Changing Indian family and the patterns in domestic violence: a geographical perspective with special reference to tribal areas

Debendra Kumar Nayak, North-Eastern Hill University

Globally, violence within the home is universal across culture, religion, class, and ethnicity. The social construction of the divide between public and private underlies the hidden nature of domestic violence against women. Statistical evidence on the actual prevalence of domestic violence in India is scant. Indian society subsumes within itself a variety of ethno-lingual groups. Regional variations in the cultural attributes make a geographical interpretation in the pattern of domestic violence very pertinent. The state-wise data collected by National Family and Health Survey on the nature of domestic violence against women for the year 1998-99 lends itself to a geographical interpretation as the states in India largely represent the ecological and cultural variation in the country. The present paper maps the geographical patterning in the extent and type of domestic violence in different regions of India in relation to explanatory variables such as ecology, ethnic composition and agrarian structure etc.