The prospect of getting their daughters settled abroad and thereby themselves getting opportunities to migrate to foreign lands, still holds fascination for many Indian Families. Nevertheless this has often turned the dreams of many young Indian brides, lured into marital traps, into nightmares. From being abandoned and deserted by their NRI spouses to being victims of Domestic Violence, these young Indian women have often been rendered helpless due to their ignorance of legal mechanisms that could ameliorate their condition and most importantly due to the general apathy on the part of society and even their own families who treat them as burdens.

The present research paper attempts to shed light on the issue of Domestic Violence being faced by NRI women in foreign countries. The paper primarily deals with the Cinematic Representation of such a burning issue vis-à-vis the case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Kiranjit, a victim of Domestic Violence, was sentenced to life-imprisonment for having murdered her husband in 1989. Later when the case was highlighted by the Southall Black sisters who arranged a re-trial, Ahluwalia’s ‘original conviction was quashed and she was found not guilty of murder by means of diminished responsibility.’

‘R V Ahluwalia became the monumental court case that changed the nature of British law forever as affords the ‘Provocation Defense’-the acceptance of battered Women’s Syndrome as a legal state of mind, in accordance with defendants who have suffered extended physical abuse at the hands of a spouse.’

Later in the year 2007, Provoked, a film based on the life of Kiranjit Ahluwalia was made by Jag Mundhra, starring Aishwarya Rai in the lead role of Kiranjit. While on the one hand the film through Kiranjit’s case highlights the treatment meted out to scores of Indian women abroad, it also offers solutions to their predicament. The paper attempts to put forth how effectively cinema, as a medium of mass communication, deals with the issue highlighting the vital role cinema can play in redressing the problems being faced by women and the society at large.