Day 4: Surviving Violence: Everyday Resilience and Gender Justice Webinar

On the 4th day of the 2022 Prajnya 16 Days Campaign Against Gender violence, the 'Surviving Violence: Everyday Resilience and Gender Justice' webinar brought together the findings of a three-state research project on help-seeking experiences of domestic violence victim-survivors. The presentations were made by Girija Godbole, IIT Bombay and Preeti Karmarkar, Nari Samata Manch on Maharashtra; RNandini Ghosh, Supurna Banerjee (Institute of Development Studies Kolkata) on West Bengal; and Swarna Rajagopalan (Chaitanya) on Tamil Nadu. Shakthi S. (Prajnya) facilitated the event. You may find a saved copy of the recording here. 

This panel is part of the research project Surviving Violence: Everyday resilience and gender justice in rural-urban India funded by the British Academy Heritage Dignity and Violence Programme HDV190009. Research partners: Queen Mary University of London, Chaitanya-The Policy Consultancy, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Nari Samiti Manch and University of Oxford.

Findings from Maharashtra: Girija Godbole (IIT Bombay), Preeti Karmarkar (Nari Samata Manch).

• "When we spoke to the survivors, almost 80% of them said that they had suffered all types of violence such as physical, sexual, emotional, verbal and economic. The most common reasons were liquor addiction and/or extramarital affairs of the husband, coupled with suspicion about the wife by the husband."
• "Most survivors said that the first persons they spoke to were typically their parents. For informal mediation, the first attempt is to organise a family meeting to discuss and resolve the issues."
• "In the rural sides, where we have tribal groups, we also saw that two survivors approached the tribal council in their villages. In one case, the survivor consulted the tribal council in her village, but she wasn't happy with the verdict. So, she approached the court. And, the tribal council wasn't very happy about the situation, that she went out of the village. And they put a lot of pressure on her to withdraw the case. She decided to go to a higher level of the tribal council, which is the circle council. There was one member there who was sensible and sensitive and took up her cause, and he tried settling the case. Then, she withdrew the case from the court, and she was satisfied with the verdict."
• "We asked them (survivors), what according to them is domestic violence?...their definition of domestic violence is very well consistent with the definition as given in PWDVA, 2005, that is, they recognise non-physical forms of violence also."
• "One very important suggestion, that came from a lawyer that we interviewed is that, PWDVA matters should be allowed in the family court. At present, they are heard by the Judicial Magistrate First Class."

Findings from Tamil Nadu: Dr. Swarna Rajagopalan (Chaitanya)

• "What emerges from the stories that we primarily heard from survivors but also from community members and service providers in the state, formal and informal, is really that, women are stuck. They are hemmed in by patriarchy, socio-economic inequities and escape hatches and drawbridges and support services that they do not know about, that they cannot access and that, sometimes, simply don't work. But still, the fact that 61 of them sat through the interview and told us their stories makes this also a story of resilience."
• "If the first question of intersectionality is, 'does this form of identity affect the experience of violence, of help-seeking, of access to justice', then the answers in our data, in Tamil Nadu, are not pronounced enough to headline the research"
• "We wanted to know how people coped/lived with violence and most women felt safest in their natal home, and most unsafe in their marital home."

Findings from West Bengal: Dr. Nandini Ghosh, Dr. Supurna Banerjee (Institute of Development Studies Kolkata)

• "We have not found any significant caste differences, but echoing the other two teams, what we have found is that there is never a single form of violence happening. What happens is that there are multiple kinds of violence. The verbal and physical are often taken for granted."
• "Legal aid, which is free, has largely been ineffective. So there has been lack of financial and infrastructural support from the state, and this is what the lawyers tell us. Most of the survivors too reiterated this."
• "While there are laws and institutions to protect survivors of domestic violence, there is an entire gamut, an entire structure (the informal help-seeking) that operates outside of this." 
• "It was evident that domestic violence was embedded in the social hierarchies of power, of dominant heteronormative, caste, class, and gender interests."

About the Speakers:

1. Supurna Banerjee is faculty in Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK). She researches labour, gender, violence, migration and intersectionality. Her monograph Activism and Agency in India: nurturing Resistance in Tea Plantations was published in 2017. She has published in various peer reviewed journals such as Gender, Work and Organisation, Oral History and JSAD. She has co-authored Limits of Bargaining: Capital, Labour and the State in India Violent Domestic: 𝙇𝙖𝙬, 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙋𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙚, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙪𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙖𝙡.

2. Nandini Ghosh is Assistant Professor, Institute of devlelopment studies, Kolkata, PhD in Social Sciences, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 2008. Books Published - Impaired Bodies, Gendered Lives: Everyday Realities of Disabled Women, New Delhi: Primus Publishers, 2016 Books Edited, Caste and Gender in Contemporary India: Power, Privilege and Politics, (Jointly with Supurna Banerjee), New Delhi: Routledge, 2019 Interrogating Disability in India: Theory and Practice, Springer, 2016 Pratyaha: Everyday Lifeworld: Dilemmas, Negotiations and Conflicts, (Jointly with Prasanta Ray), New Delhi: Primus, 2016., Hyderabad.

3. Preeti Karmarkar, Managing Trustee at Nari Samata Manch, she is trained as a Social Scientist and Gender expert, Preeti is associated with Nari Samata Manch since 1998. She has 22 years of experience in social development field in the areas of grassroot mobilization, project development and Management, M&E, policy as well as investigative research and NGO management with national and international exposure. She is an experienced gender trainer and provide consultation for gender integration in programme. She also provides training/consultation for implementation of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and work as external members for renowned organizations. Earlier she has worked at Women’s Studies Centre (University of Pune), YASHADA and BAIF Development Research Foundation

4. Girija Godbole, Ghod Water Fund Lead at The Nature Conservancy and researched over areas of Anthropology, Gender, Natural Resource Management, Communication and uptake and she did her PhD at University of Cambridge, thesis title: “Selling land is the beginning of the end for us”: Understanding rural people’s perspectives on the impacts of increasing land sale in western Maharashtra, India, her publication are Godbole, G. (2014) ‘Revealing and concealing: ethical dilemmas of manoeuvring identity in the field’ in Lunn, J. (Ed.) Fieldwork in the Global South: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge pp: 85-95, Godbole G. (2006) Mendha (Lekha): A case study on self rule for sustainable natural resource management in Stakeholder Participation in Environmental Governance published by LEAD India, Godbole G. (2006) Building bridges for greener future: Analyzing Maharashtra State Participatory Forest Management Network in Insights from the field: studies in Participatory Forest Management in India, Winrock International India, Godbole G. & Vira B. (March 2004). Towards an alternative politics: People’s movements join the electoral process. InfoChange News & Features, India, Godbole G. (April 2003) Two women & a flying squad, InfoChange News & Features, India, Godbole G. (January, 2003) Free meals make them dependent, so should they go back to eating grass? InfoChange News & Features, India,Godbole G. (2002) Working paper on ‘Joint forest Management and Gender in India’ for Engendering Eden Project of the UK government