One cannot understand the problematics of gender violence solely by referring to the relationship of power or authority between man and women. Rather one needs to consider the problem by relating it to the specific social formation. In this context, the role played by the state, both its coercive and ideological apparatus, is thus to be considered as well.
In order to clarify our perspective on the problem, it is also important to note that violence against women is to be considered as being essentially related to the more general problems of women's oppression. So instead of conceptually isolating the phenomena, we shall consider oppression to be the wider term, and take violence to indicate, the actual exercising of or the perpetuation of those oppressive roles which are dictated by the male-dominant values of society. As such violence can take both physical and nonphysical forms and may be affected both through coercion and consent, the latter being elicited through various social customs and practices, legal and religious codes and beliefs, which may be sustained and supported by the state.
Recently newspaper reports indicate that gender violence in Bangladesh is on the increase.1 a phenomena which has brought forth preventive legislative measures from the government, as well as growing concern from the general public. It is in this context that I wish to examine the nature of the state's intervention in the sphere of gender violence.
Nature of State Intervention.
In general it can be said that the Bangladesh state is a soft state, which caters to diverse, fragmented and often contradictory interests e.g. international capital, donor government, the rural rich, the urban middle class, and certain state functionaries e.g. the army, the police force, bureaucracy etc. Such fragmentation in the state's discourse is reflected in the ad hoc and contradictory nature of many of its policies, especially those relating to women.
