The visual politics of trauma and gatekeeping in Indian family courts

For litigants in Indian courts, justice rarely arrives as a guaranteed package. It is more often a trail of breadcrumbs that may or may not lead to the sought-after redress.

This uncertainty becomes further treacherous in the wood-panelled corridors of family courts, where a quiet but pervasive trial often takes place long before any evidence is weighed – the trial of the survivor’s demeanour.

Against this backdrop, it is important to understand why the family courts were established. The issue of a surge in bride burning and other related violence against women was brought at the forefront by the feminist movement of the 1970s and 80s in India. This was also the period that saw the landmark judgments like the Mathura rape case and Shah Bano, which laid the foundation of feminist jurisprudence in India. This also brought the realisation that there is an urgent need for accessible legal spaces for women dealing with matrimonial crisis. That’s how the Family Courts Act of 1984 was born, with the aim of transforming cold, adversarial legalism into institutional empathy.

However, the reality of practice suggests that these courts have birthed a fossilised behavioural formula: that of the "ideal victim." This myth dictates that for a woman to be believed, she must "perform" her trauma through a lens of visible weakness and emotional collapse. The informal nature of these courts is often weaponised not for support, but for behavioural policing.

I recall representing a confident corporate official - a woman who had spent years rebuilding her life after surviving domestic abuse. On one occasion, she arrived at the courtroom directly from an office meeting; dressed in smart western formals. Caught in Delhi traffic, she had almost come sprinting to the courtroom and caught hold of the wall just to steady herself before her number was called out. While several others in the crowded room stood casually or leaned against the furniture unnoticed, the bench’s gaze locked onto her. In that moment of physical vulnerability, the response was not one of institutional empathy, but a sharp, targeted rebuke: "Stand straight! Are you in some leisure park?"

The bias was even more apparent on a subsequent date. As she sat quietly in a corner with files in her lap, she was again singled out among a sea of litigants and coats, all sitting in various relaxed postures. The judge was listening to another matter when he suddenly looked at her sharply and shouted –  "Don’t you know how to sit in court? Do not lean down on files." It was a clinical "correction" of her presence that seemed reserved only for her. Because she didn't look broken, because she carried herself with the dignity of her profession rather than the visible despair expected of a survivor, her very posture was treated as an act of defiance.

This ‘schooling’ had a two-fold effect. Firstly, it broke down the complainant before she could give her testimony. Secondly, it emboldened the accused husband. His sly smile sent a clear message that by ‘schooling’ the complainant, the bench has inadvertently validated the very power dynamic she had come to court to escape.

This gatekeeping is often embedded in the very iconography of the courtroom. Inside spaces like the Saket Court, the walls are adorned with large, framed photographs that serve as a visual manifesto of the state’s priorities. One such photograph is explicitly titled ‘Joy of Joint Family,’ depicting a curated, ‘unbroken’ scene of a husband, wife and children in domestic bliss.

There is no denying the fact that the joint family is a foundational social pillar in India. However, its celebration inside a courtroom creates a paradox and a complex psychological pressure. This becomes further a guilt trip to the survivor since this glorifying is one-sided and there is no single picture or imagery that celebrates the courage of a woman or the hard-won peace of a life free from violence. This imbalance suggests that the priority of the system is the preservation of the unit at all costs, often at the direct expense of the individual’s right to dignity.

This secondary victimisation is not limited to the bench. Often, the first battle a survivor faces is not against the accused, but against the very ecosystem of the Bar, and often against her own counsel. In another courtroom, I overheard an advocate whisper to his team, "See, the Luteri Dulhan is here." This slur - "the predatory bride"- is more than a slur; it is a professional shorthand. When advocates, court staff and even one’s own counsel participate in this mockery, the court ceases to be a forum for redress and becomes a playground of secondary victimisation. This atmosphere of hostility can push litigants to the brink of despair, mirroring recent distressing reports of a woman litigant driven to threaten self-harm within the courtroom following the alleged misconduct of her own counsel - a tragic culmination of when the bridge to justice becomes the barrier itself.

This phenomenon aligns with the "ideal victim" theory proposed by criminologist Nils Christie, which posits that a victim is not a victim in the eyes of society if they do not look like one. Consequently, the complainant is judged not on the facts of her case, but on the "visual politics" of her trauma. Perhaps the most dangerous current of this theory is the normalisation of violence. We have reached a point where we only respond to trauma that stirs or shocks public sentiment. It creates a hierarchy of horror where a crime is only deemed "worthy" of protest or judicial empathy if it mirrors the extreme heinousness of cases like Nirbhaya.

The Supreme Court, in a catena of judgments, has cautioned that justice should not be a performance. Yet, the "ideal victim" myth continues to fuel the misguided narrative of the "misuse of law." When a survivor fails to meet a biased expectation of grief, her truth is dismissed as a fabrication. The persistence of the "ideal victim" myth does more than just humiliate the individual survivor; it structurally compromises the integrity of our legal system. It is perhaps here that the root of the 'false case' narrative lies.

The inevitable question then arises: is this fixation on the "ideal victim" merely a byproduct of individual bias, or is this ‘schooling’ a deliberate gatekeeping tactic? By policing a survivor’s posture rather than her petition, the court effectively signals that her presence is an inconvenience - a strategy to minimise life-altering domestic crises into ‘minor disputes.’

When the system only validates 'broken' victims, it creates the very 'false case' narrative it seeks to avoid, dismissing resilient survivors as fabricators. It is time to recognise that judicial empathy is not a 'leisure' to be granted; it is a procedural requirement.

Vartika Sharma is an advocate based in Delhi.