Men caught in the Act ?
Posted by 498A_Crusader on May 28, 2007
The first prosecution under the Domestic Violence Act may have come through, but what’s worrying legal experts is not the need for more laws to protect women
Salman Khan wasn’t crooning Shaadi kar ke phas gaye yaar, for nothing, you know. Those ludicrous tales of the misses running after the hapless hubby with the belan aren’t as unrealistic as they sound. While there have been some lone voices beginning to take up the battle for the victimised pati post the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, Section 498 (a) seems to have become a rapier some women love to brandish. even as legal experts collectively frown at how the law is often misused to implicate innocent men and their families, the frown just got deeper post the Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act, (DVA) 2005. While the first prosecution under the Act just came through, men’s organisations and lawyers alike are wondering if the belan just became a baton.
For the likes of Sachit Dalal, project manager with a software firm in Delhi at least, the hits just keep on coming. Admittedly, a victim of “legal terrorism”, for Dalal these laws spell bad news. “Feminists and women’s organisations keep throwing these laws at men’s faces, but what about those thousands of cases where men are abused? Why are there no laws supporting men?” he questions.
While Dalal also cites a WHO report which talks about financial abuse of in-laws by the bahu to fortify his cause, Swarup Sarkar, founder member and coordinator, Save Indian Family, thinks that this isn’t a fight between men and women, but between families. “Statistics reveal that only two per cent of the cases of harassment filed by women are genuine and there are several reasons for this,” says Sarkar even as he elaborates: “Extra-marital affairs, the husband’s inability to provide enough money etc lead women to exploit these laws to get their way around.”
Agrees Pratima Gupta, an advocate practicing in the Delhi High Court, “There is no doubt that only two or three per cent of the cases of harassment coming to court are genuine. These laws are being used as tools of mal-adjustment. If you want to keep a marriage going, small things don’t matter, but they get blown out of proportion if one wants to break free. Unfortunately, when you are unable to split gracefully, you use Section 498!”
Perhaps it is things like these that have led Sarkar to demand that the DVA be made “gender neutral” and be termed as the Domestic Harmony Act.
Not that women’s rights activist Shalini Mathur, founder of Suraksha, would agree. According to Mathur, “These laws cannot be gender neutral, because our society is not gender neutral. Has a man ever been hanged for killing his wife?”
“The ordinary man is not a criminal,” retorts RP Chuge, lawyer, practicing in the Supreme Court and a member of Protect Indian Family. While Chuge reveals that he has been abused by his wife and is himself a “victim”, it doesn’t deter him from saying, “Women should be protected, but that doesn’t mean that they will use these laws to threaten men.”
Source : Men caught in the Act?
parvesh said
Men organizations. Go and strike like the sikh organizations against sacha sauda. Churian pehan rakhi hein kya?
parvesh said
Ladies are more closer to divine and innocent but they can be fooled by feminists. After framing the husband and inlaws under the encouragement by feminists and lawyers, they must ensure that they are not blackmailed by feminists and lawyers. Otherwise they will be “Na Ghar Ki, Na Ghat ki”.Ladies! Don’t give high rating to the demand of ur brother or parents especially if ur husband is Ram (even if he is ravana, u can turn him to Ram by maturity and love for him as if u are not his wife but mother). They will encite u to use dv act against husband and his family and even after u have recieved huge alimony, they now will be eyeing on ur money and planning to murder u. U may realize ur mistake after it is too late.
Mridula said
its great to know that women are now scheming to kill their husbands and run off with alll their money and it is so common that now we most of the men require a law against such devious women. Now the act is making all women homogeneous bad and good unlike earlier where feminist were separate from that of simple Indian women.
why does not people ( men and woemn) against the new law start a law against it start a lobby to do away with the law and have a new law in place Protection of men against violence inflicted by women. And the details would go as follows:
1) for all the men who are molested within their hiuses children and adults ( more children rather), sexually abused
2. Beaten, bashed , bruised, abused , tortured mentally , made to over work, have to undergo rape within marriage when they are dead tired but again have to get up and face the world.
3) to be saved from women who are into illegitimate relationships and men undergo mental torture because of that.
4) …with men reporting to office with blue and black eyes and faces limping for a month
i must say that we call ourselves a country with amazing growth rate but we still have responsible and so called educated citizens who can make generalised satements and on the otehr side we have educated recievers who do not even check with facts and believe in everything as per tehir convenience.
What harassment from women men get , first needs to be recorded then percentage and then the atrocity of ech and compaqre it with women and i dare everyone to find ot exacft data and sats and the kinds of violence against women …and please dont forget that INdia is not just urban but has Rural areas as well and i wish all of you luck please do not speak without data …and authentic one …cause otherwise its so LAME and selfish
Chandan said
This is in reply to the well written comments above on feminism. Nobody says that its only the Man or the Woman getting tortured. But Mam please get your facts right. Do you think its only the woman getting beaten & bruised? Do you think its only the Woman whose being harassed mentally & physically. If yes, then I ma sorry to say that you are living in a Utopian society. You have talked about stats. Then why dont you check the stats of cases registered under 498a in 2005-06 & check how many of them have been proven to be fabricated. Madam, everyone wants justice to reach out to those who suffer in reality but I am afraid that the laws are such that only those who misuse it are the ones we see in the media. The ones who really are the vitims still continue to suffer as the were earlier. Its not just Men who have illegitimate relationships but women as well. Its better for the society to overcome this gender bias & think of it in a broad minded way rather than penning down a few lines of great English