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Indian Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act: Stumbling
or Striving Ahead?
By
Tulika Saxena
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian
National University.
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Declaration
I, Tulika Saxena, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of Politics and International
Relations of the Research School of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Social
Sciences, Australian National University, is wholly my own work unless otherwise
referenced or acknowledged. This thesis has not been submitted for qualifications at
any other academic institution.
© August 2015 Tulika Saxena
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Acknowledgments
Completing my PhD thesis has been a long journey, thankfully, I made it to the end.
This would not have been possible without the generous support of many people,
and I acknowledge their contribution. Firstly, my sincere thanks to my supervisor,
Em. Professor Marian Sawer, who made sure that I reached the end of this research
project. She was a constant source of support from the start, and always provided me
with the right motivation. She was a mentor for me, and was never irritated by my
underdeveloped drafts of chapters. Her feedback on my chapters was always prompt
and she helped me to focus on what I wanted to achieve from this research project.
I also thank my panel members Dr Kuntala Lahiri and Professor Stewart Lockie for
their inputs. Dr Kuntala Lahiri helped me fine tune some important aspects of the
thesis from an Indian feminist perspective. I have to thank the support provided by
the Australian Awards Liaison Officer Gina Abarquez and her team, they
coordinated an excellent orientation program and were always in touch at ANU. The
generous scholarship from the Australian Awards was the reason that I was able to
pursue my studies at ANU. I also thank SPIR faculty members and administration
office staff for always being so helpful. I would also like to thank my various PhD
colleagues, who always inspired me and made my time at ANU enjoyable. There are
times when some kind people step in and help you in a way that you had not
expected. I acknowledge such help from Dr Merrindahl Andrew for reading my
chapter and giving her inputs to improve it.
I have to thank many people in India without whom this research would not be
possible. First of all I acknowledge the support of all the NGOs, government
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officials and lawyers who made my field work in India possible. Then I have to
thank all the 78 women who shared their life experiences with me and gave me
insights into a subject that I am passionate about. There is also a generous friend
Sharaf who gave his office space for me to work on my thesis in India when I was
back from Canberra working part time on my thesis.
I have to thank several friends in Canberra, for without their support it would have
been hard to survive as a single mother in a foreign land. Naina is one among them,
and she and others were there to provide me emotional support, inviting me over for
meals, and most of all they happily baby-sat my daughter whenever I needed to
study on weekends.
.I am also indebted to my family, my parents, my mother Bina, for believing in me,
and my father Rajendra for surviving a bad phase of old age and illness without me
while I was far away, studying. I also acknowledge the support of my two lovely
sisters Kokila and Renu. Kokila helped me in Australia to focus on my research and
Renu helped me by being the anchor of my family in India while Kokila and I were
away. I also thank the support of my cousin Shreya who provided me help by
reading and commenting on my chapters and pushed me to finish.
Lastly but not the least, I want to thank my daughter Anvita and my partner David
Donovan for tolerating me while I was at my worst and for pushing me when I lost
motivation. You both have been my life support system. I could not have done this
without you both. Thanks for standing by me and loving me.
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Abstract
Domestic violence, the most pervasive form of violence against women, is accepted
internationally as a violation of human rights and about 125 countries have policies
to address it. Women’s movement and activism first brought the issue of violence
against women onto the mainstream policy making agenda. The focus now rests on
how efficient these policies are. However, few impact assessment studies on these
policies are available. This research seeks to fill this gap. An impact assessment of
the Indian Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) 2005 was
done in three States of India: Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The
research assessed the impact of accessing PWDVA in the lives of 78 women from
these three States. Since States have allocated different resources and used different
models of implementation, this research also assessed the impact of the State’s
commitment and resources on the outcomes for women.
For this research, a gendered impact analysis framework was used, which focussed
on assessing the level of strategic gender needs of women that were being met.
Feminists have argued that gender-aware policies might not result in gender
equitable goals due to the law implementer’s gender bias. The women interviewees
reported on the law implementers’ behaviour and its impact on the outcomes. They
also reported on their overall satisfaction with the outcomes through PWDVA and its
impact on their lives in reducing violence, homelessness and economic dependence.
The women rated judges, police, lawyers, protection officers appointed under this
Act and NGOs that had been registered as service providers. It was found that the
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judges were most influential in impacting the outcomes for women inside court and
police were most influential outside the court. However, negative behaviours from
both adversely impacted outcomes. It was found that judges also highly influenced
the relief granted to women and that protection orders were granted to only one third.
Maintenance was the relief most often granted. The research findings also show that
protection officers, intended to be the main law implementers for the PWDVA, were
the least accessed law implementers in the given research sample. Overall, about 37
percent of women were extremely satisfied or satisfied with the outcomes and about
same number of women, that is 37 percent, were not satisfied with the outcomes.
There were about 23 percent who were partially satisfied.
Analysis of the behaviour of the key stakeholders reveals that civil society, in the
form of women’s organisations, NGOs and activists, are the only institutions that
consistently provide gender-sensitive support to women. The other stakeholders can
be characterised as still representing the patriarchal state; with gender-insensitive
behaviours negatively influencing the gender relations that women share with men.
This research highlights the need to further incorporate civil society into
implementation of the Act and into capacity-building for other stakeholders such as
the judiciary and police.
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Contents+
Declaration ................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... iii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................ v
Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... xviii
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 1
Domestic violence, a journey from the private to the public sphere ........................ 8
Global agenda development on the issue of domestic violence ............................. 11
State response to address domestic violence .......................................................... 14
Chapter 2: Domestic violence in India: Women’s movement and state response .... 18
State responses versus feminists’ demands ............................................................ 23
UN Framework for model domestic violence legislation....................................... 28
UN framework influence on PWDVA ................................................................... 29
PWDVA compared to other Acts ........................................................................... 31
Salient features of PWDVA 2005 .......................................................................... 32
Progress o\f Implementation of PWDVA ........................................................
