Power Without Accountability: Gender-Based Aggression By Socially, Economically And Politically Dominant Persons In India
P. Priyanka, LL.M., The Central Law College, Salem
ABSTRACT
Gender-based aggression is rarely a self-contained act; in the Indian context it is almost always mediated through a background relationship of power. This article argues that the decisive variable in a large share of gender violence cases is not simply the conduct of the accused but the leverage available to him through social standing, economic control or political connection, and that this leverage operates twice over first to enable the aggression, and second to obstruct its disclosure and prosecution. Drawing on constitutional doctrine, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, special legislation such as the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 and the POSH Act 2013, and a body of Supreme Court jurisprudence stretching from Tukaram to Vishaka and beyond, the article develops a three-part taxonomy social, economic and political power through which such aggression is exercised, before turning to the structural gaps that continue to blunt legal protection: under-reporting, victim intimidation, institutional capture and the newer terrain of digital abuse. It concludes that formal equality before the law is necessary but insufficient, and that closing the gap between the constitutional promise of Articles 14, 15 and 21 and lived reality requires independent investigation, victim protection, economic empowerment and sustained institutional accountability.
Keywords: Leverage, Disclosure, Prosecution, Jurisprudence, Aggression, Intimidation, Institutional capture, Investigation, Accountability.
