By Enkayaar, Glamsham Editorial
It was the seventh episode of Satyamev Jayate and by virtue of being fortuitous or what, the issue focused on the domestic violence in the Indian families, more so in the urban sphere and in the well to do families. The idea of it being fortuitousness is being advocated by linking it with the number, as seven is the number of times when a would-be husband and wife circumnavigate fire to get wedded.In the seventh episode Aamir Khan laid threadbare the situation that is happening in our country, the kind of suffering and the violence that the ladies are enduring day in and day out just to keep their marriage going, under the false belief that the situation may turn around someday, but by the time it may turn around the lady in question is reduced to shambles, her confidence is shattered and she is not at all in a position to find a place for herself in the society.
While the government statistics claim that around 40% of the female in India endure domestic violence for the sake of the family, according to the information revealed by Aamir Khan in the show, as per a study undertaken by a research institute based in Rajasthan, the incidence of violence touches more than 80%. Even if we average out both the figures, and to be on a conservative side, if the figure of even fifty percent is taken it is alarming.
What has not been focused on or rather analyzed in detail in the episode is the number of women who lose their mental balance and end up in mental asylums. Among the patients who are admitted into the mental asylums in the country, quite a sizeable chunk is a by-product of the domestic violence that they have been enduring and have snapped owing to it.
The moot point of the episode is why are the ladies suffering domestic violence for years on end? Is it owing to the patriarchal society that exists in our country, and the cultural engraining that a girl continues to undergo as a part of her growing process, where the point is consistently hammered into her psyche that she has to be subservient to the male of the order, whether it be the brother in the family, or the husband to whom she has been wedded.
When a lady suffers domestic violence in the family, it also has a direct bearing on her children as well, who undergo stunted growth psychologically. It is another aspect that has to be focused upon. It would not be out of place to mention here the comment made by a court in Mumbai, recently where a judge had remarked to the wife seeking divorce that even a Sita had endured pain and suffering from the hands of Ram. When such kinds of comments come from the fraternity that is supposed to be the watch dog, the notions of patriarchy that are engrained in the society project a sorry figure.
One only hopes that after focusing on this issue through the seventh episode of Satyamev Jayate by Aamir Khan a small beginning would be made and things would start falling in place. But the real change would only begin, when the female start opposing and standing out against it, only then the situation would improve. Such husbands also need to be blacklisted by the society as well; only then the change would start having its effect.
