woman deserves to be beaten. The most interesting finding from the study was this one — 92 per cent of those surveyed knew of the laws pertaining to violence against women. The figure quoted above tells us that legislation alone is not going to stop violence against women from occurring.

This apparent paradox of expanding legal rights on one hand& a backlash from a society can be seen either in the form of either poorly formulated or poorly implemented laws dealing with gender related issues in India, whether it is the case of laws relating to foetal sex determination or the poor conviction rate in rape cases or the persistence and thriving of Khap Panchayats in rural areas despite the Supreme Court describing them as unconstitutional and illegal; lack of adequate institutional mechanism to ensure its implementation, lack of awareness amongst the women about their rights.

However this ‘apparent paradox’ has a simple logical explanation- the deeply patriarchal nature of society which legitimises the use of violence to discipline women.

The hegemony of this parochial mind-set and lack of gender sensitivity, which can be seen in the fact that some degree of violence against women is considered as both necessary and desirable not only by males but also by females in Indian society. The gross under reportage of violence related cases against women in India is a result of this basic fact.

Against this backdrop of a patriarchal society, the state passes some progressive laws but lacks the capacity to effectively implement them because the vital political will is missing in the first place. Secondly “The Law decides the direction in which society might go, it is the culture and family which decides the direction in which the society actually goes”. Hence it’s the failure on the part of institutions such as education system, family values and norms etc. to deal with the menace of the violence against women.

The only way out of this trap is to bring the society out of the cultural inertia which has adversely affected the supposedly progressive laws to fight the violent order at all its stages: formulation, implementation, evaluation.

Perhaps a good point to start is by providing reservation to women in the legislative bodies so that instead of viewing women in development, we ensure women and development.