Campaigns against Gender Violence (1977-1993)
Vibhuti Patel. P. 198-207. In: Violence against Women: Women against Violence edited by Shirin Kudchedkar and Sabiha Al-Issa. Delhi: Pencraft International, 1998.
10 Pages Posted: 6 Jun 2018
Date Written: March 8, 1998
Abstract
The women's movement in India launched campaigns against rape, domestic violence, sexism in advertisements as well as against state repression during caste and communal riots in the early eighties. Before that, during the postemergency period of 1977-1980, small groups of women's rights activists in Hyderabad, Bombay, Delhi and Madras had started taking up individual cases of custodial rape, deaths of-housewives under mysterious circumstances and excesses by the state enforcement machinery during caste/communal riots which had increased in number and intensity of violence. The mass of poor women involved in the struggles of the tribal people, the industrial working classes and the Dalit movement faced misogyny from the members of their own Organisation, social ostracism and violence perpetrated by the police, military and paramilitary forces. With these kinds of experiences of individual, institutional and systemic. violence, newly emerging women's groups felt the necessity to put violence against women on the political agenda. While building up systematic campaigns in different socio-cultural contexts and among women of different economic backgrounds and political persuasions, they had to evolve day-to-day tactics to be effective and long-term strategies to carve out more space for women to gain gender justice within the system.
Keywords: violence against women, feminist movement, campaigns, rallies, demonstration, collective action
JEL Classification: Z18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation