Parasitic Liaison

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Any living being is never devoid of emotions: be it a rabid tramp on the streets, a drenched kitten on a rainy day, a squeaky rat maundering the city manholes, a migrating ruby-throat-ed hummingbird and unyielding human beings are no different either. We live in a world of political revolutions, economic cataclysms, and disharmony with Mother Nature where emotions range from hope, rhapsody, fear and contrite. 

Homo sapiens have evolved from the era of caves to the technology-oriented epoch of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless one constant factor which has traversed through various period is that humans have lived in a society where men have largely chosen to hunt and protect their clan, while women complete chores inside the house.

Every relationship we forge with people from various walks of life acts as a catalyst for acquiring life experiences. Our relationships with others can either be a symbiotic one or a parasitic one; an immense audacious strength is warranted to address an abusive relationship and redress a parasitic liaison.

The foundation of domestic abuse is based on the fact that one partner feels the need to control and own the other either by generating trepidation, remorse, ignominy or coercion. The probability of men and women both being victims of mistreatment is prevalent, nonetheless there has been an accretion in incidence of women as sufferers of maltreatment. Though there is an accrual of self-reliant, economically independent women who are pillars of strength and inspiration; yet there are countless who are embroiled in the web of several societal evils. Indian women face various hurdles among which domestic abuse strangulates the life out of their bosom.

Abuse by one or both partners in a personal relation as in matrimony and cohabitation is never unpremeditated thus cannot come about by mistake. Those who practice abuse and the sufferers are entangled in a tedious cycle. Individuals who indulge in maltreatment of their partners are relentlessly concocting plans to belittle and cause harm. They pretend to be in good humor  and when the victims fall prey they unleash jaws of death on them. After their ‘castle in Spain’ is fulfilled they appear penitent of the act so as to achieve confidence of the battered victim in order to fulfill an adjunct fantasy.

An abusive association abets in diminishing self-confidence, self-esteem and identity of the victim. Most women who tolerate a violent relation are usually holding onto a feeble strand of hope for reform and redress in their partners’ behavior  Ill-treated women try to put wool over their eyes and frequently fabricate to protect their reputation and partner. However, the abuser only gloats with more confidence to inflict injury.   

Social observation has indicated that predilection of inflicting abuse is correlated to sore and painful experiences in ones own childhood which leaves behind a blemish in the persons’ mind. Those individuals as adults express their anger in an aggressive manner often causing corporal and emotional harm onto their partners. Women caught in such situation have to indeed muster a lot of courage to accept the harsh reality of their situation and confide in people they trust, instead of shielding their tormentor through intermittent lies.

The Indian system of justice has formed various laws that can help prevent domestic abuse from culminating into blameworthy homicide. Husbands and their alliances who indulge in harassment of their partners may be booked under various sections of The Indian Penal Code (IPC) such as section 113A of the Indian evidence act of 1872- to determine abetment by a husband or his relative in his wives’ suicide within seven years of marriage. Section 498A and section 304B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was instituted to combat accretion in dowry deaths in India, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 and the recently amended the Domestic Violence Act of 2006.

On the other hand, numerous women from all walks of life balk from availing these laws instituted for their protection in a patriarchal India due to stigmatization by the society, defiling family honor  lengthy judicial proceedings, financial woes, tactless institutional response to FIR on domestic abuse. Women welfare organizations like All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), Women Welfare Association of India, and Human Rights Law Network are among numerous who are striving towards justice against perpetrators of domestic abuse.