The United Nations’ call to observe November 25 as an International Day for “Elimination of Violence against Women” has got wide media coverage after the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, presented a chilling fact sheet that across the world every 11 minutes a woman or a girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member. He called violence against women and girls as the most pervasive human rights violation in the world. Domestic violence is an undeclared war against women which has taken more victims through the years than any conventional war. So-called developed countries, which are the epicenters of capitalism, hold the worst record according to country-wise data available on the UN website. In India the situation is grave. On average, every day the National Crime Bureau 2021 reports that 86 women are raped and whose cases are registered. Every hour there are 49 offenses committed against women registered under the IPC, every day on average 18 women lose their lives in dowry-related domestic violence— 6,589 dowry deaths registered in a single year. The National Family Health Survey- 5 shows that one-third of all women surveyed said they had faced domestic or sexual violence.
These are statistics that should make any country hang its head in shame. But in India, there has not been a single word from the government. Some people have described this as a pandemic— in fact, violence against women has become endemic in our social systems. Dalit women face the worst kind of violence inflicted by aggressive casteist practices. One of the causes is that perpetrators of violence have immunity granted to them by a casteist and patriarchal system due to which 75 percent of perpetrators of violence against women remain unpunished. This low rate of conviction is directly a result of biased investigations by the police, long delays in the court system, and social pressures on the survivors of violence to compromise. Cultures that normalise domestic violence have got new life under the present regime with the promotion of notions of the ideal woman as one who adjusts to violence by her husband or his relatives as part of the way a good woman behaves. The refusal of the government to recognise marital rape as a criminal offence on grounds that it would be disruptive to the family is a reflection of that mentality. This manuwadi culture is a big barrier to democratizing family relations and protecting women’s equality.
Capitalism and its social structures have supported and helped patriarchal notions and practices to grow across the world, based on a social and cultural system that promotes the subordinate status of women to exploit cheap female labour. It is on this fundamental basis that women across the capitalist world face discrimination and violence, some more than others. In India, the misogyny and patriarchal values that prevail are being reinforced by the open advocacy of manusmriti and caste hierarchies by the right-wing Hindutva forces. This in turn strengthens the forces in the minority communities who enforce further subordination of women. The struggle to defend the rights of women guaranteed in the constitution and to enforce the laws against violence against women must be waged with renewed vigor. The Left and democratic forces must make this an important part of their ongoing platform of action.
