Dealing with Domestic Violence towards Complicating the Rights Discourse

The discourse on domestic violence in India is animated by the language of rights and empowerment in which domestic violence is seen as the condition that needs to be overcome. It imagines the women facing violence as would-be citizen-subjects, who can actualise their right against violence once the law and institutions are set in order. Inadequate institutionalisation of right against violence and inadequate individuation of women are understood to be the major problems here. In this article, we problematise these two assumptions by taking a close look at women’s interface with public institutions in the context of domestic violence. One, we point to the resources women need to mobilise in the family and community to actualise their right against this violence; two we argue that institutionalisation of this right has led to women being subject to governmental mode of power and three, we discuss the actual deployment of this right in everyday activism as a political goal, than a guarantee against violence. We suggest that a critical consideration of the working of this ‘right’ is required to understand the changing contours of women’s battles with this violence in the post-1990 period.