Whose shame is it anyway?

An ad campaign has recently triggered an intense conversation around domestic violence on social media. Featuring Gajraj Rao as the father, the ad opens to him taking a call from his daughter. He is visibly distressed; “phir se?” he asks. From then on, the ad takes us through parallel timelines. One where he is leading a wedding baraat. Another that takes him through society’s reactions to his daughter’s abuse. She has to “adjust.” Not his responsibility. Think of his other children. 

Yet, toward the end of the ad, Gajraj reaches his daughter’s house with the band baaja procession — this time, to lead his daughter home, celebrating her. “Ye na koi parai hai, nahi dhan” — “She is my own, and nobody’s wealth.”

This ad went viral, garnering more than three million views in the first seven days. It’s based on a similar story of a father who escorted his daughter back from an abusive marriage in Uttar Pradesh. In a country that has normalised silence, the applause this ad has received is extraordinary. 

India isn’t new to abuse. What’s new is that we are beginning to speak about it. 

According to the 2019–2021 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 32 per cent of ever-married women in India reported experiencing physical, sexual, or emotional violence by their current or former husband. From NFHS-4 data, about 86 per cent of women in India who experienced domestic violence did not seek help, and about 77 per cent did not even mention the incident to anyone. 

Abuse and silence

Shame must change sides, said Gisele Pelicot, the survivor in the Mazan rape trial in France. But here, shame for abuse is often on the survivor, not on the abuser. Ishaa Vinod Chopra is a survivor, writing in her memoir, ‘Finding Order in Disorder’, about the scars of domestic violence. “I sustained a severe back injury — two blows to my spine,” she says, describing the horrors of her abusive marriage. “The issue with physical abuse is that it results in most cases in PTSD, where the mind-body experience is altered. There is a physical injury as well as a mental trauma: this blurs the lines of reality,” Ishaa explains. She acknowledges that women and families hesitate to name or confront abuse.

In a 2024 study of over 2,000 women in West Bengal, 71 per cent of women reported that they compromised because divorce or separation would mean losing financial support or shelter. And what about families? Often, the ‘log kya kahenge’ mentality is too deep-rooted. Families are typically the first to counsel silence. The same study above notes that 46 per cent of natal family members argued that women had to compromise with violence since the marital family hadn’t met their dowry demands. Ishaa adds that “someone may not have the mental strength to leave, as the family advises her against it, or to ‘keep trying’. Often, the abusive and/or violent behaviour and rage of a man is blamed on a woman’s verbal responses and ability to ‘keep a man happy’ at any cost. Women are told to suppress their feelings and emotions to align with their partner’s demands, or sold false narratives as “it takes two hands to clap.” Most women are not even aware of domestic violence laws. I have heard at least two women who work as domestic workers express distress about their abusive husbands. The wives don’t want to seek help. To them, this is life. “At least, he doesn’t beat me every day. Only when drunk,” they explain. 

And so they survive. Bruised and battered. Shamed and ostracised for being the victim. But just like shame must change sides, so too must silence.  In the ad, the father takes the daughter back. Yet, it still reinforces a familiar trope: A man saves and protects the woman. 

One day, we may see an ad where the woman walks out. Or the mother comes to take her back. Or, where society shuns the abuser and throws the man out.  Because right now the narrative is not “log kya kahenge” but “log kuch nahi kahenge.”

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