Domestic Violence Laws in the United States and India

A Systematic Comparison of Backgrounds and Implications

S. Goel, B. Sims, R. Sodhi

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137399700
• eBook ISBN: 9781137387073
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

Domestic Violence Laws in the United States and India is a comparative study of the domestic violence laws in India and the United States, seeking to illuminate the critical issues of intimate partner violence through the lenses of these two societies.

Part I

1

Scope of the Issue within Cultural Settings

Abstract: The United States and India are both democratic states and consist of a variety of cultures with very different systems of beliefs and traditions. A comparative study of the domestic violence laws of these two countries can illuminate the critical issue of intimate partner violence through the lenses of two similar, yet different, societies. While many might view the domestic violence in India as the product of cultural groups who are “too ignorant, too primitive, too backward to know any better” the same violence is characterized as rare individual and deviant behavior in the United States. There is a greater emphasis on the situation in India to be a signifier of cultural backwardness. “They burn their women there,” as opposed to: “We shoot our women here.” The domestic violence murders in the United States are just as much a part of American culture as dowry death is a part of Indian culture.

Goel, Sudershan, Barbara A. Sims, and Ravi Sodhi. Domestic Violence Laws in the United States and India: A Systematic Comparison of Backgrounds and Implications. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137387073.0007.

Domestic violence is prevalent throughout the United States and India. Intimate partner violence “epitomizes the risk that interpersonal attachments pose for women.”¹ This violence can take on many forms, can occur in different contexts, and, to some extent, takes place for different reasons. How society at large and systems of justice define and address domestic violence both play significant roles in the form and prevalence of this type of violence.

1.1 Culture and domestic violence

One key difference between domestic violence in India and domestic violence in the United States is about how the issue is articulated. The main difference in these articulations revolves largely around identifying the causes of domestic violence. In general, there is a misconception that while domestic violence in India is cultural, domestic violence in the United States it is not. This misconception can be traced in part to the conflict of theoretical approaches that is perceived between feminism and multiculturalism.²

Overall, academicians look at domestic violence through a lens of feminism or through a lens of multiculturalism. There is a corresponding debate between scholars who highlight gender and those who focus on the intersection of gender with age, religion, and caste.³ In India, most of the quantitative literature reflects a feminist perspective.⁴ However, questions of multiculturalism, which are only beginning to be asked in the United States, have long been researched by Indian scholars.⁵ Those employing a Universalist feminist lens are assumed to devalue the rights of minority cultures, while those using a localized multicultural lens are assumed not to value women.⁶ This is a false dichotomy, however, which creates a stagnant discourse.⁷ While many might view the domestic violence in India as the product of cultural groups who are “too ignorant, too primitive, too backward to know any better” the same violence is characterized as rare individual and deviant behavior in the United States.⁸

For example, one prominent aspect of the domestic violence literature in India is the phenomenon of dowry deaths. Many view them as a strange cultural practice.⁹ However, domestic violence deaths in the United States are statistically as large a social issue as dowry deaths in India. The only difference between the two is that there is a greater emphasis on the situation in India to be a signifier of cultural backwardness. “They burn their women there,” as opposed to: “We shoot our women here.”¹⁰ As a result there is “a general failure to look at the behavior of white persons as cultural.”¹¹ Yet domestic violence murders in the United States are just as much a part of American culture as dowry deaths are a part of Indian culture. This is true despite the statistics indicating the widespread violence in both societies and practical reasons for murder by burning as opposed to murder of victims by other means (e.g., a weapon or severe beating, etc.).¹² These perceptions assume that Indian culture has not evolved over time and, consequently, denies the existence and accomplishments of feminist movements within India.¹³ The ultimate result is to imply that Indian actions are predetermined by a set culture. This result is not only “dehumanizing” but adds more fuel to the “theoretical engine of colonialism.”¹⁴

In both the United States and India, domestic violence legislation is the product of a complicated history of competing social justice movements and theories about the rights of women. The outcomes of these movements have been “remarkably similar.”¹⁵ With the foundations of Western feminist and women’s movements rooted, at least in part, in the language of imperialism and racism, it should come as no surprise that women became an important symbol of national identity and cultural preservation in India’s Independence movement and beyond.¹⁶ In the United States, the sometimes disparaging image of Indian culture is used as a mirror of progress; in other words, it is suggested here that there could be a tendency to see violence against intimate partners not as severe a problem in the United States as it is in India when the latter is judged so harshly for a cultural and belief system that is unfamiliar to ethnic groups which are outside looking in.¹⁷ However, in both societies it could be said that domestic violence “takes place against a backdrop of gender inequality and sex stereotypes.”¹⁸ It is often argued that patriarchy is alive in the United States as well as in India. These systems are not very different in degree, but only in type.¹⁹ Along similar lines, caution should be applied when it comes to associating Indian law and politics with religious traditions while associating laws in the United States with secularism. Like the United States, India has a long tradition of both religious and secular politics.²⁰ In fact, India is one of seven nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to officially take a stand as a secular nation and has, just as is the case in the United States, no state religion.²¹ Against this backdrop it is useful to examine the extent and nature of domestic violence in both the United States and India.

It would be, however, a mistake not to consider long-held beliefs about the sanctity of the household and the slow evolution in both United States and Indian societies to confront, head on, violence against women within the intimate personal setting. It has been pointed out, for example, that India is a pluralist society with direct juxtaposition between the legal apparatus and traditional notions of jurisdiction.²² This can be likened to the United States where there is a history of the so-called hands-off approach when it comes to government interference in traditional family life. There is the old adage “rule of thumb” in the United States that is tied directly to legislation from the 1800s that allowed a man to beat his wife as long as the stick was no larger than his thumb. Much like was the case of child abuse, abuse of the wife by the husband was not uncommon and courts were not quick to intervene. Traditionally, females in India have been seen as situated within certain roles and constrictions, and with that com...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Bibliography
• Index