Sumitha P.V. (2020) Women's strengthening is a worldwide issues attracting the consideration of specialists. Strengthening is a term widely utilized as a part of the setting of women who are equal partners being developed of the general public and the society.

Begum S.K Asha (2018) In spite of the fact that women constitute half of the aggregate populace of the world, their social, monetary and political status is lower than that of men and they are subjected to the oppression and abuse of a specific request for a considerable length of time and accepted even present time.

Halli Chandrakala (2016) Most of the social reformers attempted to inspire and reestablish the women's radiance through lecturing ,press and stage . Among them a couple of prominent reformists are Rajaslam Mohan Roy, Iswarachandra Vidyasagar, Swami Dayanad Saraswati etc.,. Rajaslam Mohan Roy prevailing with regards to influencing emissary to ruler Wiliam Bentick, to pronounce the sati framework illegal. In the man centric family and society of our nation for a considerable length of time, the law of Manu in regard to the part and conduct of women have been inflexibly ahead.

Banerjee Arpita (2013) In India the condition of women was appalling during independence . The hardship of women in getting the comparable level of chances identifying with training, wellbeing, basic leadership as men because of predominance of male centric culture and financial backwardness in India put women at a backstage. After autonomy Indian organizers and strategy creators perceived the issue and confined assortment of policies and projects to give women break even with status as men.

Trend of Sex Ratio

In traditions, the pressure on women is rooted in the very fabric of Indian society, in religious doctrines and in practices also within the legal and educational system and within the families. “Traditionally women are expected to suffer her primary responsibilities for the well being of their family. Yet they are actually denied access to the resources, they need to fulfill their responsibilities. Discrimination against women, reinforced by conventional approaches to development, is a primary cause of poverty in the third world. Gender bias in its various forms, prevents hundreds of millions of women from obtaining education, health services, child care and legal status needed to escape from poverty”[6]. In India, families educate the girls only at initial level and are and are likely to pull out of school for the assistance or help out at home with other female members. Similarly, there is a large amount of the stubbornness, marginalization and disempowerment of women of extreme poverty in India. It is said that throughout the ages, parents have loved their daughters as much and sometimes even more than their sons. But ironically, reaction to the birth of a girl child in Indian society is generally a mixture of tenderness as also disappointment. The disappointment is due to that parents have always desired for a child-son due to the ingrained preference for sons in the Indian psyche. In India the declining sex ratio could be a reflection of son preference.

Table 1

Trend of Sex Ratio in India during the year 1931-2021

Source : Census of India Report of respective years, tentative data of 2021.

The table 1 indicated a continuous decline in sex ratio from 1931 to 1991 barring the period from 1951 to 1961, when it was almost unchangeable. Fortunately, marginally improvement in sex ratio is registered during the years 1991 and 2021 census. An important aspect of demographers, policy makers, planners, administrators has been the feasibility of female feticide contributing to adverse female sex ratio. Inspite of strongly implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) (PCPNDT) Act 2003, in the country, sex selection of the fetus illegal, female infanticide and sex selective abortions are rampant at every nook and corner. Women in India are ahead of women in other places so far as social legislations protecting their rights are concerned. But implementation of these laws is so poor, lopsided that women are far behind than men in social, economic and political sphere.

Rural-Urban Literacy Rates and Gender Gap

Education is necessary prerequisite for socio-economic development and also a fundamental right, particularly in improving status of women. It is universally recognized that mother is the first school of the child and it enables her to acquire knowledge and necessary skills and thus is considered as the ladder of development.

Table 2

Rural-Urban Literacy Rates and Gender Gap in India

during the year 1951-2021

Note :   Literacy rates for 1951, 1961 and 1971 censuses relate to population aged 5 years and above. The rates for the 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2021census relate to population aged 8 years and above.

Source : Source : Census of India Report of respective years, tentative data of 2021.

    *    Gender gap is calculated by deducting female literacy rate from male literacy rate.

Theoretically, education is therefore recognized as more important for women than for men. It facilitates women to leave traditionally held myths and blind beliefs and brings up rational thinking among them. Long back in 1949, the University Education Commission remarked, “There cannot be educated people without educated woman”. If general education for women had to be limited, it would more surely be passed on to the next generation. But even today a gender bias infavour of male is observed at the grass root level in the resource allocation for educating the son and daughter. It is traditionally true that the initiatives at the government level for expansion of female education have borne fruits and female literacy rate has gone up from a level of 8.86 in 1951 to 70.30 in 2021; but the gender gap in education, however, continues to exist according to the table2.

The above table explains that the gender gap in education not only continues, it has rather increased from 18.30 percent to 24.84 percent during 1951 to 1991 and decreased during 1991 and 2021 from 24.84 to 14.40. The gender gap in education was relatively more prominent in urban area than in rural area in 1951. The situation has reversed since 1971 gender gap is found to be more prominent in rural than in urban areas. It reflects that the relative educational status of women comparing with men has recorded more improvement in urban areas than the relative educational status of women in rural areas. In other words the gender inequality in education is more prominent in rural areas where more than 80 percent of women live.

Caste-wise Literacy Rate

“With the introduction of National Education Policy, education for equality of women has come to be accepted as effectual part of government strategy. It lays downs, the education will be used as a tool for basic changes in the status of women and in order to neutralize the accumulated distortions of the past, there will be a well conceived edge in favour of women. But there is always a difference between policy declarations and program of action for which goals are hardly achieved”[7].

 “Wide spread poverty and discriminatory cultural practices are frequently cited as the prime reasons for the persistence of the gender gap in education. Cultural Biases do exist and poverty does constitute a factor in influencing educational participation of girls, but political indifference, bureaucratic inertia and public apathy are equally valid reasons for continuing gender gap in education. Policy pronouncements and a few piecemeal programs apart, very few concrete measures have been taken by government to target women’s education”[8]. The allocation of funds for improving women’s share of literacy and education is not specifically mentioned in the plan documents. “There is consciousness in planning and government circles as well as the intelligentsia that the differentials between men and women in achievements in educational status will require greater attention but there is not enough desire to remove this inequality through concentration of funds”[9].

A factor that is worrisome is that Indian education in general is directed towards the privileged classes. The achievement in education and literacy among the SC-ST who constitute about 25 percent of total population, is still in a pathetic condition.

Table 3

Caste-wise Literacy Rate in India during the year 1971-2021

Source : Census of India Report of respective years, tentative data of 2021.

The table 3 discloses that not only, literacy rate among the female is lower than that among the male, the literacy rate among the SC/ST women, these are double deprived in society because these are female, on the one hand and because these are from lower caste, on the other hand, is much behind the total literacy rate among women. As against the total literacy rate only 59.02 percent in ST category and about 64.74 percent women in SC category are seen to have access to education in 2021. The literacy trend during the period 1971-2021 can be easily taken into consideration that they would still lag behind women of general caste even today.

Expectation of Life at Birth

An important indicator of women’s health is her life expectancy at birth. There has been no significant difference between male and female in this respect, rather women are found to have a slight edge over men in recent years. The following table 4 reveals this situtation :

Table 4

Expectation of Life at Birth in India during the year 1951-2021

Source : Census of India Report of respective years, tentative data of 2021.

It is found that although the average expectancy of life in case of man was a little higher than that of women during 1951 to 1980, 1981 & 2009-21 and onwards the average expectancy of life of woman has been marginally higher than that of man. Accordingly the gender-gap, which is calculated by deducting the average expectancy of life of women from that of men, has gone in favour of women from 1981 till 2009.

However, health of the mother during pregnancy and her well-being during childbirth are also important criteria for deciding women health status. Health of a woman is based on her nutritional values during adolescence and malnutrition rate is more among girls in India than among boys. The National Nutrition Board observes, that anemia rate is higher among female than among male in all age groups in both urban and rural areas. They are generally the last one to go to health centre for treatment for themselves, though they may accompany their family members and children.

Work Force Participation Rate

It has been believed that women’s economic empowerment is necessary for raising their status in society. Traditionally, women were expected to look after home, give a hand in agriculture, animal care and handicrafts made at home. The women’s status as a wife did not give her control over the family income. It is with a view to giving them control over the family income and expenditure and the participation in economic activity is emphasized. The Work Force Participation Rate (WFPR) among female is however much low as compared to male. A very small number of women populations is engaged in economic activities and the ratio of female employment to male employment is highly iniquitous. 

Table 5

Work Force Participation Rate (%) during the year 1961-2021

Source : Census of India Report of respective years, tentative data of 2021.

It is disclosed that while the male WFPR has almost remained more or less 52 percent during 1971, 1991 & 2001 and slightly increased to 53.2 in 2011 and 54.9 in 2021, the WFPR among the females during the corresponding period has increased from 17.5 percent to 26.2 percent from 1961 to 2021. Among the women engaged in wages, it can be observed, a substantial proportion is working as marginal workers, working for less than 6 months in a year. The ratio of male workers working as marginal worker, is comparatively much low. Moreover, among the women working for daily wages, majority observed in the unorganized sector, where work is not regular, wages are limited and there are hardly any labour rights provided under the various labour laws.

According to National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), “the female workforce participation rate in rural areas stands at 28.1 percent and in urban areas 14.0 percent. In rural areas 85 percent of women workers are engaged primarily in agricultural activities and in related sectors such as animal husbandry”.

Beside the low participation rate among women, discriminatory treatment to both the gender for the same kind of job is observed in many cases. Women’s hourly pay being less than that of men is a well established fact in many countries. But the difference is found to be more prominent in India than in other countries. In the report on income over lifetime, it is observed that while women’s relative pay is 93 percent of men’s pay in China, 83 percent in England, in India it is only 74 percent. 

Women’s Participation in Indian Lok Sabha

In political activities, females’ representation in public life has been very small throughout the world’s population. As late as 1966 only 55 out of 144 members States of United Nations had women members in their respective parliaments. This is a fundamental right of every citizen to contribute to the decision making process. In spite of the constitutional provision of equality in political sphere, the large masses of women in India continue to lack spokesperson in the representative bodies of the state. Political parties seem uniformly reluctant to field women candidates. In India women were given limited adult franchise in 1937. Since then women have contributed to participate in the political process as voters, as candidates are contesting the election and are engaging in deliberations both in the state legislature and parliament.

But they appear to be doing so because the number of women in parliament has not increased significantly over the years. The ratio of seats occupied by women in Lok Sabha over the year is shown in table 6.

The table reflects about the poor involvement of women in decision making process in our country. Women’s participation in Indian Parliament increased from 4.4 percent to 14.36 percent over a period of about 67 years. Women’s participation has decreased during 1952–1977 except 1962 and 1967 in the 3^rd and 4^th Lok Sabha. It increased from 5.10 percent in 1989 to 14.36 percent in 2019 except 7.18 percent in 1996.

Table 6

Women’s Participation in Indian Lok Sabha

(in percent)

Source: Election Commission, Government of India, New Delhi & Handbook, Lok Sabha, Parliament of India, New Delhi.

In continuation to provide greater opportunities to actively participate in the decision making process, reservations have been made for women, to participate in representative structure of local governments. However, effective participation of female candidate in Panchayat Raj Institutions is lacking due to manipulation by local power brokers. Ignorance about their powers, about their potentialities and responsibilities, women they have been kept, so far behind men in local bodies. Against all the discrimination that very often starts from the family itself, the fact remains that women work longer hours and their work is more tiresome than that of men, yet their work is mostly unrecognized.

The gender inequity prevailing in education, health, economic and political sphere relegates women to the status of second class citizens and makes them more vulnerable to violence and crime. The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) observes, violence against women is a clear expression of the subordinate social status occupied by women.

In India, society is organized around gender roles, which prescribe what men and women should do and should not do. Violence against women is used as a tool to reinforce and maintain gender authority, roles as a weapon to punish women who transgress them. Within society and families the onus of maintaining honour is placed on women and in many instances sexual violence against women is used by men to dishonour families or society.

Violence Against Women

In society, the problem of violence against women is nothing new. In Indian society women have suffered from abuse, humiliation, ill-treatment, atrocities and exploitation for as long as written records of social organisation and family life are available. Women are among them perceived as a soft target due to low socio-economic and political status.

Besides this, violence against women in the society is often not considered as violence due to general acceptance of male superiority. Due to socio cultural attitudes and misconstrued religious values, women also do not consider it as violence.

Throughout history, women in various continents of the world, has been regarded as the physically weaker sex. Globally, the gender gap existing, places women, at various disadvantageous positions in the world around. Violence against women, whatever it is sexual or domestic, claims dominance over them and come from the society-based trend. In recent time, there has been an alarming spurt in atrocities and violence against women in the India. It is estimated that the growth rate of violence against women would be higher than the population growth rate by 2023, which generally implies that the number that women are becoming victims of violence.

 “Violence against women is basically, a result of gender relations that acknowledge the men to be superior position to women. Given the subordinate status of women and much of violence against women is considered as normal and it enjoys the social sanction. Manifestations of violence against women include psychological violence through humiliation, insults, coercion, blackmail, economic or emotional threats, control over speech and actions, and physical aggression: such as, blows of varying intensification, burns, attempted hanging and sexual abuse/rape. In extreme, but not unknown cases death is the result. Generally, domestic aggression towards women, due to various reasons remains hidden. With the different processes of socialisation, that men and women undergo, men take-up stereotyped gender roles of domination, whereas women take-up of submission, dependence and respect for authority. A female child grows up with a constant sense of being weak and in need of protection, whether physical social or economic. This helplessness has led to her exploitation at almost every stage of life”[10].

 “The United Nations Commission on the status of women defines violence against women to include “any act of gender based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women”.[11]

Specifically, “the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW) defines violence against women to mean ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life’. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women further outlines the scope of private and public to include violence in the family, violence in the community, and violence perpetrated or condoned by the state, wherever it occurs”[12]. Typically, the forms of violence have been categorized into the following three categories:

i. “Violence in the Family: Such as domestic violence; battering; marital rape; incest; forced prostitution by the family; violence against domestic workers and the girl child (non-spousal violence, violence related to exploitation); sex-selective abortion and infanticide; traditional practices such as female genital mutilation; dowry-related violence; and religious/customary laws”[13].

ii. “Violence in the Community: Such as rape/sexual assault; sexual harassment; violence within institutions; trafficking and forced prostitution; violence against women migrant workers; and pornography”[14].

iii. “Violence perpetrated or condoned by the State: Such as gender based violence during armed conflict; custodial violence; violence against refugees and internally displaced persons”[15].

Women, can be victim of any crime such as murder, robbery, cheating etc., but the crimes which are directed specifically against women are characterized as ‘crimes against women’ and these are broadly classified under two categories:

1. the crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and

2. the crimes under special laws (SLL)

1. The Crimes under the Indian Penal Code include:

i. Rape (Section 375 IPC)

ii. Kidnapping and abduction for different purposes (Section 363-373 IPC)

iii. Homicide for dowry, Dowry deaths or their attempts (Section 302/304-B IPC)

iv. Torture both mental and physical (Section 498-A IPC)

v. Molestation (Section 354 IPC)

vi. Sexual Harassment (Section 509 IPC)

vii. Importation of Girls (up to 21 years of age) (Section 366-B IPC)

2. The Crimes under the Special Laws include:

i. Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956.

ii. Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

iii. The Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act, 1979.

iv. Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.

v. Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.

vi. The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937.

vii. The Cinematography Act, 1952.

viii. The Special Marriage Act, 1954.

ix. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

x. The Hindu Adoption & Maintenance Act, 1956.

xi. The Hindu Minority & Guardianship Act, 1956.

xii. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961.

xiii. The Foreign Marriage Act, 1969. 

xivThe Indian Divorce Act, 1969. 

xv. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971. 

xvi. The Equal Remuneration Act, 1978.

xvii. The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994.

xviii. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

xix. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

The incidence of total crime in the country has been increasing over the years, but the rate of increase in crime against women has been higher than the rate of increase in total crime. Table 7 gives a picture of crimes reported in the country under IPC from 2015 to 2021.

Table 7

Crime against Women as compared to Total Crime in India

under IPC during the year 2015-2021

Source :  Crime in India- Reports for the respective years, National Crime Record Bureau, New Delhi.

It may be observed from the above table that while total crimes reported under Indian Penal Code, the crime against women is also prominent and prevalent it contributed largely in total crime; table shows total crime and crime against women as compared to total crime as the percentage of growth per annum during 2015 to 2019 it has been observed that a drastic decline during the year 2019-20. As a result, crime against women under IPC, which constituted 11.16 percent of total crimes in 2015, reveals a continuous increase in it during the year 2019 and it constitutes 12.58 percent of total crimes only the decline in the year 2020 where women crime as compare to total crime is 08.73 which has been increased in 2021.

In recent years, there is a global campaign for eradication of crimes against women, which indicates the graveness of the problem of atrocities committed against women, throughout the World. The requirement for protection of women rights gained global recognition during the International Decade of Women (1975-85) and has steadily gained momentum since then. This recognition became International Law in 1979 when the United Nation General Assembly adopted, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). India in 1993 joined hands with other countries of the World and ratified CEDAW and committed itself to work for elimination of all kinds of discriminations against women which put women at a disadvantage.

In the term of increase in different forms of crime against women, analyzing the causes at the family, society and Government level for eradication of such crimes assumes importance. With development and spread of urbanization, changes are observed in the personal life style and living standard of the people. Social ethos is changing and all these factors are supposed to be contributing towards increase in crime against women in India.

Theories on Violence against Women

“There are various theories have been proposed to understand violence against women committed by individuals. A common approach in some of the theories has been to focus on individual aggressors”[16]. There are the following explanations focusing on individuals :

i. “Psycho-pathological Factor : It focuses on personality characteristics of victims and offenders. These theories provide pathological explanations for violent behaviour focusing on brain structures, chemical imbalances, dietary deficiencies, hormonal factors as well as evolutionary theories and genetic characteristics to explain violent behaviour. This model thus links mental illnesses and other intra-individual phenomena such as alcoholism and drug use to violent behaviour. On the other hand it argues that violent behaviour can be understood by careful examination of the external environmental factors that have an impact on the behaviour of individuals leading to stressful situations or family inter-actional patterns”.[17]

ii. “Socio-psychological Factor : The socio-psychological analysis focuses on the external environmental factors that exercise impact on the individual offender. Persons for whom society makes it difficult to achieve an adequate level of self-esteem try to uphold their image in the eyes of other by carrying out violent acts. In socio-psychological approach, he feels frustrated and frustration in turn leads to some form of aggression, wherever something interferes with an individual’s attempt to reach same goal”.[18]

iii. “Socio-structural Factor: This factor gives more weight age to socio-structural factor as causes of violence among individuals. These include possible sources of stress and inert-individual conflict because of factors such as poor economic conditions, bad housing, poverty, lack of job opportunities, unfavourable and frustrating work conditions and other conditions arising out of inequalities in the society and unequal distribution of resources. Structural explanations also offer more political explanations to violent behaviour among individuals”[19].