Public has a short memory and this has been proved time and again. “Irretrievable breakdown of marriage” was quite in discussion until some time ago and caught a high with the case of Smriti Shinde – daughter of ex-law minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde – filing a Public Interest Litigation to make the same as a ground of divorce as well but now the topic is completely out of discussion.

And further unfolding of the case revealed that it was actually a case of a “Mutual Consent” Divorce filed and one of the spouses refusing to abide by the mutual consent agreement even after a part of the agreement, based on which  the consent was drawn, being fulfilled and thus divorce not being granted.

The performance of the judiciary in the society in general and in matrimonial cases in particular has not been something laudable. More often than not, the judges are driven by emotion and pre-defined stereotypic gender notions in arriving at their decisions leading to not only ignorance of evidence placed on record and the data available, but also at arriving upon socially harmful interpretations of law and at times overstepping their constitutional limitations and boundaries. It has also led to judges acting as “Social Workers” proving Harold Laski correct in the Grammar of Politics – “Judges do not deliver judgments; they only give decisions. They only decide which side argued better”.

The issue of non-compliance of mutual consent divorces by either of the spouses even after the full/partial execution of the terms of the consent, leading to agony to the other spouse is not limited or exclusive to women. Husbands are more at the receiving end of such practices wherein often they end up executing the payment part and then keep running from pillars to post for divorce which is held back at the whims and fancy of the wife.

Taking note of the gravity of the situation and realizing that it is more of a social problem and not a gender problem, a men’s rights activist from Bangalore, Pandurang Katti, wrote to the same bench before which the PIL was filed by Smriti Shinde. The letter requested the bench to consider elevating the letter to a PIL for setting general guidelines in mutual consent cases and offered help to the judiciary in assisting to arrive at a just conclusion.

More than a month has passed after the letter was officially received by the bench; the man is yet to hear from the bench. And then the judiciary keeps complaining of backlog of cases and being overburdened etc.

1. Well, if one does not work, what remains to be said?
2. If truly, the judiciary is overloaded, then why do they work only 5 hrs in a day, why not 10 hrs?
3. Why do they take more vacations than schoolchildren?
4. Why do they keep giving adjournments after adjournments rather than using their judicial discretionary power to keep delay of cases in control?
5. Why don’t they come up with a filtration mechanism in admission of cases?
6. Why don’t they invoke provisions under section 182/211 of the Indian Penal Code to punish people who file false cases?
7. Why don’t they entertain perjury petitions to enable litigants to take action against people lying on oath, misleading the courts for their sinister and selfish agenda to be realized and waste precious judicial time?
8. Why are they so afraid of transparency and accountability and run away from the Right to Information Act provisions?
9. And, why does it take them decades to decide on petty issues like granting divorce or deny granting the same?
10. Do they fail to understand that a couple is no longer interested in staying together and it is just and prudent to allow them to lead lives peacefully rather than just being forced to hang around in courts loitering for non-existent justice?

Even in this particular case, the Bench is unable to decide whether to accept the letter and elevate it into a PIL or to dispose it.  It further drives home the message that the judiciary is not at all ready to LISTEN to men.

A copy of the letter sent is available at,

Letter Part1

Letter Part 2

It would seem since the inception of time, women have been fighting an uphill battle in regard to the status of their equality and value as compared with that of men. From some of the earliest and most circulated texts that pervade the world today, such as the Old Testament, people of the modern era are able to look back through time to see how women in society have been treated for millennia. Startlingly, the discriminatory attitudes that women face today are strikingly similar to the struggles that women have faced for centuries.

One of the most difficult issues presently confronting women is exemplified within the prejudicial attitudes that their male counterparts hold.  This attitude is expressed in the worlds of business, education, and even faith. For centuries women have been trying to break free from the mold cast for them by historical precedence, but, thus far, have been unable to shrug off the stigma assigned to them. In order to better understand the fight that women face today, it is prudent to look into the roots of the gender bias that women endure.

The nocent feelings that men have toward women are not a new development in the human saga. In fact, they extend back to the first instances of recorded history with biblical and other ancient subjugation of women. It would seem that many of the beliefs that carry into today sprout from the ideas of the religious hierarchy that used to institute the majority of the governing policy. This is an observable characteristic in many of the cultures of the world, but specifically, in medieval Europe, the church was able to set policies that even kings had to follow. After the Catholic Church came to prominence, the clergy had the power to leverage their disdain against a particular group and the target of their wrath was often women. It was their prerogative to keep women in the category of substandard citizen.

It was in this light that women developed their identity. In medieval times, women were seen as property and vessels for childbirth. Their role revolved around caring for the home and the children while the man of the household was responsible for providing an income and protection for the household. The overwhelming perception of women was one of a weak gender prone to sin. These women were forced to repress many of the feelings and desires that they had in the interest of pleasing societal standards. A woman had to be extremely conscientious of her public image in order to maintain the honor of the household.

In many ways, the overall identity and perception of women has not changed over the centuries. Society’s view of a woman’s role is primarily that of a wife and mother. In today’s economy, however, the overwhelming majority of women have to work outside the home in addition to shouldering the burden of the traditional duties generally associated her role.

It is interesting to note some of the fictitious women who were depicted in the literature of the medieval period because they defied the social norm, being strong and independent and even dabbling in sexual promiscuity. This dichotomy is baffling to modern historians. However, many women in today’s literature are presented in a similar manner. The difference lies within the woman’s ability to actually embody the fictitious roles that are being written about in today’s literature. Of course there were strong women in the past, but a woman’s strength is accepted more readily today as opposed to that strength being repressed centuries ago. There are many instances that persist into today where women are bottled into traditional roles and repressed, but society has moved forward leaps and bounds in comparison to other times in history.

Unfortunately, many times in today’s society a woman’s worth is still determined by whom she chooses to marry. A fundamental difference of marriage today and marriage in earlier periods of history has to do with a woman’s right to freely choose whom she wants to marry. In times passed, it was imperative for a family to present an acceptable dowry─ which is money, goods, or estate that a woman presents to her husband to be prior to marriage─ in order to ensure that the woman would marry well and be taken care of for the remainder of her life. Many things regarding marriage have changed, but one social stigma remains. A woman is still judged on how “well” she marries. This is less prominent and given much less consideration in today’s society, but the fact remains that she will always be judged on how “good” her man is. This is highly unjust, but it is just reality.

Women in society today retain many of the traditional roles that they have served in times passed; however, in most cases, women must take on many other roles in addition to the “traditional” roles that a woman is expected to fill. Many of the stigmas from centuries passed also persist into today, but, overall, women have moved from a second-class status of simple property and into a realm where they are mostly respected for the amazing gifts and perspective that they bring into every situation in which they choose to take part. True equality might not be a thing of the present yet, but a time is coming when gender will no longer matter and only the ideas and abilities that an individual brings to a situation will be valued.

UP minister faces dowry allegations

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/UP-minister-faces-dowry-allegations/articleshow/5523264.cms

Q: What is the minimum amount of mahr (dowry).
Kindly, specify in grams the mahr that was given to the wives of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam)and to Hadhrat Fatima (Radhiallaahu Anha) by Hadhrat Ali (RadhiallaahuAnhu). It is a common practice during the Nikah ceremony to mention thedowry as mahr Faatimi only. Is that correct or must the amount be alsospecified?

A: The minimum mahr is ten Dirhams (approximately 31 grams of silver). The Mahr given to the wives of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) was 500 Dirhams (approximately 1530 grams of silver). The Fuqaha differ in their opinions regarding the exact amount of mahr Faatimi. The majority of the Fuqahaa state that it is four hundred Mithqaal (approximately 1750 grams of silver). (Mirqat vol.6 Pg.246). If the dowry is given as mahr Faatimi, it must be specified (exact amount in Rands) at the time of the Nikah ceremony as the price of silver fluctuates .

Shantanu – The King of oppressed men may be a mythological story of an oppressed man, but it is no farther from truth, as mythologies are also inspired from realities. Today’s oppression of men and the resulting skyrocketing suicides and nose-diving life-expectancy as explained in Male Disposability – Myth or Reality might seem like a recent development.

However, as they say, “Truth is stranger than fiction”, indeed truth is stranger than fiction. Victimization of men is neither a purely mythological concept, nor a recent social development. How to be a Spartan? Clearly explains the enormous amount of violence, physical torture and emotional castration that boys had to undergo in Ancient Greece in order to master their role of protector and unpaid bodyguard when they grow up as men.

I came across an interesting judgment by the Bombay High Court under the erstwhile British Raj in India. The judgment can be found at link. Highlights of the judgment,

1. It is a 1927 judgment about a marital tiff.
2. Indian man was married to a British woman.
3. The wife was not able to adjust in the Indian weather, so after a few trips back and forth between India and London, finally decided to stay back in London while the husband was in India.
4. When she finally left, the husband gave her money enough to maintain herself for a year and wrote to his brother-in-law about the same. The brother-in-law in turn, did not accept this and threatened the husband with false cases of desertion which were eventually filed with a volley of false allegations.
5. The court while admitted that the allegations were false and the husband was put to great hardship due to that but still ordered maintenance to be paid to the wife from the husband.
6. The husband also proved that he had been sending money to the wife, which was returned back twice, which means she did not need the money, yet the court insisted on the husband giving money to wife.

This judgment is not a one-off case. Men are often made to undergo the dubious torture of fighting a false case and punishment for being a man more often than not. In this particular case, it was clearly NOT a case of desertion as presented by the wife against the husband and she went to the extent of killing the trust in the marriage – the foundation on which the institution rests – by leveling false allegations against the husband and the judge yet admitting the situation, did not spare the husband and rejected his plea.

The case clearly shows that men in bad marriages should not expect any justice from the system and this situation was equally bad way back as 1927. Often, champions of women’s causes, popularly known as feminists often cite “tortures on women in the past”, from a past that the current generation has neither witnessed, nor is responsible for that.

And that argument of a “bad past” is used to justify current crimes by women and bigotry. But this judgment has to be awarded the “Whistle Blower’s” award. It successfully and evidently blows the whistle on imaginary oppression of women as propagated by feminists and which has formed the basis of not only rampant misandry in the society but also male disposability and unconstitutional, anti-male laws leading to blatant victimization of men.

This judgment points to a gruesome fact that victimization of men which is a chronic social disease has unfortunately been trivialized so far and is continued to being trivialized in an invisible manner, courtesy “Male-Disposability” syndrome.

Even in the current judgment, the problem faced by the husband is not actually being forced to pay maintenance, but a “listening” problem. Judiciary is no different from the society as they have grown up in the same society and are equal prisoners of societal attitudes towards men – numb and insensitive to abuse of a man, completely disconnected with the male experience of circumstances and situations, and alien to the male world.

This behavioral pattern is completely visible in the judgment. Inspite of all the facts being right there in front of the eyes, the judge is not able to comprehend the fact that rather than the wife, it’s the husband who is being victimized and upholds punishment to the husband. The judge does accept the wife lied against her husband, dragging him into unnecessary litigation. Yet, the judge forces the husband to maintain a liar wife who is neither ready to comply with her marital obligations nor ready to be truthful. What more a victimization of men could ever happen than this?

The genesis of the problem lies in the “Listening Problem” as mentioned above. Feminists must share a lot of credit for developing this listening problem against men. By accusing men in power of bias towards men for “Listening” to men, an atmosphere completely against the male experience has been grounded in not only modern times but since time immemorial of which this judgment, 83 years old is just a peripheral evidence or at best the tip of the iceberg.

The fraud played by feminists is not coming to light for the first time. Ernest Belfort Bax, in his book, “The Fraud of Feminism” has enunciated the same way back in 1913 – 14 years before this judgment was passed and 97 years ago from today’s times. And despite this treatise speaking truth, the mere fact that misandry still exists in forms of male-disposability and unconstitutional and anti-male laws clearly shows the foolproof existence of “Victimization of Men as a Chronic Social Disease”.

Recently, the Women and Child Development Ministry (WCD) has been shouting a lot about female feticide. And they are engrossed in the noise-creation to such a level that they could not even distinguish between Indian and Pakistani army Chiefs and included one of Pakistani Army Chief’s photos in one of their ads on female feticide.

It caused such a national shame that the PMO had to issue apology which was indeed awkward. When the blunder was performed by the WCD, ideally the responsibility of failure should also have been owned up by them, but unfortunately in India, females are used to a lot of pampering, and so the Protector PMO covered up for the national shame caused by the WCD.

As if that wasn’t enough, recently the WCD is giving ad about female feticide on television, radio, etc, saying, “Is it not worth worrying that there are only 960 females for 1000 males”.

Now, that’s a new one; a misleading stunt to garner sympathy on women’s issues and gather funds. The Natural Human Sex Ratio is 1.1. That means,960 females (as reported by the WCD), there should have been 1056 males but there are only 1000 males. So can the WCD ministry tell, whether it’s a matter of concern for males or females?

Is it not time to shut down the misleading Women and Child Development Ministry?

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: Latest Amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act Encourage and Legalize Dowry

The Ministry of Women and Child Development is moving a cabinet note seeking amendment in the existing provisions of the Dowry Prohibition (DP) Act of 1961. The amendments are expected to be placed before the cabinet for its approval at the end of January 2010 and likely to be tabled in the Parliament in the coming budget session.

The amendments include:
1.    Mandatory requirement for couples to notify the list of gifts exchanged during their wedding ceremony.
2.    The list of gifts, in the form of a sworn affidavit, has to be notarized, signed by a protection officer or a dowry prohibition officer and kept by both the parties.
3.    Failing to keep a list of gifts can invite heavy penalty including a three-year term in jail for not only the bride and the groom but also their parents.
4.    The penalty for dowry givers is reduced from five years of imprisonment to one year.
5.    The Domestic Violence Act will be linked with the DP Act for quick relief.
6.    The definition of dowry is widened by changing the word “in connection with marriage” to “given before the marriage, at the time of marriage and at any time after the marriage.”
7.    In case of a woman’s death, all property obtained as dowry would need to be reverted back to the parents of the woman or her children.

Sworn affidavit with a list of all gifts:
The new rule requiring a sworn affidavit accompanied by a list of gifts raises a lot of questions:
•    What is the legal purpose of this list and who does it benefit?
•    Does this sworn affidavit also serve as a declaration that no dowry or gifts were demanded by the husband and in-laws?
•    In the absence of such a declaration, how are the husband and in-laws protected from false allegations of dowry demand and harassment?
•    Who will ensure that this new rule is implemented given that the existing rules of the DP Act regarding dowry, gifts and marriage expenditure have not been implemented in the last 50 years?
•    Who is responsible for making sure that everyone is aware of the consequences of disobeying the rule?
•    Does ignorance of law work as an excuse to avoid punishment?

The most important question of all is this -
•    Is the affidavit with a list of “gifts” not a way of legalizing dowry?

Expansion of the definition of dowry:
The term dowry has not been clearly defined in the DP Act, and the proposed amendments do not add any clarity to the definition either. Instead, they only raise more questions and apprehensions.
•    How does one distinguish between dowry and gift?
•    What is the extent/value of “gifts” one can give?
•    When does a gift become dowry?
-    Does it happen when the marriage breaks down?
-    Does it happen when any gift is not listed in the affidavit?
-    Does it happen when the worth of the gift exceeds a certain monetary value?
-    Or is it at the discretion of the married woman and her family?
•    When the present definition of dowry itself is so unclear, what is the use of expanding the definition to items given before, during and at any time after marriage?
•    Should the parties file an affidavit at every instance gifts are exchanged at any time prior to, during and after marriage?

Property inherited, earnings and savings spent during or after marriage:
There is much talk about women being economically empowered and deserving equal rights to parental property. Given that it has become common practice for women to calculate and claim every penny or piece of wealth brought along or spent during the course of the marriage as “dowry”, the following questions arise:
•    If property is inherited or purchased by a woman before marriage is it considered dowry?
•    When an earning woman contributes towards wedding expenditure or gifts or towards the benefit of the matrimonial family after marriage, is it considered dowry?
If all the above are dowry, then
•    Are women expected to spend everything they have and then marry?
•    Are women expected to NOT contribute anything for the running of the matrimonial family?

Reduced punishment for dowry givers:
Since the introduction of DP Act in 1961, not a single person who admitted to giving dowry has been punished. Scores of persons alleged of taking or abetting the taking of dowry have been immediately arrested and tried for 5-10 years before being declared innocent.
•    Is it not a mockery of the law to reduce punishment for givers, when no dowry giver has ever been punished?
•    Does it not mean the Government is encouraging the giving of dowry?
•    How can one take dowry if nobody gives dowry?
•    Can anyone be threatened or coerced to give dowry AND marry against their will?

It is a well-known fact that most parents want to marry their daughters off to economically successful men and most women also want to marry a man who is better than them in everything. To achieve this end they indulge in lavish marriages, dowry and extravagant gifts, and when convenient, assume victimhood and accuse the husband and in-laws of “demanding” dowry.

In thousands of cases, young men and their families who take pride in opposing dowry or expensive weddings, eventually end up being booked under the anti-dowry laws when marital disputes crop up, and the bride and her family misuse the law to take revenge or extort money.

Shouldn’t the punishment for giving dowry be increased rather than reduced if the practice of dowry should be eradicated and misuse of the law prevented?

Dowry death and reverting back property, dowry and presents:
Feminists would have you believe that every unnatural or untimely death of a married Indian woman is dowry death. Not only that, the feminist hyperbole on “bride killing” and “dowry harassment” makes it look like Indian men have an uncanny propensity to commit violence on their wives for money, while men in other countries commit domestic violence for other reasons.

In reality, it is the number of registered suicides of married women which are passed off as statistics of dowry death, and even these numbers are almost always exaggerated. It has become a custom to claim that all the women have been “driven to suicide” due to dowry harassment.

It is important to note that women think about the past, present, and future earnings and savings (actual and potential) of a man before they marry. Wives routinely abuse husbands for money. More than 56,000 married Indian men end their lives every year, and a majority of them because of economic abuse. According to statistics obtained from the National Crime Records Bureau, every year, twice as many married men, compared to women, commit suicides and the deaths of these men are written off as “suicides due to financial or family problems”.

When a husband is killed due to economic abuse by his wife, the “hapless” surviving wife is legally entitled to claim his property and wealth, whereas, if a wife dies, no matter what the circumstances may be, the husband is not only accused of dowry death and punished through media slander and long-drawn court trials, but he has to also return all the wealth or property of the wife to her children or her parents.

Linking the Domestic Violence Act with DP Act for quick relief:
While logic would suggest that a woman complaining of domestic abuse should be protected by removing her from the offender(s) and the offender(s) should be punished, the Domestic Violence (DV) Act provides relief to the complainant wife in the form of monetary compensation and residence rights in home of the alleged “offender(s)”.
•    Does this not amount to encouraging women to get abused and beaten for money and residence rights?
•    Does it not tempt women to make false allegations of abuse to claim monetary and residential benefits?
•    Put another way, does it not seem to encourage husbands to commit domestic abuse and pay up to be let off the hook – in essence, the richer you are the more the unsaid “post-paid abusing privileges”?

In addition to the above, there are several other flaws with the DV Act and it is with such an ill-conceived law that another meaningless law, the DP Act, is proposed to be linked!

Government controlling giving presents:
Giving gifts is common practice at birthdays, anniversaries, farewell parties and many other occasions, and a wedding is just one of them. The Government has no right to infringe upon the rights of individuals to give presents or gifts. It cannot dictate what, when, why and to whom gifts can or cannot be given.

Having said that, for reasons only known to the lawmakers, the DP Act was introduced 50 years ago restricting the giving and taking of “dowry/presents/gifts”. Nevertheless, politicians, lawmakers, feminists, lawyers, judges, police, IAS officers and almost everyone who claim a moral high ground over common people, exchange dowry and expensive gifts and have lavish weddings.

How can such hypocrites be allowed to legislate and enforce laws like the DP Act over the common citizens of India?

The Government and women’s rights activists do not care about eradicating dowry:
The original DP Act of 1961 itself legalizes the illegal – After declaring that giving or taking of dowry is illegal, the Act adds ridiculous riders on the “return of dowry”. Through the new amendment, the Government seems to be inclined to further facilitate the so-called “evil practice”.

Madhu Kishwar, a renowned women’s rights activist, took an oath herself and invited all women’s rights activists to boycott all weddings which involve dowry or extravagant expenditure. How many weddings have any of you or anyone you know boycotted because dowry or too much expenditure was involved?

Madhu Kishwar was right when she said “feminism in India lacks integrity”. Feminists claim that 8,000 dowry deaths take place every year. They have spread the message that Indian families burn their brides for dowry as a routine practice, and it is the single most important problem that deserves International attention and funding. A fact unknown to many is that 78,000 pregnancy related deaths of women occur every year due to poverty and inability to afford proper health facilities. Are the poor women dying in the streets not a problem big enough to worry about compared to creating false statistics of dowry deaths and creating paranoia?

If the existing DP Act of 1961 is strictly implemented and if all dowry givers and those indulging in extravagant marriages are punished, the so called “dowry problem” will vanish in no time. However, this will never happen due to the many disincentives it would create in the global “Domestic Violence Industry”, the most important one being that the flow of International funding for “eliminating dowry” will cease. Not only that, the 50,000 crore market of “big fat weddings” will come to an abrupt end and hurt corporate entities and businesses, which in turn will affect politicians who control and are controlled by them. Lawyers, judges, police and anyone who thrive on the DV Industry will suffer.

The present system of ineffective anti-dowry laws works well for the Government and all the players in the “DV Industry” as it serves to project women as perpetual victims and men as habitual aggressors and to make more and more anti-male, anti-family laws and policies to woo the women vote bank.

The question before the media and all citizens is “When are WE going to realize we are being fooled, and say NO to laws like the DP Act, which have so many inherent flaws that their honest implementation will never be possible?”

In the event that the proposed amendments to the DP Act are passed, AIFWA, SIFF and APMPA would like to issue a word of caution to all men intending to get married and urge them to insist on prenuptial agreements to protect themselves from false cases when a marriage turns sour or breaks down.

I think we can all agree that dowry deaths are  a social stigma that India should get rid off. We cannot be seen as a progressive society if so many young women are killed because their husbands and in-laws are unhappy with the dowry they have received (some chilling statistics here and here on the number of reported dowry deaths).

Even if the  real numbers are significantly larger, they would still represent a tiny fraction of India’s population. But, it would be incorrect to conclude that this a practice that affects only a few. For the effect of dowry is not felt solely by the victims (and families of victims) of dowry deaths and harassment, but by the entire society.

Dowry is a manifestation of a greater social evil, one where women are thought of as a burden first on her parents and later on her husband and in-laws. Hence, the groom’s family is supposed to be compensated by the bride’s parents for taking this burden of their shoulders. Such a practice that stems from a belief that roughly half the population of the country is not equal to the other half is definitely detrimental for society, both from humanitarian and economic points of view. From an economic perspective, it is high sub-optimal when one half of the population is not allowed to contribute to the country’s economic growth.

Why then is dowry prevalent in India despite being illegal since 1961? This practice seems to ignore the borders of religion, caste, state, education and wealth. There might be an inverse correlation between education levels of the bride and likelihood of her family giving dowry (or like Levitt and Dubner suggested in Superfreakonomics, between spread of cable television and domestic abuse in India). But there are enough cases in each of our personal lives that show that television and education alone are not enough to do away with the practice of dowry.

Not convinced, then ask yourself how you react when you hear of someone in your family or friends circle, asking or giving dowry. Do you cajole, berate and threaten until we convince them or do you choose to look the other way and say, “We are like this only”? Most of us (if we are being honest with ourselves) will answer that we turn a blind eye to dowry when we see it happening in front of us.

The reasons that I can see for dowry being so prevalent are that:

1. Indian society continues to view women as a liability. People who take dowry believe that it is their right because they are taking on someone else’s liability, and people who give dowry feel they need to pay compensation for passing on their liability to someone else. At the heart of this is the feeling that women are not breadwinners.

2. People, who ask for dowry, are sure they can get away with it from the law and that there will be no societal sanctions imposed against them.

3. People, who give dowry, do so because they don’t want to be seen as rebelling against traditions or because they feel that it improves their social stature.

4. People who see it happening will look the other way even if they disagree with the practice. This is because they don’t realize that dowry is an externality for which they too are sharing the cost.

Getting rid of the scourge of dowry requires a multi-pronged approach. Here are some conventional approaches that many are trying:

i. More opportunities for women of all strata and education backgrounds to become financially independent.

ii. More awareness campaigns on how the entire society suffers if one family accepts dowry.

iii. Better enforcement of the law.

And here are some unconventional ideas that might be a little tougher to implement:

a. Increasing the minimum age of marriage for men and women to 24. This will do wonders for our population growth rate as well.

b. Encourage more youngsters to date and find their own spouses (preferably outside their own community) instead of relying on arranged marriages.  Marriage is a union of two people and not a contract between families. There could be some government subsidies given to people who marry outside their community.

c. Encourage young couples to move out of their joint family house after marriage. This way, they are not a burden on anyone but each other. This can be done by offering cheap housing to those starting out in life.

d. Neighbourhood watch programs (like in the US to keep crime and drugs out of the neighbourhood) could help law enforcement agencies by  educating their neighbourhood on the evils of dowry and reporting anyone who indulges in dowry.

Please share your own ideas.

Two Jews Agree?

What's a good dowry these days?

Abraham:

I don’t get why everyone’s so mad about the new Senator from Massachusetts telling a crowd filled with available men that his daughters are single.  Look, he may be a Senator, but he’s still got two single daughters on his hands.  My wife took a public access out for our daughter and landed her a rabbi.  Of course, he’s Reformed, but what can you do?

Raquel:

I kind of agree with my zayde on this.  There were a LOT of guys watching that night.  I’m totally sad about the whole health care thing, but I’d torpedo the Senate for that kind of exposure.

Anand Soondas , TIMES OF INDIA  Crest,  16 January 2010, 11:33am IST

The youngest of Meera Yadav’s three daughters , Parul, just 4, was still crying, unhappy with the frugal dinner of some rough rice and boiled potatoes, when she heard a soft knock on the rickety tin fence that served as a door for her shapeless little shack. A burly man stood outside, somewhat unsteady on his legs due to what smelled like freshly consumed alcohol. There were two others behind him, laughing at a crude joke one of them had just cracked. “Is that your husband,” asked the first policeman. Before she could answer, they had dragged him out in the open. By now, all the three kids were screaming with fear. The blows kept raining. It stopped long after the villagers in one of Chandigarh’s slums had collected in numbers and gathered enough courage to demand from the assaulters a reason for the battering. It was only the next day that Meera would know what their crime was – her husband had taken off the Shiromani Akali Dal flag someone had planted on the roof of their hut and replaced it with the one belonging to a party he would vote for in the Assembly elections. “But when I rushed to the cops to complain, they pushed me out of the thana. One of them threatened to file a case against me instead,” Meera would later say, shuddering more at the menace in the policemen’s voice than at the incident. “They said the next time I came with a complaint against the goons, they would beat me and the children.” Meera was lucky she didn’t go back to the cops – a mistake Sarita made. The desperate 22-year-old had gone to the Rohtak police station for the umpteenth time, pleading with the officers to let her husband, who was framed in a cooked-up motorcycle theft case, go. It was then that the constables on duty thought they had tolerated her enough. They gang-raped her. Sarita committed suicide at the Haryana police headquarters on June 9, 2008. When her distraught husband and small child sat on a dharna to ask for justice, the police promptly picked them up and had them locked up.

A 45-year-old mother and her 24-year-old son would kill themselves a year later in Jind, Haryana again, unable to take the harassment and torture of the police. “They were just petitioning for action on the murder of my elder son,” Ramdiya said, recounting the death of his wife Dayawanti and son Sandeep in October last year. “Both were forcibly thrown into Ambala jail on August 11, 2009, like hardened criminals. They couldn’t take it anymore. I had such a happy family. I have no one left now. Everybody’s dead.” In neighbouring Punjab, on a cold January day in 2001, Avtar Singh, the only son of his parents, asked three men blocking a narrow Ludhiana street with their car – they were drinking and eating to let him pass. That was an affront police inspector Gurmit Singh Pinky could not digest. He pumped a fistful of bullets into the young man’s chest. Equally heinous was the case of Swaran Singh Hundal, who killed promising folk singer Dilshad Akhtar with an AK-47 after the artist declined to sing a song the cop wanted him to. Hundal was dismissed from service and was jailed for a while, but the police top brass later reinstated him and the killer retired as DSP in 2002. It’s a different matter that Hundal, who was charged in other cases as well, committed suicide in 2008.

SWAGGER OF THE DEPRAVED

But if what Pinky and Hundal did was dastardly, Ajit Singh Bains, a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court, recounts a horrifying incident which was depraved. “In October 1991, some policemen killed a one-and-a-half-year-old baby and seven other members of the family, including three women,” he said.”Their method of murder was atrocious and they actually peeled off the victims’ skin and poured hot tar and diesel on their wounds. No action was taken against these cops.”

There’s an unmistakable swagger in modern day cops as they increasingly turn into a brutal and brutalising force. Armed with the knowledge that a mostly corrupt lot of MPs, MLAs and ministers, with skeletons in their own cupboards, will not be able to wield the moral lathi to rein them in, the conduct of officers and even lower-ranked men in the police has only become more brazen, more bizarre. It is perhaps this that allows men like SPS Rathore to believe they can first molest a young girl and then browbeat her family into submission. And the way the former Haryana DGP turned the entire system into accomplices – ministers, local netas, school authorities, his minions in the department – as he hounded Ruchika Girhotra into committing suicide is a case study of how top cops have the power to do what they want with the lives of the truly disenfranchised, which in India is anyone who doesn’t have a real “connection” to make his voice heard.

The Rathore shame – his cronies during a torture session went to the extent of offering Ruchika’s brother urine when he asked for water – played out even as a Rajasthani tribal woman, who was allegedly raped by a police officer 13 years ago, cried again for justice. The case involved a former DIG of Rajasthan police, Madhukar Tandon, who took advantage of his influence and managed to evade the law for 13 years. After the ongoing hue and cry over the Ruchika case, and subsequent protests by the Alwar-based victim, the state government appointed teams to nab the culprit. Not surprisingly, Tandon has managed to evade arrest. It is also this cocky belligerence that allows a DGP like B B Mohanty to indefinitely shield his son, Bitti, accused of raping a German tourist in Rajasthan. And though the government of Naveen Patnaik suspended Mohanty, who was heading the home guards then, the punishment was revoked later. Bitti, granted a 14-day parole on November 20, 2006, jumped it and has been on the loose since.

Or take the case of the string of officers who played host to fake stamps kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi, even offering him chicken biryani once while he was in their custody. Something which was never reported, but widely heard by crime reporters doing the rounds of the Crawford Market police headquarters in Mumbai, was that the wife of a police commissioner in the ’90s would book a room in a city hotel once every month for officers under her husband to come with their “collections” of the last 30 days. So confident are cops that they can get away with anything, they don’t seem to care a whit about normal ethics or morality- like the Mumbai policemen who were caught having fun at a Christmas-eve party sponsored by the Chhota Rajan gang. An embarrassed Ashok Chavan government in Maharashtra quickly suspended five errant men, among them DCP V N Salve and ACP Prakash Wani.

NOXIOUS NEXUS

In all this, what is most disconcerting is the parallel business policemen, across ranks and departments, run in the name of dispensing justice or tackling crime. A textile businessman’s vehicle was recently stopped in Mumbai by cops who wanted him to pay them hafta (protection money). The police had already gathered information on him from his rivals and demanded Rs 2.5 lakh every month. The deal did not work out and soon the businessman was booked for “carrying arms”.

“I know of several instances where our own personnel pursue business interests with people of questionable background,” a senior officer admitted wryly. IPS officerturned-lawyer Y P Singh said, “They do this because they have no fear of punishment and there is total lack of accountability. Plus, they are sure that seniors will support them.”

The arrest of encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, with whom the law finally caught up for staging fake encounters, is a case in point. “He had a free run till some years ago,’’ a colleague said. “Senior police officers gave him the go-ahead for encounters without ascertaining the real reason. He was running a parallel force. Sharma, in return, helped his friends get plum postings through his political connections.”

Then there was a builder who got his rival booked through IPS officer Bipin Bihari for attempted murder. “We took action by suspending the team involved. But I agree that they believed they could manage the criminal justice system. It is alarming that officers are being used to settle scores,” a senior police officer said.

COWERING POOR

But it is the poor across India who are most at risk from a rampaging force. It is they who cower, almost at all times, from the unpredictable, brute violence the men in uniform are capable of unleashing. K Guruviah, a farmer, and his wife Angammal, of M Kallupatti near Usilampatti in Tamil Nadu, were picked up by the police in July 1998 on the suspicion that they had received some stolen goods from a gang of thieves. Both were tortured for seven days, and at Oomachikulam police station they were undressed and made to simulate sex in the presence of police officials. Some of them later physically abused Angammal. Guruviah died moments after he was admitted to hospital.

Far from Chennai, Rajendra Yadav, a resident of Telari in Jharkhand, was taken into custody by the Chhatarpur police on December 30 last year. There was no arrest warrant. Barely 24 hours after he was taken to IPS officer Jatin Narwal’s residence in Palamau — where he complained of severe stomach pain — he was dead. A postmortem revealed severe assault had led to his death.

In the infamous and widely-publicised Rizwanur Rahman case, Justice Dipankar Dutta of Calcutta high court said, “It is an inescapable conclusion that there are two police stations. Lalbazar (police headquarters) is for the influential ones. And local police stations are for the aam aadmi. It is disgraceful that people have to knock on the high court’s door to lodge an FIR.”

Rahman, who was in love with Priyanka, the daughter of industrialist Ashok Todi, was found dead on the railway tracks on the outskirts of Kolkata on September 21, 2007. The CBI named seven accused in its chargesheet — Ashok Todi, his brothers Pradip and Anil Saraogi, IPS officer Ajoy Kumar, police officers Sukanti Chakraborti and Krishnendu Das, and S K Moinuddin alias Pappu, a social worker. In an equally shocking incident, Kaimur district police, in Bihar, procured arrest warrants against six-year-old Chaniya Khatun and her five-year-old sister Soni after they found them “guilty of killing” their 18-year-old sister-in-law for dowry last July.

It’s probably worse in the northeast, where the mainstream media doesn’t really reach, and people remain cut off from “mainland India” due to culture, infrastructure and distance. A startling 150 people were allegedly killed in fake encounters by Manipur Police Commandos last year alone. Police excesses in the state known for its rampant extra-judicial killings grabbed national attention when Chungkham Sanjit Singh, a reformed militant, was shot dead in Imphal on July 23, 2009 in broad daylight. A photographer captured the murder on camera and the photos found their way to magazines and newspapers across the country. Though the police claimed Sanjit had a gun, the images clearly showed an unarmed Sanjit talking politely to police commandos minutes before he was dragged inside a pharmacy. Besides Singh, a pregnant Rabina Devi was also killed.

The national capital Delhi is no better. Recently, a head constable beat up a 17-yearold boy, accused of stealing a mobile phone, so badly that he succumbed to his injuries. American journalist Jose Elliott had a taste of the Indian police’s barbarity when he was allegedly beaten up by men at the Hazrat Nizamuddin police station on October 8 last year. Elliott claimed cops thrashed him for “intervening” when someone was being kicked around.

Amazingly, Delhi Police officers told TOICrest there is “minimum cruelty and highhandedness” that can actually be attributed to their personnel. “We keep sanitizing our force. They are always being trained in manners and courtesy,’’ a senior officer said. “There is hardly any case in which a wrong person has been framed or jailed.” Tell that to Meera Yadav, Chungkham Sanjit’s bereaved family, Ruchika’s distraught brother, Sarita’s orphaned child and the countless others who are kicked and shoved around.

WITH INPUTS FROM RAHUL TRIPATHI, S AHMED ALI, K PRAVEEN KUMAR, RAJ KUMAR, SANJAY SHARMA, OINAM SUNIL, IP SINGH, JAIDEEP DEOGHARIA, ARNAB GANGULY, AKHILESH SINGH, SOUMITTRA S BOSE

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Police-State-Terror-in-Uniform/articleshow/5451782.cms

That, I am a men’s rights activist is a known fact and can be very well be deduced from the blogs and websites that I maintain. Below is the list,

1. www.wemen.us
2. http://legalfighter.wordpress.com
3. http://legalfighter.instablogs.com

I also involve in a lot of social research on men and attitudes of society, in general, towards men. And my interactions with the world around me form a crucial part of it. It so happened that a couple of days back, one of my female friends (ex-colleague) pinged me and told me, “You seem to have become a misogynist (woman-hater)”, to which I asked, “Why so?”. She replied that she has been following my blogs for quite some time and that she agrees to some part of it but everything cannot be completely right and completely wrong. So I told, “I am fighting for men’s rights and if that appears as misogyny, then so be it.” The chat ended.

I found the chat really interesting, because it was rampant misandry (male-hatred) around me that turned me into a men’s rights activist and that’s when I realized how men have been actually fooled by the society in the name of chivalry, protector and provider. How the emotional health of men has been jeopardized in order to convert them into numb PROTECTORS and UNPAID BODYGUARDS? And because of this, the society invests very low emotional resources in men and considers them as disposable entities and the most visible manifestation of this Male Disposability is in the fact that misandry is a social norm and considered to be a way of life.

As a result, societal inaction on misandry is no surprise unless one really gets hit by it and becomes a “Punished Victim” and a “De-Facto Stereotyped Criminal”. Whereas, as women have mostly been protected by men, they are considered to be a great social asset and misogyny (female hatred), even in its presumed forms, is protested against.

Whereas the real misandrists, who are spearheading the movement for “Women’s Empowerment” and piggybacking male-hatred on it, and those who are responsible for making misandry a social norm,  have never been asked, “You seem to have become a misandrist and that everything cannot be completely right or wrong, etc.”

But today, when I fighting for RIGHT to PEACEFUL EXISTENCE of men by working to eliminate misandry, I get labeled as a misogynist, and hence after that chat with my friend, I just asked myself,

1. Is it wrong to speak truth?
2. Is it wrong to expose falsehood?
3. Is it a crime to fight for human rights for men?
4. Am I a misogynist?

The answer is difficult, as it depends on the perspective one takes to look at the fight that I am fighting. If fighting FOR MEN, is AGAINST WOMEN, I am happy to be misogynist, else, social attitudes need a serious change to understand the men’s rights movement.

And it is only the society can answer – Am I a misogynist?

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: Announcing severe protest against mutilation of the Indian Constitution in the name of Women Empowerment.

About AIMRAW:

Association of International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare (AIMRAW) is the first ever international conglomerate of men’s rights activists all over the world. This organization intends to create massive awareness about men’s issues all over the world and vouch for men’s rights in all areas of life. AIMRAW aims to create “Affiliate Chapters” to spread its awareness. AIMRAW is in touch with men’s rights activists from 60 countries all over the world, including India. The Indian Affiliate Chapter of AIMRAW is in Bangalore, India.

The Indian Affiliate Chapter of AIMRAW is conducting this press conference in order to voice its protest against the proposed implementation of the proposed 81^st Constitutional Amendment popularly known as the Women’s Reservation Bill. Terming it as the next big step of “Women Empowerment”, this amendment calls for reserving one-third of Lok Sabha Constituencies for women on a rotating basis once in three years per Constituency.

Notwithstanding the political Tsunami to be brought about by the passage and implementation of this “Constitutional Amendment”, AIMRAW’s Indian Affiliate Chapter strongly objects to the infringement of Constitutional Rights conferred to men in India as explained below :-

Reserving the constituencies for women as enshrined in the proposed Constitutional Amendment will lead to,

1. Infringement on choice of citizens to elect their representative.
2. Infringement on choice of men to contest elections (either as a political party member or an independent) in their own constituency.

The above two infringements are severely unconstitutional and undemocratic in nature and are politically aimed at subverting democracy in India. The latest attempt in this direction has been by Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance and Jayanti Natarajan, Congress spokesperson as the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Bill, tabled the report on the 17^th Dec 2009 in both the Houses of the Parliament.

Although, the Congress party has been spearheading the enactment of the bill, having tabled it twice in two consecutive winter sessions of the Parliament, if one goes by the available data, there is a severe lack of integrity on part of Congress and other political parties as far as the issue of the “Women Reservation Bill” is concerned.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, out of the 443 candidates declared by the Congress, the party pitched only 40 women candidates (less than 10%). Opposition BJP fielded only 43 women candidates out of the total 427 seats. Left parties, shouting at the top of its lungs about the cause of women reservation, had the worst record of women representation in their list of candidates with only 5% of the tickets being given to women candidates for the 15th Lok Sabha elections. While, the CPM only fielded 4 women candidates out of the 80 declared seats, the CPI gave only 3 women candidates out of the 45 seats it was contesting. While Samajwadi Party fielded a mere 6 candidates out of its 75 candidates in UP, Lalu Yadav-led RJD gave a mere 2 seats to women in its quota of 28 seats in Bihar.(Source: www.indian-elections.com)

So, the Congress Govt., controlled by Sonia Gandhi, failed to field even 100 female candidates. It’s difficult to believe that a more than 100 year old political party does not have 100 worthy female leaders to contest parliamentary elections. The truth is that the older male politicians are not ready to give up their seats for females. Even Sonia Gandhi was powerless in front of these old politicians. She cannot risk a major revolt in Congress party, if she had fielded women in 30% of parliamentary seats.

So, just because of the stubborn behavior of old male politicians, Sonia Gandhi and Jayanti Natarajan are thinking of amending the Constitution of India, an amendment which will ultimately trample upon the Constitutional rights of ordinary men merely because of their gender. If Sonia Gandhi can’t take risks of fielding 100 female candidates in elections, then why should the citizens take a risk of having a mutilated constitution?

Furthermore, the data from the last General Elections of 2009 shows that, “1 out of 12 women candidates won vis-à-vis 1 out of 15 men candidates”. This simply means that the winning ratio for women was 25% higher than men. The electorates of India have shown far more confidence in women candidates than the political parties.

If Sonia Gandhi and other politicians lack integrity, then why should the citizens pay the price by giving up their choice to contest elections in their own Constituencies? It is analogous to performing a by-pass surgery for piles only because a heart surgeon is available. The Indian Chapter of AIMRAW strongly objects to the proposed Constitutional Amendment in the 81^st Constitutional Bill 2008 (popularly known as “Women Reservation Bill”) which will quintessentially be discriminatory against men and will stop them from contesting elections in their own constituencies merely because they are men.

We have neither stopped Kiran Majumdar Shaw, or Kiran Bedi or Sudha Murthy or Uma Bharati or for that matter, any woman candidate from contesting elections nor raised an issue about political parties allowing them to contest. However, with this Constitutional amendment, we see that now men are being asked NOT TO CONTEST elections in their own constituency merely because they are men. And hence, AIMRAW strongly objects to reserving constituencies via a Constitutional Amendment.

The Indian Chapter of AIMRAW strongly feels that due to the existing hatred against men, genuine problems of men are trivialized and the negative projection of men adds to it. Skyrocketing expectations from men, lack of freedom of choices in their life, nose-diving acceptance levels for them, accelerating suicide rate of men, constantly growing unemployment rate for men, complete absence of communication channels for them have already reduced men in the society to second class citizens. Now, in such a situation, if this Constitutional Amendment is allowed to go through, then men will be officially declared as “Second class citizens” and this is not acceptable to AIMRAW.

Whereas, the real problem lies with the inability of the old male politicians to give up their power positions and allow equal representation of women in the state and the parliamentary legislative assemblies. And instead of making attempts to solve that, the Govt. is making yet another attempt to discriminate against ordinary men giving into the pressure tactics of gender obsessed radical feminist groups; this is nothing but a broad daylight murder of democracy to which AIMRAW voices strong opposition.

Thanks and Regards

Public Relations Officer
Indian Affiliate Chapter, Bangalore,
Association of International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare

]]> http://legalfighter.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/indian-government-promotes-dowry-system/ Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:58:34 +0000 legalfighter http://legalfighter.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/indian-government-promotes-dowry-system/

Dowry system has always evoked a lot of response in India but mostly in wrong directions. The very word dowry sparks sympathy for the bride and hatred for the bridegroom. Thanks to the countless efforts of fund chasing gender obsessed radical feminists and power hungry alpha males who have jointly spread so much of male hatred that today, the society has become completely numb to abuse of men and crimes by women.

The word “dowry harassment” is conveniently used by women to cover up their follies and hold some man responsible for it. Today, misuse of dowry laws is an acceptable fact. Everyone from Peon to President has talked about it. What does that mean? It simply means that the problem of dowry as presented has never existed, otherwise why would there be so many false cases? More so, it has to be borne in mind that the current implementation of dowry laws does not require any evidence to punish the accused – the mere statement of the “woman” is enough to punish and the onus of proving innocence lies on the accused.

Very recently, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has made efforts to reduce punishment for “Dowry Givers” while increase it for “Dowry Takers” as per the following news http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/news/national/general/5_1_6097820.html. Common sense is something which is terribly missing in the Indian Government and our lawmakers. If there are no “Givers”, can there be any “Takers”? Instead of increasing the punishment for “Givers” which will actually reduce the practice of dowry as the root cause is taken care of, our great lawmakers are doing the exact opposite.

I was always doubtful of the real intentions of the Govt. of India in curbing the dowry system because the mere existence of it, albeit virtually, gets the Govt. huge funding from vested western agencies. Only an idiot will kill a goose that gives golden eggs. And with this proposal in pipeline, it is clearly evident that the Govt. does not want to eradicate the dowry system, but wants it to continue so that the journey itself is more intriguing than the destination.

Dowry Giving has been clearly defined as a crime in Section 3, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. Yet, till date not a single woman or her parents, shouting at the top of their lungs that they have given huge dowry to the man, have ever been punished for the offence while millions of men have been executed for the same. This in itself shows the anti-male bias of the Government. And now with this proposed amendment, the Govt. is simply allowing the crime legally.

Even, if the current Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 is implemented in its entirety, dowry givers are punished severely and extravagant marriages are brought under its ambit, banning them strictly, the so-called dowry problem will be solved in the next 2 years. But it also means that the foreign funding received for “eliminating dowry” will stop. Not only that, the 50,000 crore market that runs now in the name of “big-fat weddings” will come to an abrupt end. This will be an economic Tsunami for business houses and Corporates and in turn will not only affect Govt.’s funding but also the vote bank. So, quintessentially the existence of the dowry system runs the Govt. No wonder it is promoting it by sinister law amendments.

Girls have always married up in our society, i.e. the economic status/social status/educational status of the boy is higher than the girl in 99% of the cases, barring a few exceptions (the existence of which is the law of Nature). So every girl (and her parents) looks for an educated, well settled boy for an alliance. However, as the Indian Govt. has not furthered any scheme to educate boys, most boys are not able to perform academically and the supply of “eligible bachelors” is very less. That means there is stiff competition among girls to get that “eligible bachelor” and whosoever, pays the highest amount of dowry gets the alliance. It’s simple Demand-Supply dynamics which is currently one-sided. Make it two-sided and the problem is solved. But is anyone actually interested in solving problems?

This system also works well for the Govt. as it gets another chance to project women as victims and men as aggressors and justify anti-male laws or any sinister amendment to it as well. The coy deployed by the Govt. to run its shop under the barb and paradoxical veil of “eradicating dowry” is slowly coming to surface.

In fact, the best way to eradicate dowry system is to break all marriages involving even a whisper of “dowry”, but by giving extra concessions to dowry givers, the Indian Govt. is promoting the dowry system rather than working to eradicate it.

I read this great article in Economic Times about Malayali women and how they could soon be getting “bride money” instead of giving dowry. How can this happen you may wonder, but this was an article  in the Economic Times, so money has to play a part right? And so it does…

Kerala women to men ratio has always been amazing when you compare to the rest of India. It is 1058 women to every 1000 men in our little state and I did the Whoop Whoop for women power after reading this! This figure is in stark contrast to other states that grapple with the effects of female infanticide and abortions. It’s all finally catching up in states like Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan and they are now turning to Kerala women for brides.

Women of Kerala have lots of great traits, they are educated, good with languages and are known for their adaptability. Payyanur in North Kerala has married away quite a few of its daughters to far off Punjab and Haryana and the ladies have reported that they are very happy with their husbands and the in-laws.

But, now there are more grooms on the horizon according to the ET article from far-off China no less! In the next 10 years, 24 million Chinese would find it difficult to find a bride all thanks to gender specific abortions there.

From Chinese fishing nets to Communism, common grounds aplenty in this Kerala-China marriage situation. And if hefty sums for brides come calling the adaptable Malayali is sure to think of the economics of it all and at the same time make sure his daughter is married off well. You see finally it is all the economics and fewer local men available! Interesting, right?

Wealthy parents of an educated daughter thought they could ‘buy’ her respect in her marital home.

The boy’s family complained about the gifts at the engagement. They spoke of better ‘offers’ for the boy. The girl’s parents, fearing a broken engagement, agreed to pay more. The tantrums and complaints continued. They continued to comply. How strong and secure did such compliance make the daughter feel?

Her parents conveyed:

# Her parents were helpless. The groom’s parents were all powerful.

# There was no life after a broken engagement.

# A girl must get married. A girl must get married by a certain age. And then she must stay married.

These parents didn’t see what was so obvious. There was every indication that this family was more interested in dowry than in their daughter. The girl went through four years of hell, had a child and tolerated an extra marital affair. Now the husband wants a divorce and she is fighting him in court. She fears the stigma of divorce would affect their daughter’s future.

Her parents’ fears laid the foundation for this hell. Meeting dowry demands reveals a desperation to see a daughter get married and stay married. This can and did make the groom’s family feel they could ‘dictate terms’.

Another beautiful, intelligent and educated girl’s parents seem to feel they could not afford a not-abusive groom.  She was married, with all their savings as dowry, to a man without a regular job. Again there were indications of greed and verbal abuse after the engagement, but the parents ignored them all. She is raised to believe she is better off than many girls who are married to worse guys.

Her parents are proud of their conservative ‘values’ (sanskar) which forbade this daughter from interacting with men lest someone outside their community ‘ruins her life’. Her mostly unemployed husband finds fault with everything she does and calls her a ‘fool’. He thinks he has a right to control what she wears, when she wakes up, if and what jobs she picks up, what Television serials she watches and when and how often she meets her family.

Waiting till they found a suitable boy who did not demand a dowry, or self reliance for the girl were not seen as options here.

Another girl was married with a good dowry to a man who needed money to get his sisters married. The girl did not fit the standard Indian idea of beauty. Her parents wanted to see her ‘settled’ and thought it wouldn’t be possible without a dowry. The boy’s family thought he sacrificed his happiness for his sisters. The boy resented the girl and although he needed the dowry she brought, he felt exploited by her wealthier parents (but not by his own parents).

Since the girl’s personality, her wit and intelligence were not taken into account in these ‘negotiations’, what happiness could that dowry find her in this union?

Sometimes the groom’s family magnanimously agrees to accept a girl with just a rupee (as a token, in lieu of dowry). But this would mean the dowry is a boy’s right and a marriage without dowry is a favour to the girl. What does such a marriage or such a ‘favour’ do to a bride’s confidence? Isn’t there a chance that she might be expected to be grateful?

I know of one father who refused to honour a bad custom by giving even that rupee as token. The daughter felt pride not shame or gratitude for marrying  without a dowry. She was raised to believe she deserved happiness, success and all good things in life and must strive for them. The couple live happily today.

When a girl’s family gives dowry they are clearly saying that the groom is doing their daughter a favour. They also start a vicious cycle of demand and compliance, and leave themselves open to extortion – subtle or direct. Possibly former air hostess Neha Chhikara’s parents made this mistake when they gave 15 lakhs and then again 10 lakhs in cash to their son in law. The 23 year old took her own life on the first of January.[Link]

I agree with Editor, Techgoss, “Someone should start a campaign telling women that if their hubby/hubby’s family wants dowry they are walking into such life threatening situations.”

It is a myth that dowry is unavoidable. The fact is those girls who put their foot down find themselves in happier situations. A confident girl who knows she is worthy of being loved for herself would not see dowry as an option. In the end the world (and her spouse and his family) sees a girl the way she see herself.

A girl who is treated like a burden at home is more likely to accept abuse by her in laws or watch her parents fulfil dowry demands. [Read more here.]

Indyeah tweeted me the link to this inspiring article about girls who dared to throw out greedy families demanding dowry at the last moment.

This howlarious video I found on Alankrita’s blog also talks about ‘totally insufficient dowry’.

If someone dislocated your jaw in one of the many violent beatings they gave you, how would you like to try to live with them and win their love?

23 year old Neha committed suicide on January 1st. Her family alleged that her in laws “used to beat her up...” [Link] “Once she was beaten so badly by Dalal  (her husband)  that her jaw got dislocated and she also lost her job as air hostess,” Atul Ahlawat, Neha’s cousin, alleged.” After losing her job as an Air Hostess, she found a job on the Cruise liner where her husband was working. [Details in the video below.] Allegedly he continued to beat her here and one day she just couldn’t bear it any more and killed herself.

I am trying to understand what kind of compulsions could make any parents let their child go back to a spouse who allegedly dislocated her jaw. What did they say to her when they asked her to go back? Would they have said the same thing if the child being beaten was a male child?

Why was it so difficult to let this financially self reliant adult walk out of what they allege was an abusive and violent marriage? I have blogged about this in ‘When a daughter refuses to go back’. I can never understand why we don’t trust our daughters when they say they are unhappy… why would we rather they died than walked out?

Here’s the translation of what the mother has to say. I know other Indian mothers who would have said exactly the same thing. My response in red.

“My daughter tried her best. (At best the beatings would become less frequent. The fear and mental abuse will stay. At best physical pain, indignity, embarrassment, humiliation and the lies to cover the bruises will become a part of her life.)

She did not want us to face any kind of unhappiness. (What about her unhappiness? Could she say the same thing for her parents?)

Neha was being tortured mentally. Physically too. (Why didn’t she have the confidence to walk out and save her life? Did she have no faith in her parents’ love and support?)

She told me this many times but I kept explaining to her that it will all be alright after a while. (It never gets ‘alright’, the threat of violence is always there and there is always a risk of injury and death)

The last time when she gave me the phone to speak to Ankit (the son in law) Ankit did not speak to me. And I heard Neha’s pained cry… like someone had hit her or something… then the phone was disconnected.” (This is a violent crime happening, and just because the criminal is a son in law does not make it okay. The parents should rush to the daughter’s side and if she has been brought up with any self worth and if she  trusts them, she will come back with them.)

I also feel violent men sense that the wife’s family would consider an odd dislocated jaw or broken bone their right as husbands. Nothing can be more encouraging for any criminal.

Dowry and Domestic Violence (DV) might lead to death by beatings or by suicide. Counselling and campaigns should be aimed at not just the victims but also the victim’s parents who see Domestic Violence as a domestic matter not a serious crime.

A friend recently sent me a web link to the work of artist-activist Fazal Sheikh, in particular his works on women in India. His books, available to view at his website, feature portraits and stories of females, from babies to the aged, who have been aborted, abandoned, abused, and in some instances, murdered.

Last week, while browsing through titles at a bookstore near my hotel, I saw a flier for a gallery exhibit of Fazal’s work – Ladli ‘Beloved Daughter’ that was being shown at Kriti Gallery here in Varanasi.

I knew of his work with widowed women living out their lives in Vrindavan, but was not aware of the extent of his work with all of India’s daughters, until seeing his Ladli exhibit at Kriti Gallery. The portraits and accompanying stories of the Beloved Daughter series tell of the systematic rejection and ritual abuse occurring in India, a reality that some prefer to ignore or deny that it exists.

In speaking with Navneet of Kriti Gallery, I learned that none of the galleries in Delhi are willing to host Ladli. Some, including an editor of one of India’s major news sources who came to the opening of the show at Kriti, outright reject and therefore denigrate the women and their stories, refusing to believe this India still exists. Some guests were angry that Navneet was hosting Fazal’s work, but others, like a group of high school age girls, were moved to tears by it. And this is what the portraits and stories do. Stir us to outrage, to sadness, and ideally, to action.

Krishna’s Story
from the online edition of Ladli:

Is there a similarity in a matrimonial advertisement and an open call for contractors? The former says: ‘Fair-complexioned, beautiful, convent-educated, smart, non-bespectacled, homely bride sought for……’ whereas the latter says: ‘Highly skilled, focussed, sincere contractor, capable of handling similar projects worth Rs. ——/- sought for the prestigious project of……..’ Now, if we read the fine-print, there might be several other adjectives and clauses related to purchasing power – of the former to buy a ‘good’ groom and the latter to buy the project-in charge! The bold print could very well be overlooked – the bride could be dark-complexioned, not-so pretty or bespectacled if her parents could add an ‘extra gift’ of the latest vehicle in market or a luxury condominium and the contractor could be a tad too dishonest or not-so skilled if he could afford some ‘extra smooth’ grease that can ease tensions of a screechy ride!

The only difference that one may find in this comparison is that the latter needs to fill in a stupendously low amount to land a government project (As per rule, the tender generally goes to the lowest quote even if that means that the quote is justified with regard to no single item in the tender list; I have witnessed cases where the tender quotes for the same project have varied between Rs 11lakhs and Rs. 40lakhs, and the person who quoted the least bagged the contract without any further question on the credibility of such a quote considering the scale of the project and volume of work involved!).

Not surprisingly one comes across marital discords either due to continuous dowry demands of the groom or due to the ‘have-bought-you-so better-behave’ attitude of the bride. Such hiccups in construction scenario have to be passively interpreted from eons of interrupted work or sub-standard workmanship that refuses to pass the test of even a single season’s time, much to the inconvenience and dismay of users!

It is, after all, the weight of words and promises, and of closed envelopes and parcels that change hands, which qualify either for marriage and construction markets respectively…

‘Henna’ed or greased palms; all the same, aren’t they?

Image courtesy: Google

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: AIMWA files complaint with ASCI against Gillette’s W.A.L.S. campaign

All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA) is the first ever organization formed to protect the rights and interests of men and to fight against all kinds of discrimination against men and boys in all arenas – social, legal, economic, etc.

AIMWA has launched a massive online protest against the “Women against Lazy Stubble (W.A.L.S.)” campaign started by the Gillette brand of Procter and Gamble India Ltd. (P&G) wherein P&G openly declared the campaign as “Women on the warpath” and has called men, who sport stubble or prefer to remain unshaven, as lazy in order to boost their sales of products of the shaving range.

The demands made by AIMWA are as follows

1. Procter and Gamble should stop the “Women against Lazy Stubble” campaign immediately.

2. They should publish a 10 cm. X 12 cm. apology for insulting men, in all leading national dailies, on either the front page or back page.

3. Actresses Minisha Lamba, Neha Dhupia and Mugdha Godse should tender apologies to all men for calling them lazy and urging women to detest unshaven men.

4. Procter and Gamble should also tender an apology for making a Gender Hate Speech, and

5. They should give an undertaking that they will never design sexist anti-male ad campaigns in future under any circumstances.

However, as there has been no official response from P&G on this issue of withdrawing the ad campaign or complying with the above demands, AIMWA is constrained to make an official complaint in this matter with the Advertizing Standards Council of India (ASCI) for designing a sexist anti-male ad-campaign offending the sentiments of men’s rights organization by calling all men lazy just to boost their sales and in turn also creating an environment that promotes Domestic Violence against Men.

As such AIMWA has launched an official complaint with the Council so that it can take necessary action against Gillette and P&G as per its policies.

Additionally, Katherine Albrecht’s “Talk Radio with Freedom” from the United States interviewed Mr. Parthasarthy, member of All India Men’s Welfare Association on AIMWA’s protest against the W.A.L.S. campaign of Gillette.

Details about “Talk Radio with Freedom” can be found at,

http://www.katherinealbrecht.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=20&Itemid=129

Details about the radio program can be found at,

http://aimwa.in/gillettes-mischievous-lazy-stub-ad-falls-flat

AIMWA will continue the protest against P&G and Gillette till all the demands are met. AIMWA further urges the people to boycott all brands under the Procter and Gamble India Ltd. Company like, Braun coffeemaker, Duracell, Old Spice, Pantene, Vicks, Oral-B, Head and Shoulders, Gillette, Tide, Pampers, Pringle potato chips, Ariel detergent, etc. and use alternate brands for the same products.

Thanks and Regards

President
All India Men’s Welfare Association

There have in the past few years emerged some new trends in the Indian urban society. I being a part of this generation has closely observed certain amazingly disturbing trends. Here’s a list of some of them and their impact on this ‘educated’ society

1. Money has become the sole important thing in people’s lives. A man is no longer judged by his nature or personality but by his status and by the money he possesses. The car you step out of, the clothes you wear, the cell phone you carry and the area you live in are some of the factors which are assessed before people interact with you.

2. What makes you ‘hep’, ‘cool’, ‘popular’ and ‘modern’ is your rudeness, your talent of abusing, aggressiveness, your ability to humiliate other people who belong to the lower strata’s of the society and your capacity of taking pleasure in other’s pain and problems.

3. The new generation believes in abusing, violence, bitching, back biting, stabbing people in the back, breaking trust, infidelity and cruelty. Show’s like ‘roadies’ and ’splitsvilla’ on MTV are glaring examples of this trend. The more degraded you are the better it is.

4. Another very popular trend is the commercialization of the institution of marriage. Its no longer a relationship between a man and a woman who love each other and start a family but is more of a business deal now. The less good looking a girl is, more is the amount of money that has to be spent on her marriage. The money spent by the parents on the education of their son which has produced a well qualified and settled boy, is to be extracted from the girl who is getting the opportunity of marrying him. Arranged marriages are no longer a bond between two families but a business deal, where how much money you’re willing to spend is what determines your position in the arena of the amazingly commercialized institution of marriage.

5. The Indian youth has coined a new way of life, where no matter whom they maybe be involved with romantically, they enter an arranged marriage, which can enhance their economic status. However I cannot forget to mention the exceptions, people who marry the ones they love, resulting in inter-caste, inter-religious marriages which are still not appreciated even in the highly ‘educated’ ‘enlightened’ urban society.

6. Marriage has become a source of income for some parents who had the privilege of giving birth to a boy. They marry, remarry and again remarry, a number of times to earn money. However its not limited to the boys but there are some intelligent parents who even use girls as a source of income, they marry and then put false allegations of dowry, domestic violence or rape and extract money from the groom’s side.

7. With the passage of time, the importance of caste, religion and orthodox rituals should have faded, however in the Indian society on the contrary its increased tremendously. Dowry, female foeticide, preference for male child, discrimination between boys and girls, blind faith in senseless rituals are some trends which are again surfacing even in the ‘educated’ ‘enlightened’ urban society.

I don’t know why, but this society instead of progressing is degrading day by day. I am not an orthodox, conservative human being. But i just want to know in what way are these trends ‘modern’ and ‘liberal’?
I just want to know how humiliating and hurting others is looked upon as a talent? how is the commercialization of the sacred institution of marriage justified? how are these hollow traditions of casteism, dowry, female foeticide, domestic violence Right? I want to know why the basic human right of each man to get respect is violated to every bit in this shameless society? why people wear masks of good human being when deep down they are selfish, cruel, heartless men? why being a woman in this society is a challenge in itself? what kind of educated and enlightened society is this?

To
Dr. M Veerappa Moily
Hon’ble Union Minister of Law and Justice
Ministry of Law and Justice
Govt. of India
4^th Fl. A Wing, Shastri Bhawan
New Delhi – 110 001

Sub: Protest against new proposed molestation law.

Respected Sir,

All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA), herein referred to as “The Association”, is the first ever organization formed to protect the rights and interests of men and to fight against all kinds of discrimination against men and boys in all arenas – social, legal, economic, etc.

The Association strongly objects to the new proposed molestation law in which there will be no bail and there will be 2-5 years of imprisonment.

As The Association understands, this law is being proposed as fallout of the hyped case of Ruchika Girhotra, it is very pertinent to note that “alleged molestation” is not the main issue here. The main issues here are,

1. Bureaucrats having arrogance of power and their “power connections” and the confidence that they can get away with almost anything. For e.g. in this case Ruchika committed suicide 4 years after the “alleged molestation” which clearly points to a fact that what she and her family suffered afterwards was far more torturous and tumultuous than the actual alleged molestation. Her brother Ashu Girhotra was not only implicated in multiple false cases but was also subjected to cruel and inhuman third degree torture. What was his crime? Even the most dreaded criminals are not subjected to such treatment.
2. Judiciary showing its complete failure of performance and breaking new records of delay in delivering “decisions” every three months. Every quarter we here of a case coming to an end after 15 years, 17 years, 19 years. Are they playing with people’s lives? And it is the judiciary who has given S.P.S. Rathore – the prime accused – the field of 19 years to play his “power connections”. The Judiciary is directly responsible for what happened with the Girhotra family and friends after the case.
3. The police department for shielding Rathore. This is not a new thing for us. But the moot questions that remains are, Do we accept it? Or do we raise our voice against it? Why can’t the Govt. comply with the directions laid down the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in W.P. 310 / 1996, Prakash Singh and Others vs. Union of India and Others under Article 142 of the Indian Constitution for implementing police reforms?
4. The above mentioned reforms ensure that the police personnel do not misuse their power in uniform against the natural principles of justice and public interest. The judiciary is completely failing in delivering justice and wake up only at public outcry. Is it that for every blunder it makes the citizenry has to raise its voice and then only the judiciary will move. As rightly pointed out by Harold Laski in the “Grammar of Politics” – “Judges do not deliver judgments; they only give decisions. They only decide which side argued better”. And it takes 19 years for the Indian judiciary to decide which side argued better! In such a situation would not have “Injustice” been far better than “No-Justice”?
5. Fund chasing radical gender biased extremists hijacking an issue of corrupt police officers, bureaucrats and judiciary working hand-in-gloves to murder natural justice, into a generic male-bashing program and vouching for another unconstitutional anti-male law. Why should the ordinary and innocent citizens, especially the men, bear the brunt of the power games played by a top cop?
6. Even after his misdeeds being open in public the retired DGP was given Anticipatory Bail, while husbands are routinely denied bail in cases under Section 498A even without investigating the matter. On the other hand, in 498A cases the bail itself is used as a legal tool of blackmailing and extortion. Whereas, in the case at hand, justice is being murdered right inside the “Temple of Justice” in broad daylight.

Instead of fixing these lacunae in the system the Govt. is thinking of bringing in another biased law! The Association strongly objects to passing any new anti-male law with regards to this matter. If at all, the Govt. wants to do something then,

1. Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) should be strengthened, implemented properly and those bureaucrats who flout the RTI Act blatantly should be severely punished (even imprisoned) so that they learn to fall in line and work for “Public Welfare” and not for their own selfish welfare.
2. Bring the entire judicial proceedings and administration under the ambit of the RTI Act, so that they can be held accountable for playing with people’s lives and delivering “No-Justice” after lifetime of cases running.
3. Amend Article 311 of the Indian Constitution to nail the corrupt officials as pointed out by the Hon’ble Union Minister of Law and Justice Dr. M Veerappa Moily as reported in the Indian Express on the 14^th of September 2009. Link here http://www.indianexpress.com/news/revisit-laws-which-shield-corrupt-govt-offic/516747/.

Especially in this particular case, it was not Rathore alone who was playing the power game using his “power connections” but the entire system allowed him to do so. The entire system allowed him to carry out systematic legal torture of the Girhotra family and friends unabated and therefore the need of the hour has come to overhaul the entire system, than just adding more problems with another biased, assumption based, anti-male unconstitutional law crumbling under the pressure of male-hater fund chasing radical gender biased extremists. We have already seen the havoc created by “Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code” and the “The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act” the spearheads of male-hatred vouched by them.

All India Men’s Welfare Association will be constrained to launch an All India agitation against the new proposed law on molestation unless the Govt. gives an official statement that it will not be considering it.

Date:                                                                                                                                                                                                 Thanks and Regards

Place:                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Member
All India Men’s Welfare Association

Male Disposability – does the term strike any resonance with your thought process? Or is it that before striking any resonance do I need to ask the basic question – Do you even realize what Male Disposability is? If yes, then you probably know what’s going to be in the article. If no, read on to know it.

Male Disposability is a psychological behavioral and attitudinal syndrome that considers Men as “Disposable and Expendable” and invests very low emotional resources with males which ultimately leads to an environment insensitive to the problems of the male world or one that automatically eliminates weak men (or men finished off with their utility) viewing them as liability.

Since time immemorial, be it the life-endangering activity of hunting or saving the country-land or guarding the parameters of geographical boundary or maintaining law and order situation in the society – the latter two correlate to hunting human life – this role has always been attributed to men who have donned the same willingly boosted by their testosterone and chivalry. In a nutshell men have been hunters primarily and that is a defunct role in today’s era of pacification and intellectual progress.

However, the traits of history are hard to remove and the hunter’s traits have continued into today’s men as well who are actually a misfit in the society with their hunting background and their genetic and evolutionary affiliation to a hunting tribe. No wonders problems of men have skyrocketed and courtesy the Male Disposability Syndrome, no one is bothered about it.

Before talking more on Male Disposability, I would talk a bit on its genesis, taking cue from the article, Paradigm Shift in Male Identity: Freedom from Being a Hunter. During the hunting days, when men used to go on long hunting expeditions, any hunter talking of a minor leg pain or a slight backache was detrimental to the morale of the hunters and was silenced, trivializing his pain.

Even today the society has been pretty much the same for men. Earlier it was hunting, in today’s world its taking huge risks – financial, intellectual, emotional, physical, political – to name a few, that men are expected of and in such a situation, talking of small problems like an emotional turmoil in a relationship or facing lack of freedom of choices will bring down the morale of other risk-taking hunters and thus men are discouraged from expressing their pain.

This leads to a lot of psycho-emotional suffocation within men which has a direct bearing on their lifestyle, life-expectancy, health and suicide rate as visible from the following data collected from various sources of the Government.

Interestingly, in this so called MALE DOMINATED WORLD, the DOMINATED MALES never get a voice as corroborated by the following figures.

Life Expectancy Data:

Plotted as a Graph looks something like,

The data about suicides is also not very welcoming but a true and sad reality to which currently the society is insensitive and cold.
Suicide Data:

Plotted as a Graph, looks something like

The above data clearly points to the stress in men’s lives due to which they not only commit suicide in large numbers (approaching double that of women) but who survive the turmoil, live shorter. That being the reality, there is also another grim reality and that is

NO SOCIAL / LEGAL / PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT STRUCTURE AVAILABLE FOR MEN.

Quintessentially the problems of the male world are oblivious to the society and as long as men are discharging their duties no one really needs to bother about them and can readily dispose them off, after all even Mother Nature produces them in abundance; what with the normal gender birth ratio being 950 females : 1000 males.

Choice is left with readers to decide whether Male Disposability is a Myth or a Reality?

This happens only in India.

What IPC? Cops set to

arrest kids for killing

‘bhabhi’

SASARAM: Can Class I and LKG kids torture and assault a woman to death? Or, to be more liberal, can children of this age collude with their grown-up kin to execute a killing in their household? Indian Penal Code (IPC)’s Section 82 says: “Nothing is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age.” But either Kaimur police have not read the rule book or they care a damn about it.

In yet another instance of sham police investigations making ridiculous conclusions in criminal cases, Chaniya Khatun, 6, and her sister Soni Khatun, 5, along with six other family members have been held guilty by police of having killed an 18-year-old woman.

With Kaimur superintendent of police P K Srivastava agreeing to the Bhabhua DSP Sanjay Kumar’s supervision note and ordering the arrest of the accused, the eight, including the two girls, are likely to be arrested “any moment now”. “I have already procured a warrant of arrest against the eight accused,” said R K Singh, station house officer of Sonhan police station.

It was the Sonhan PS which lodged an FIR in the case on September 2 this year after the court of Bhabhua chief judicial magistrate (CJM) forwarded a complaint case to it for investigation. In his complaint, filed in the CJM’s court on August 18, one Shah Mohammad of Khair village alleged that his 18-year-old daughter Akhtari Begum, who was married to one Md Tajuddin of Pawandi village in Rohtas district, was killed by her husband and in-laws on July 26 for dowry. As it happens in such cases, all the in-laws were named as accused.

On September 24, Bhabhua DSP Kumar along with the investigating officer visited Pawandi and supervised the case. He also interrogated the minor sisters and arrested the girl’s father-in-law. His supervision note concluded that the accusation appeared to be true as those named accused had tortured and assaulted Akhtari to death for dowry. Akhtari was the wife of the brother of Chaniya and Soni, who study in a primary school.

Srivastava just okayed the DSP’s findings and ordered the arrest of the accused. In case they elude police, their property will be attached, he further ordered.

Ironically, Srivastava on Monday evening told TOI: “Aisi galtiya hote rahti hai (Such mistakes keep happening)” if the children are named accused and witnesses also corroborate the accusation. When told about IPC and asked about police wisdom, he said: “We will do something about it now.”

A senior lawyer and member of the Bihar Bar Council described the police action as illegal. “Nor only does it border on incredulity, but it also reveals an insensitive face of the state police,” said Akhauri Mangala Charan Srivastav.

No this is not a one-off case of its kind. Earlier this month, this newspaper reported how an SP found the accusation true against all the members of a family in a case of kidnapping that never took place. So, all of them, including an octogenarian, were jailed for months.

In another case, an alleged murderer fooled police into arresting two innocent persons for the crime he had committed.

Taking cognizance of the two cases of “violation of rights of innocent persons by police” the State Human Rights Commission has sought a reply from director-general of police Anand Shankar.

By the way, this still does not beat the previous record of police for arresting a 57 DAYS old baby for dowry torture. See the video at http://wp.me/plC3a-3E

]]> http://legalfighter.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/allow-daughters-to-take-responsibility-legally/ Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:51:21 +0000 legalfighter http://legalfighter.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/allow-daughters-to-take-responsibility-legally/

Seeing the news article, Moms held for bid to swap babies, I noticed one interesting thing, “One of the women, who has two daughters, wanted a male child while the other, who has a son, wanted a girl”.

One might argue that it is such attitude that leads to “Female Feticide”, however, “Reality is seldom the same as perception”, like the perception that women are the oppressed lot and the reality that men commit more suicides.

Similarly, in the area of female feticide, it is a perception that it happens because a daughter is a burden and people tend to have sons, however, that is not the reality.

If we note carefully Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) allows parents to seek maintenance from sons only and not from daughters. Thus, no parent can legally enforce a daughter to take care of them in old age, even if the daughter wants to and the couple has no son.

It is but obvious that anyone would vouch for a son, after all, who would want a child who cannot be enforced legally to take responsibility when expected. It is not that people have some extra love for sons; it is just that the society wants a DISPOSABLE MALE to discharge all the duties and responsibilities.

If daughters are allowed to take responsibility legally, not only will the problem of female feticide be addressed effectively, men will also get “Freedom of Choices”, currently lacking in their gender role in the society.

Women’s activist, instead of suggesting effective solutions for addressing the problem of the skewed gender ratio, indulged in rhetoric and large-scale male bashing. They used the issue of skewed gender ratio as a journey to achieve the destination of biased, gender obsessed, and unconstitutional anti-male laws to castrate men and in turn led to a society where all laws are protecting women while men are committing suicides in skyrocketing numbers burdened in a society that does not accept them and only expects from them and at the same time no improvement in the skewed gender ratio as well.

It clearly tells us that women’s activists have miserable failed in their projected objective and the only way to solve the crisis is to allow women to take responsibility legally.