Domestic Violence - The Hidden war during COVID-19

The Serbian artist Marina Abramović performed a famous performance art known as the “Rhythm 0”. She invited the audience to do whatever they wished to do with her during the six hour performance using the 72 objects that were placed nearby while she stood still not reacting to anything. The objects included rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet. She proclaimed that it is her responsibility for what will happen with her during the performance art. The purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public would go: “ What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation? ”[1]. According to the sources, it started tamely with people simply showing some intimacy and then started progressively became more violent as time passed which started with ripping of her clothes in third hour. In the fourth hour ,audience started to explore her body with blades to an extent that one person cut her throat to suck her blood. Even some minor sexual assault was done on her body and a loaded gun was thrust on her head with audience using her fingers to play with the trigger. Marina Abramović later described it as being really violated with people putting thorns on her stomach and ripped her clothes off. She described the environment to be aggressive to such an extent that if she would have left herself to the audience they would have killed her. Interestingly, after the performance was over , the audience ran away to escape an actual confrontation. Basically, they never wanted to be held accountable or judged for what they did. It showed how fast a person can hurt other physically under favorable conditions. The interestingly the people who involved were people who would be labeled as “perfectly normal” by the society.

Before moving onto the main topic let us discuss about domestic violence in general. From the above experiment it can be inferred that human psychology is inherently violent probably due to the need of survival (If humans were in jungle they need to be aggressive to secure food and shelter). Under the Jungle Raj, the aggressiveness of a human being will be used for survival but with the evolution of modern society, there is no need for a human to depend on nature on multiple levels. As such this aggressiveness until not handled consciously can surface in multiple other ways of which one is domestic violence. Domestic violence in India is defined by Section 3 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 Act as "any act, omission or commission or conduct of the respondent shall constitute domestic violence in case it[2]:

1)harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person or tends to do so and includes causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse; or

2)harasses, harms, injures or endangers the aggrieved person to coerce her or any other person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any dowry or other property or valuable security; or

3)has the effect of threatening the aggrieved person or any person related to her by any conduct mentioned in clause (a) or clause (b); or

4)otherwise injures or causes harm, whether physical or mental, to the aggrieved person."

Till now the act protects only women although there are efforts to make it gender neutral. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) suggests that 30 percent women in India in the age group of 15-49 have experienced physical violence since the age of 15. The report further reveals that 6 percent women in the same age group have experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. About 31 percent of married women have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by their spouses. The widespread socio-economic dependency of women underlines this unbalanced equation with their husbands and other family members. The fear of social exclusion and banishment, and the lack of effective response to violence sees the Indian woman face continuing violence and intimidation. Moreover, the patriarchal society also contributes to it. Remember under favourable condition the so called “normal people” of the society can become violent. 

The recent lockdown due to COVID-19 has brought yet another hidden war with this already existing social malice. The National Commission for Women has reported a recent spike in complaints of domestic violence in the country,during the period between 23 March and 10 April. State governments and women commissions such as that of Kerala and Punjab have also taken cognisance of this alarming trend. The cases of domestic violence in India are already under-reported and this lockdown provides a unique situation in which the victim need to stay with the abuser masking it harder to report the crime to outside world. The current situation also brings in a sudden unnatural state of being in home all day without any work. Also since there are no visitors there is no check for cases of domestic violence. Coupled with fear of disease, financial insecurity (especially for daily wage workers) and the pressure of not meeting even basic requirements suck as food can turn things to emotional or even physiological abuse of weaker section especially women due to stress. Remember in the experiment the violence grew with time especially when the actor did not respond (in this case cannot respond). Also, the state infrastructure like police is more busy tackling the mess due to Covid-19 to focus on these matters. Data shows that in many countries like USA, France etc. the incident of domestic violence is increasing during lockdown.

The question arises what can be done now! Of course the important task at hand is controlling the spread of COVID-19 but the issue of domestic violence can’t be overlooked entirely.Recently, the Delhi High Court has directed the Centre and the AAP government here to hold top-level meeting to deliberate on measures to curb domestic violence and protect the victims during the COVID-19 lockdown.The government replied that there were 24x7 helplines in place and when a complaint is received rescue of victim(s) is carried out immediately. There are many other measures at place to handle the situation but the issue is always awareness. Campaign on TC radio and internet can play a major role in speading awareness. There is a really innovative solution that is implemented in France in which victims are asked to report it to pharmacies and use code if the abuser accompanies the victim. In most of the situation, a visit to a nearby grocery shop is usually allowed for everyone. They can be used by the state machinery to identify such victims while preserving the anonymity of the informer. Another aspect of this situation are NGOs. Since government machinery is busy tackling the virus the NGOs need to step up and track the cases to inform it to police. 

As the military strategist Sun Tzu has rightly said “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”. If given a choice everyone would rather choose that no need arises so as to wage such a war. If we look carefully a the performing act that was mentioned earlier there are two aspects of it. One no human really wants to harm another human as people were guilty after the act was over. Second thing is aggressiveness is natural to humans (for survival needs), The only issue us most of is are unaware of this basic instinct. As Shiva once told parvati “The best person who can discipline you is you”. We need to make people aware of the issues of domestic violence and how it can affect others life. That way they can observe themselves and take the best decision for themselves and others. That requires a fundamental change in education system of the country which should include psychology of humans so that they can distinguish between unnecessary violent tendencies and normal tendencies. If we look carefully at the experiment it can be logically inferred that these so called “normal people” has perfect chance to become violent if given favourable circumstances. Laws and regulations can induce fear in them but fear is a temporary solution, Once it is gone again these people will fall back to violent tendencies. As Sun Tzu has said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

[1]"Rhythm 0" - Wikipedia - “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0”

[2]“Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005” - Wikipedia - “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Women_from_Domestic_Violence_Act,_2005”