Impact
Ultimately, Ahluwalia's case helped raise awareness of domestic violence in families of non-English speaking immigrants to Western countries, as well as changing the laws for domestic abuse victims in the United Kingdom.
Her case, known in British legal textbooks as R v Ahluwalia, changed the definition of the word 'provocation' in cases of battered women, so as to reclassify her crime as manslaughter instead of murder, and in the same year as her appeal, lead to the freeing of Emma Humphreys and Sarah Thornton.
Ahluwalia was honored in 2001 at the first Asian Women Awards in recognition of her "strength, personal achievements, determination and commitment" in helping to bring to light the subject of domestic violence.
She wrote an autobiography with co-author Rahila Gupta, Circle of Light.
Gita Sahgal made a film called Unprovoked for the British television investigative documentary program Despatches on the subject of Ahluwalia's experience.
The story was fictionalized in the film Provoked, which was screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Naveen Andrews played Deepak and Aishwarya Rai played the role of Ahluwalia. During the screening at Cannes, Ahluwalia sat next to Rai, holding her hand and sobbing during the most violent scenes.
Read more about this topic: Kiranjit Ahluwalia
Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)