Sushovan Patnaik
Published on: 19 October 2025, 08:39 am
20 years is a long time for a law to remain in existence.
How must we reflect on the legacy of the Domestic Violence Act?
We are introducing a year long special series - 'Staying Alive' - to trace the journey of the PWDVA through insights of its drafters, campaigners and implementers, and review how it has evolved through litigation & jurisprudence.
As the curator Asmita Basu writes, this series will stay on as a living archive of the PWDVA.
"By bringing together diverse perspectives—from those who drafted and campaigned for the law to those who implemented and relied on it—we hope to create a record that does justice to the complexity of the PWDVA’s legacy, Asmita writes.
For decades, the Indian women's movement and Lawyer's Collective built the momentum and saw through the passing of the law. How does someone who has been a part of that story from the beginning reflect on these 20 years?
"Very often I am told that the law is good but it is not “implemented”. To use words like “implementation “ in analysis is misplaced. I am also told that judges lack “sensitisation”. This is also misplaced. The function of the law is to mandate, to compel. What judges lack is not just sensitization but the very discipline of the law which mandates them to honour the letter of the law," Jaising writes.
A word from our founder Indira Jaising: