Provoked On Mothers Day

Provoked On Mothers Day

Indian Holocaust My father`s Life and Time - One Hundred FIFTY TWO


Palash Biswas



Provoked English Movie Stills - 'Provoked' - Download Stills
http://www.nowrunning.com/film/slideshow1.asp?movieNo=2925
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http://www.apunkachoice.com/movies/mov572/

Sexual violence against women rises in India, state keeps mum
By Pallavi Sharma Views:38
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/154

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her." -- George Washington.

Happy Mother´s Day!

Like George Washington reflected, can you say your mother is the most beautiful woman? Can you attribute your success to her and appreciate her?

India enacts law to ensure women’s safety in the home
A landmark legislation that gives married and unmarried women far-reaching legal protection against abuse or “threats of abuse” from their spouses, partners or other males in the family came into effect from October 26
http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenItop.jsp?section_idv=1

Is it not an appropriate time to remember a different mother? Kiranjit Ahluwalia ? Who endured abuse at the hands of her husband with whom she tried to raise two children, away from home, in a foreign country!Aishwarya has always maintained a tight-lipped stance as far as her personal life was concerned, except of course, when it came to her film releases. Ms. Rai now reveals that she was a victim of domestic violence in an attempt to find parallel ground with Kiranjit Ahluwalia!

According to the myth of the family as a sanctuary of tranquillity and harmony, domestic violence is a veritable incongruity, a contradiction in terms. Violence shatters the peaceful image of the home, the safety that kinship provides. Nonetheless, the insidious nature of domestic violence has been documented across nations and cultures worldwide. It is a universal phenomenon. Domestic violence is violence that occurs within the private sphere, generally between individuals who are related through intimacy, blood or law. Despite the apparent neutrality of the term, domestic violence is nearly always a gender-specific crime, perpetrated by men against women.

And that woman is a Mother!

'PROVOKED: The story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia' is now available as a book from Southall Black Sisters. It was previously published under the title 'Circle of Light', and has recently been made into a film. Have you any opportunity to see the film?
I have viewed the Cold Horror enacted beautifully by Ash! I am also impressed by nandita das as radha dalal! Aishwarya Rai, could quickly become a mainstream film star based on her portrayal as a battered wife in the critically acclaimed film Provoked. The film has already premiered at Cannes and was also featured in the much less prominent IIFA ceremony in Dubai.

When West London immigrant Kiranjit Ahluwalia poured gasoline on her husband's bed as he slept and lit it on fire in 1989, it was the culmination of a decade of physical and mental abuse. Was her action murder or manslaughter? Was she provoked? The British courts came down hard, sentencing Ahluwalia to life in prison for the murder of her husband.
"Provoked" takes up Ahluwalia's case, which turned into a landmark in English criminal law in 1992, when "battered wife syndrome" was recognized as a valid defense for murder. The movie is made by Calcutta-born Jag Mundhra, whose resume is littered with a different variety of burning beds — direct-to-video erotic thrillers.


As the world celebrates Mother's Day today, the state of mothers in the country is far from satisfactory as India records the highest number of maternal deaths across the globe.The State of the World's Mothers Report, 2007, released by the US-based NGO "Save the Children" states that India tops the list of countries in maternal deaths.

"India records the highest number of 1,36,000 maternal deaths every year. The number is even higher than the maternal deaths reported in the less developed countries like Ethiopia, Congo and Nigeria," the report said.

The well-being of mothers was evaluated on various scales -- educational, political, economical and health status -- among 66 countries in which India was found trailing at the 61st position.

"India stands at a low 61st position in the Mothers Index Ranking-2007, with just five countries behind it, the reason being the increased lifetime risk of maternal mortality in India, which is around 48 per cent," said the report. The children in the country too are in a poor state, with 1.9 million of the total ten million children deaths in the world in a year being reported in India.

Based on a true story, Provoked would be a truly compelling tale of domestic abuse if it weren’t told in a manner more worthy of a direct to video production than a theatrical feature film. Bollywood’s reigning queen Aishwarya Rai delivers a solid performance in this tear-jerky drama, but the script fails to dig deep enough to fully flesh out the story.In the Manichean universe of "Provoked," bad people are very, very bad; good ones are very nearly angels; and good ones who do bad things at the bidding of bad ones end up drinking themselves into oblivion while leaving the beer bottles scattered about to make sure we know it.

Miranda Richardson plays Ronnie, the cellmate who teaches Kiran to stand up for herself, and various others fill out other stock types reduced to their most basic essence. Director Jag Mundhra's expends so much energy and screen time to sway us to take Kiranjit's side - really, we're on her side, we're on her side - that he doesn't have much left over for anything else, and the women's rights activists who turn her seemingly lost cause into a landmark legal victory end up looking like something out of "Encyclopedia Brown."

Chopped into episodes headed by typewritten dates, "Provoked" turns the case of a lifetime into something straight out of Lifetime.

Luckily there’s nothing like the disposing of a husband to cement one’s popularity in a women’s penitentiary, and her trembling arrival at Mullwood Hall Prison is only the beginning of a journey of self-discovery. With the help of a soft-centered cellmate (Miranda Richardson), Kiranjit cuts her hair, dons a pantsuit and learns to say “bosoms” without blushing. By the time she delivers a public-service announcement on behalf of battered women everywhere, even the prison’s token brutish lesbian is moved to cheer.

A landmark case in British law, Ms. Ahluwalia’s successful 1992 appeal helped widen the legal options available to victims of long-term abuse, yet “Provoked” could hardly be less provocative. Consider this, though: Five years before Ms. Ahluwalia set fire to her husband, the director Robert Greenwald immortalized a near-identical act of spousal conflagration in his television movie “The Burning Bed,” in which Farrah Fawcett touchingly portrayed the battered Michigan housewife Francine Hughes. Hmmm. We may never know if Ms. Hughes provided inspiration for her sister in suffering, but I for one find speculation irresistible.


Exclusive Provoked Clip
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_11961.html

Provoked (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provoked_(film)


Express India
http://www.jfw.org.uk/casehistories.htm

Is it not quite relevent tp analyse how India tackles domestic violence on Mothers day itself? Is the post modern Indian woman is not really in a situation to identify herself with Kiranjit with provoked experience?

Yes, here you are!

A landmark new law seeking to protect women from domestic violence has come into effect in India.
The law also bans harassment by way of dowry demands and gives sweeping powers to a magistrate to issue protection orders where needed. Punishment could range from a jail term of up to one year and/or a fine of up to 20,000 rupees ($450). Every six hours, a young married woman is burned, beaten to death or driven to commit suicide, officials say. Overall, a crime against women is committed every three minutes in India, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau. Despite the scale of the problem, there had been no specific legislation to deal with actual abuse or the threat of abuse at home.

Domestic violence, under the new law, includes "actual abuse or the threat of abuse whether physical, sexual, emotional or economic," a statement from the federal ministry of women and child development said.

Wall of silence

The law provides protection to the wife or live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband or live-in partner or his relatives.

INDIA: CRIME AGAINST WOMEN
One crime against women every three minutes
One rape every 29 minutes
One dowry death case every 77 minutes
One case of cruelty by husband and relatives every nine minutes
Source: National Crime Records Bureau
Besides physical violence, the law also covers forcing a wife or partner to look at pornography.

"We have been trying for long to protect women from domestic violence. In India alone, around 70% of women are victim of these violent acts in one or the other form," junior minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury told the Press Trust of India news agency.

She said the news law would help provide relief to the women suffering from domestic violence.

Women's activists have welcomed the law, although many say it is not perfect.

They say a bill alone will not help in preventing domestic abuse; what is needed is a change in mind sets.

A survey by the International Institute for Population Studies showed 56% of Indian women believed wife beating to be justified in certain circumstances.

The reasons varied from going out without the husband's permission to cooking a bad meal.

Domestic abuse is often denied by the victims themselves.

Please read:Laws against domestic violence
Underused or Abused?
Madhu Kishwar
http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue120/domestic.htm


See also:
Reconsidered: Dangerous Bill
The Bill defines domestic violence as conduct whereby the abuser 'habitually assaults' the person aggrieved or makes her life 'miserable' by his conduct. Why does the assault need to be 'habitual' for it to amount to domestic violence? What does one mean by making the life of a person 'miserable'? This is a highly subjective term that would not help a judge in deciding whether a said conduct amounts to domestic violence or not. Why has the government chosen a definition that hides rather than reveals the true dimensions of violence against women?

The Government's Answer : All forms of violence will be covered by the expression in Section 4(1)(c) of the Bill - "Otherwise injures or harms the aggrieved person". Thus, everything is left to the imagination of the judge and to his/her individual perception of what is violence and what is not, which, to say the least, is very problematic.

Further, the Bill suggests that a plea of 'self defence' will be available to a man faced with a complaint of domestic violence. In real terms, the perpetrator can use this to undo the main provision - the definition of domestic violence. A man can always say he was trying to get out of a fight between himself and his wife or between his wife and his mother, and that he caused the injury complained of, not intentionally, but in order to protect himself.

If the intention is to protect women from violence, this provision must be dropped.

The Bill provides that only a woman related to the respondent by blood, marriage or adoption can take recourse to relief under the proposed law. This means sisters, daughters and mothers will be in a position to file a complaint against the abuser. However, it is debatable whether a woman who has been led to believe that she is married to a man but is not actually married for want of compliance of essential ceremonies, will be able to use the law. This will also be the case in bigamous marriages as the husband who enters into a second marriage will not be considered to be legally and validly married to the second wife, leaving her vulnerable to abuse without remedy.

There is no provision made to address the most commonly faced problem of women. Often, the violence is directed not only against the woman but is intended to cut off all her support structures, deny access to essential services and to withhold a woman's own property or children in an attempt to blackmail. The most obvious way of achieving this aim is to throw the woman out of the household.

Unless the power of restoration to the matrimonial home exists or the power to remove an abusive spouse exists, there is no purpose to this law. Indeed, it is possible for judges to argue that the absence of such provisions was intentional by the legislature and hence, no such orders can be given.

It is just not good enough to argue that such orders can be given under the provision to "pass any other direction as may be considered necessary". Considered necessary by whom? We know about the necessities of women who face domestic violence, then why are those necessities not spelt out? There is an imminent need for this law to provide for a woman's right to reside in the matrimonial home.

The law also needs to provide for the temporary custody of children (or child) to the woman - so that she cannot be blackmailed into exchanging her right to property and 'stridhan' for her children; compensation for injuries sustained as a result of domestic violence, apart from injunction restraining acts of domestic violence; and maintenance for her and her children.

Although a woman could get any of the above by way of relief (except perhaps the right to reside in the matrimonial home), this would require monetary resources enough to litigate for these rights in four to five different fora. Most often, a woman would not have access to as many resources. Any law on domestic violence needs to address this and allow a woman to seek varied relief under a 'single window clearance' system.

The present law is a complete sell-out of the rights of women. We must resist the attempt and demand that the State perform its most elementary duty, the duty to protect the life and liberty of its citizens in an effective way, consistent with its constitutional and international obligations.

Moreover, Section 11 contains a provision for the woman to undergo mandatory counselling with the abuser. This goes against all accepted principles of counselling. Mandatory counselling is one method of correcting abusive behaviour. It is ridiculous to enable the magistrate to insist on 'mandatory' counselling of the innocent party. Such counselling can only end up 'convincing' her to accept her situation - of being abused - as being normal, and to continue in a violent marriage. Counselling for the innocent party can and should only be voluntary.

The problems with this law are manifold - from the appointment and qualifications of the protection officers to the jurisdiction of magistrates, to cognisability of the breach of a protection order passed by the magistrate. Complex as its implications are, the point is that this law, if enacted thus, will turn out be extremely dangerous for women survivors of domestic violence.

It was under the impact of such discussions that the Government referred its Bill to the Standing Committee for the Ministry of Human Resource Development for reconsideration and its recommendations. Various women's groups across the country have presented their problems with the proposed Bill to the Committee. The Committee is to present its recommendations to Parliament by December.

Till then, it is for all of us - women facing or fighting violence within homes - to unite in our demand for a comprehensive law on domestic violence. A law that encompasses all women's experience of violence, and addresses the issue adequately. With a clear message to the perpetrators: Violence within the home is not acceptable.

Indira Jaising
November 2002
http://www.indiatogether.org/women/violence/domvolbill.htm

What specific provisions of law deal with domestic violence?
http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue137/laws.htm

Laws of opportunity
Rasheeda Bhagat

Britain's Law Minister makes a strong case for Indo-UK tie-ups for legal services.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2007/05/11/stories/2007051100040100.htm

Men, too, want to be under the umbrella
Wednesday, May 09, 2007 23:35 IST

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1095880

http://www.aishwarya-forever.com/news/archives/july2005/july-13.html

Southall Black Sisters, a not-for-profit organisation, was established in 1979 to meet the needs of black (Asian and African-Caribbean) women. Our aims are to highlight and challenge violence against women; empower them to gain more control over their lives; live without fear of violence; and assert their human rights to justice, equality and freedom. For more than two decades we have been at the forefront of challenging domestic and gender violence locally and nationally, and campaigning for the provision of support services to enable women and their children to escape violent relationships.

We manage a resource centre in West London that provides a comprehensive service to women experiencing violence and abuse. We offer specialist advice, information, casework, advocacy, counselling and self-help support services in several community languages. We are managed by a group of women with long experience of women's struggles and commitment to women's rights.
http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/

Crime and Punishment? Kiranjit Ahluwalia - handbill
ID no:MoL_2000.190Description:This flyer advertises a public meeting on Saturday 13 June 1992 at the Southall Dominion Centre, Southall, Middlesex, addressing the subject of battered women who kill. The meeting was organised by the Southall Black Sisters (SBS) who provide an advice, campaigning and resource centre for black women. The poster is headed 'Crime and Punishment? Kiranjit Ahluwalia' and refers to the case of an Asian woman sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her violent husband in 1989. The poster was produced by the SBS who organised the meeting to discuss Kiranjit's case and conviction, an appeal against which was due to be heard in July 1992. On the reverse is printed, in four languages, a summary of her case. As a result of campaigning by the Southall Black Sisters, Kiranjit Ahluwalia was released from jail in 1992 and her murder conviction reduced to manslaughter.Object size:L 210 mm; H 297 mmProduction Date:1992Maker:Southall Black Sisters; Khan, ImranaCopyright:Museum of LondonKiranjit Ahluwalia - Provoked – Yet Another Real Life in Reels

A UK based English Language film ‘Provoked’ is a depiction of the real life story of Mrs. Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly murdering her abusive husband of 10 years.

Leading bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai plays the character of Kiranjit a Punjabi girl who was married off to Deepak Ahluwalia played on-screen by Naveen Andrews. Kiranjit lived a battered life of a meek household commodity in the restricted boundaries of her house in London for 10 long years, suffering the atrocities of her husband every single day.With its tone of unremitting gentility “Provoked” may be the most restrained wife-beating drama ever to grace a movie screen

Her alcoholic husband physically, mentally and sexually tortured Kiranjit Ahluwalia until she could not take it any longer and decided to retaliate. Her attempts to escape the terror were always unsuccessful and she had reached a state when she could not bare the terror any longer. Kiranjit never wished to kill her husband, all she intended was to make him feel the pain that she suffered in order to stop him from abusing her.

One fateful day when Deepak returned home at night and was fast asleep, Kiranjit spilled kerosene around his bed and set his legs on fire. Deepak succumbed to his injuries and died after being treated for ten days at the hospital. Kiranjit was charged with the murder of his partner and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Though she was a criminal in the eyes of the law, a non-profit organisation called Southall Black Sisters, in London, which handles cases of battered Asian housewives, helped her win her appeal on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Kiranjit was released after serving a sentence for three years and three months. Not only this the support organization also conducted several mobilised public opinions, meetings, demos, media coverage and brought Kiranjit and her story into everyone’s notice.

Today, after almost 15 years of the trial, the story of Kiranjit has still caught the attention of many. Special thanks to the bollywood fraternity who took the initiative of bringing her sufferings into picture and spread awareness amongst several other women who are quietly and endlessly suffering. Post direction of the film, Kiranjit herself volunteered to promote the film and made several rounds down India giving interviews, addressing the media and meeting people.

According to Kiranjit her main motive behind letting her story become public was to make other women across the world realize that there is no need for them to suffer disgust every day, and to expose household violence.

In India, Domestic Violence Rises with Education
Run Date: 11/06/03
By Swapna Majumdar
WeNews correspondent
Debate about the cultural underpinnings of domestic violence in India is being stirred by a study that found a woman's risk of being beaten, kicked or hit rises with her level of education.


NEW DELHI, India (WOMENSENEWS)--In New Delhi, India, a brilliant doctor tries to commit suicide after her husband slaps her for contradicting him in front of his friends.In Manila, Philippines, a former beauty queen tells police she was coerced into "entertaining other men" after being locked in a room without food for days by her husband.
In Santiago, Chile, neighbors respond to distress calls from a woman battered by her husband for refusing to let him watch a particular TV program in front of the children.
In Cairo, Egypt, the wife of a highly placed bureaucrat finally speaks up after enduring years of physical and mental abuse for being unable to bear a child.

The incidents were documented in a series of studies carried out by the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women in collaboration with independent Indian researchers. The cross-cultural study looked at the problem of domestic abuse in India, Egypt, Chile and the Philippines and found that violence against women was prevalent across regions, communities and classes.

Risk Rises with Education
According to the 2002 study, 45 percent of Indian women are slapped, kicked or beaten by their husbands. India also had the highest rate of violence during pregnancy. Of the women reporting violence, 50 percent were kicked, beaten or hit when pregnant. About 74.8 percent of the women who reported violence have attempted to commit suicide.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1591

WIVES AND WIDOWS
- Men’s fight against polygamy often had painful personal roots
Malavika Karlekar
karlekars@gmail.com


Toru Dutt had the advantage of the Christian church and her parents, who supported her brief though impressive literary career. Even then, in those early days, she feared ostracism, and was wary of venturing out of her home, despite riding in a curtained carriage. If she had lived for a few more years, till the 1880s at least, she would have been witness to several changes. By then, it was not as though reform and change depended only on a missionary zeal among the British and the newly converted. The record of the Brahmo Samaj as well as of the more progressive among Hindu society in the emancipation of women and promoting girls’ education is a part of the mythology of modern Bengal. But hagiographic accounts and biographies rarely mention why reformers became the men they did. Or that they had a chequered past — as described by Ashis Nandy in his exposé of Rammohan Roy, who fought an acrimonious legal battle over property with his mother, Tarini. Interestingly, many reformers came from family environments of rigid dogma and oppression — if not torture — of girls and women, as is evident from the unhappy childhood memories of Dwarakanath Ganguly (picture) and Rashbehary Mookerjea. Within their relatively brief lives, these two men became outspoken critics of the kulin legacy that they had left behind.

The two men belonged to a growing cohort of social and religious critics who used the quill to put forth their views in a society that increasingly valued literacy. Advocates of reform strengthened their arsenal with impassioned denigrations in a number of publications — often using Sanskrit texts — of certain aspects of Hindu society such as sati, child marriage, strictures against widow remarriage and kulin polygamy, a complicated system peculiar only to Bengal. Very simply, under this form of polygamy, a kulin — usually the top-ranking among the Brahmins and Kayasthas — could only marry kulin girls or those from a few other similarly recognized gotras within the caste group. Due to selective marriage and a skewed sex ratio, the system resulted in a surfeit of unmarried girls. For many, the future meant a “dishonourable spinsterhood in their brothers’ households” or “a nominal marriage”. As Tapan Raychaudhuri points out, their lives — and occasional dalliances and subsequent brutal punishments — have fascinated those who wrote the earliest novels in the Bengali language to the days of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay. Consequently, there were cases of notional marriages of one man to dozens, if not hundreds, of girls and women.

Of course, the stage for the system’s indictment had been set by that indefatigable supporter of women, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar. On December 27, 1855, he submitted a well-argued petition to the British against kulin polygamy, followed by a second petition on July 22, 1856, signed this time by 21,000 persons, including leading zamindars. The government however, did not act as the onset of the events of 1857 completely altered its world-view for some years to come. A decade later, a third petition was handed over to Sir Cecil Beadon, the lieutenant governor of Bengal, who apparently responded positively. By then, of course, the powerful pro-kulin lobby, that included novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, was opposed to any legislation. Though polygamy was not outlawed, widow remarriage was legalized — a recognition of the need for a way out for the hundreds of kulin ‘widows’.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070513/asp/opinion/story_7733702.asp


Blame it on the Ash jinx
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Aishwarya: Manglik menace
New Delhi, May 12: In true soap opera style, the blame is on the “bahu”.After the crushing defeat in the Assembly polls, tongues have begun wagging in the Samajwadi Party that Aishwarya Rai’s Manglik shadow may have fallen on its general secretary Amar Singh.

Amar had accompanied Ash — who he described as the “bahu of Uttar Pradesh” — along with Amitabh Bachchan and his family on a tour of temples to free her of the Mars jinx in her horoscope before her marriage to Abhishek.
Many in Amar’s party are saying, with a chuckle, all that temple-trotting could not stop the Mangal dosh from taking its toll.

Domestic Violence in India

Domestic Violence can be described as when one adult in a relationship misuses power to control another. It is the establishment of control and fear in a relationship through violence and other forms of abuse. The violence may involve physical abuse, sexual assault and threats. Sometimes it’s more subtle, like making someone feel worthless, not letting them have any money, or not allowing them to leave the home. Social isolation and emotional abuse can have long-lasting effects as well as physical violence.

Domestic Violence isn't just hitting, or fighting, or an occasional argument. It's an abuse of power. The abuser tortures and controls the victim by calculated threats, intimidation, and physical violence. . Although both men and women can be abused, in most cases, the victims are women. Children in homes where there is domestic violence are also abused or neglected. Although the woman is usually the primary target, violence is sometimes directed toward children, and sometimes toward family members and friends.

Many women in India are the victims of domestic abuse. Domestic violence is a CRIME and you must seek help.

Forms of Domestic Violence
Domestic violence can take many forms and variations and can happen once in a while or all at the same time. Domestic violence can be Psychological Abuse, Social Abuse, Financial Abuse, Physical Assault or Sexual Assault. Violence can be criminal and includes physical assault or injury (hitting, beating, shoving, etc.), sexual abuse ( forced sexual activity), or stalking.

Common Forms of violence against Indian women include:

Female feticide (selective abortion based on the fetus gender or sex selection of child), Domestic violence, Dowry death or harassment , Mental and physical torture, Sexual trafficking, and Public humiliation.



How children can get affected by domestic violence at home:


1) Children can themselves get physically abused or hurt.

2) Witnessing violence actions can be mentally damaging

Children often try to intervene to protect the adult victim, which puts them in a dangerous situation

Children can copy the violent behaviour they witness, both as children and as adults

They may develop stress-related problems in health

They can loose self- confidence, be afraid/angry, and blame themselves for what is happening or feel guilty.

If you are being abused, REMEMBER

You are not alone

It is not your fault

Help is available.

Trust in the Goodness of God & Seek help !


Case Histories


Kiranjit Ahluwalia Diana Butler Christine Devaney Patricia Gallagher Janet Gardner Emma Humphreys Zoora Shah Josephine Smith Sara Thornton Donna Tinker

Kiranjit Ahluwalia
Kiranjit Ahluwalia was persuaded into an arranged marriage by her brothers. Both her parents had died by the time she was 16 and so at the age of 23 she had to give up studying law and marry Deepak Ahluwalia.

The violence and humiliation started 2 days after the wedding. His manner "changed dramatically" Kiranjit recounted later. This marked the beginning of 10 years of violence, rape and sexual abuse; Deepak was so obsessed with controlling Kiranjit's behaviour that he even forbade her to eat chillies or drink black coffee. She was not allowed to go out to see friends or family and was treated like a slave.

Deepak saw other women while he continued to abuse Kiranjit on an almost daily basis. He didn't want her "westernised" and kept her in almost total isolation. Kiranjit was kicked, punched and slapped; beaten with belts, shoes and pieces of furniture, threatened with knives, hot irons and nearly strangled. Deepak also regularly threatened to kill her. Kiranjit was afraid to have children because she feared that she would never be able to leave her husband, but she was pressurized by Deepak's family to undergo medical examinations to find out why she had not yet become pregnant. Deepak forced Kiranjit to have sex with him and she subsequently had 2 children. The boys were terrified of their father and were also subjected to his violence. Kiranjit attempted to seek help from her family who merely told her to go back and be "a good wife" and that it was her duty "to make the marriage work". She also approached her GP and got 2 court injunctions in an effort to stop Deepak's attacks on her, but to no effect. She ran away but he found her and brought her back. Kiranjit began to drink in order to dull the pain and was deeply ashamed of her drinking. She took 2 overdoses, pushed beyond endurance by the misery of her existence. Finally, on May 9, 1989, she could stand it no longer - she was terrified of staying and equally terrified of the consequences of running away; she felt trapped and, in order to stop him coming after her and make him understand what pain was, she set fire to Deepak's bedclothes while he slept.