Male – A Domestic Animal

Even after taking all responsibilities and risks, if  this is the way men are treated, no doubt men’s rights is the call of the day.

The havoc created by Gender Biased Indian Marital Laws

YOU ARE LIABLE TO BE ARRESTED

BEWARE  Marriage for a “BOY” in your family could land your entire family into jail.

Are You Aware?

• 123,497 mothers & sisters are JAILED due to false dowry cases in last FOUR years (2004-2007).
• With 498-A (Dowry Law), even ONE line of false allegation can jail your entire family
• Family destruction is a Thousand crore Rupees Industry in India
• “Marriage is a crime for Indian men” as per the Indian Laws made for “Destruction of Families”.
• India is heading towards fatherless society and bastard children.
• Suicide rate of married men is twice that of married women.

498-A

Your entire family can be jailed without investigation for any complaint filed by a daughter-in-law in your family for anything she thinks as harassment to her.

Domestic Violence Act

Husband is an ATM machine, if it doesn’t work, it is an economic abuse.

If you deny kitty party money to your wife / daughter, you will land in jail.

Law supports the greed of your wife.

All your family could be thrown out of your own house for the greed of wife

UNLESS A MAN FIGHTS HE HAS NO RIGHTS

FIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILY and FIGHT FOR THE INDIAN FAMILY SYSTEM
To save your family visit www.saveindianfamily.org

Click here to download the pamphlet.

The advantages of a working woman

Stereotypes and histrionics do not last for long. With changing times, even Gender Stereotypes and Gender Based Histrionics are being forced to undergo a change. For centuries together, man has been the breadwinner of the family, sweating it out in the sun, dealing with unknown people and risking his life at times while the woman used to take care of the family and dealing mostly with known people in a closed and safe environment.

Slowly the woman started moving out and started to work, however, the primary financial responsibility lay on the man and it was considered highly demeaning for the man if the woman earned money and the man had to depend on her. Poor woman was viewed as victim, being forced to work by the non-working man. Such an ideology simply did not allow the man to be non-working lest his life was made hell sans dignity.

However, the converse has not been always true. When, on one hand, the man was always forced to work and earn money, the woman has never really been forced to look after the house. Whatever women did, they did it out of their own volition and if any woman did not take care of the family it was considered as a torture on the woman to force her to do household work. Even draconian, gender-obsessed and lopsided laws were drafted and passed to protect such women whose growing misuse is no longer a fiction story.

Slowly the concept of a woman working gained prominence, although the primary financial responsibility wrested with the man. With the concept of WORKING WOMAN gaining prominence, the insecurities of the conservatives and the hopes of liberals (who were actually conservatives’ turned dissidents) flared up laying the foundations of a cultural war which later ensued into a gender war.

However, now I will come back to the advantages of having a working woman. A working woman is always advantageous, which men do not realize.

But before talking of the advantages, I would like to clarify that when the woman works, the primary financial responsibility lays on her. When the woman takes the primary financial responsibility, the advantages that men get are listed here:-

1. Responsibility: She understands the concept of responsibility and also that how difficult it is to bear responsibility. This tells it to her how difficult it is when you need to earn money, take responsibility and plan your finances accordingly which puts her into analysis mode and stops her from taking treacherous and extremist stands the way women do now.
2. Spending Onus: Since the primary financial responsibility lies on the woman, the spending onus is on the man. This will slowly shift the economics around men’s products and men’s issues will also gain prominence the way now economics revolves around women’s products and women’s issues. Men do not need 4 saris a month and a new pair of shoes a month. Men do not need to go to beauty parlor. This will lead to fewer tussles in marriages and relationships as spending will be less and stress levels will be lower owing to lesser financial squabbles since financial squabbles are the biggest cause of erosion in relationships which subsequently seep into other arenas of a relationship which ultimately kills it.
3. Maintenance: In case the marriage breaks, the man can claim maintenance since the man had taken care of the house and is now not only vagrant and destitute but also incapable to earn. This will make women cautious about breaking marriages and will put in more tolerance before hitting the nail on the wedlock. This trend will become a saving grace for the institution of marriage dying currently under the onslaught of legal terrorism.
4. Attitude Shift: There can be a counter argument that in such as case, men would opt to break marriages. It has to be borne in mind that it’s a result oriented argument and not process oriented. The arguments in favor of shifting the primary financial responsibility from men to women reflect a major attitude shift which will not happen overnight and also the existing perverted social setups and decades old social and mental hardwiring will be a further impediment to the said attitude shift. Also, in order to empower men to break marriages (the way women are empowered currently with a volley of easily misusable laws at their disposal like arsenal in warfare), men will need laws in their favor which also won’t be a reality for some years. And this exercise of attitude shift would have already stabilized the institution of marriage rendering multiple, gender obsessed, and biased marital laws quintessentially ineffective, redundant, irrelevant and uncalled for.
5. Liberation of Men: Allowing women to work wherein they assume the role of the primary financial backbone of the family would liberate men from a role they have donned for millions of years and would allow them to live the kind of life they want to. A life that does not force the man to compromise his interests and hobbies just in order to enable himself as the primary breadwinner of the family. Men can concentrate on other areas and improve their emotional and psychological health which will ultimately move them closer to their experiential domain.
6. Debunking of a major prediction: It has been predicted that men would be extinct in the next 5 million years or so by geneticist and specialist in human chromosomes, Professor Jennifer Graves, as explained in Men: The Invisibly Abandoned Diaspora, but as explained above, men would be liberated and this would ultimately improve not only the general emotional and psychological health of men but also compensate the genetic wear and tear of men that they have undergone and can probably work towards restoration of the Y Chromosome and delay its becoming Why Chromosome? That would debunk the prediction made by Professor Jennifer Graves.

The currently proposed Women’s Reservation Bill in Indian Parliament that vouches for 33% reservation of Women in the Parliament should actually be extended to 50% reservation for Women in all spheres – politics, judiciary, bureaucracy, police, armed forces, public and private sector jobs, entrepreneurship, etc. for 2 main reasons:

1. Women are no less: Nature does not do gender discrimination while distributing talent, offering 33% reservation to women in parliament is like an offering made to beggar. Do women deserve such a treatment? Certainly not. It’s a shame on women’s rights activist to be begging for women and demeaning the dignity of women.
2. Half-Hearted effort is a waste: If Women’s Reservation is being touted as the next big step in Women’s Empowerment then asking for a mere 33% reservation only in the Parliament is actually a deceit with women. True empowerment cannot be achieved by pampering a section of affluent and influential women to the top positions by way of reservations. It can only happen when every woman – whether affluent and influential or otherwise – gets an equivocal and unbiased opportunity to perform in addition with the confidence from the society that she can bear responsibilities.

And this Woman Empowerment, when it happens will work as a win-win situation for both men and women. Men will get time and space to regain their lost dignity and women will get a chance to prove their mettle.

Choice lies with men to realize the advantages of a working woman and support the Woman Reservation Bill – not in its current shabby and deceitful form – but by asking for 50% reservation for women in all spheres – politics, judiciary, bureaucracy, police, armed forces, public and private sector jobs, entrepreneurship, etc.

Gender Arsenal

Gender Arsenal is all about the uncalled for Gender War which has been initiated and is being fuelled by reasons outside the purview of this article. Gender Arsenal pertains to the weapons available to both the genders in the war. Before going into the actual details about the arsenal, I will elucidate the positions of the two genders vis-à-vis each other.

National Commission for Women (NCW) came into effect in 1992 in India to work on women’s issues. NCW has been instrumental in making awareness about a lot of problems faced by women, and has recommended various legal and social options to redress them. It also looks into complaints received by women. Additionally women have around 3300 odd NGOs working for them, one union ministry and Rs. 1200 crores allocated for their cause annually from the union budget.

Men have none.

I will now proceed to list down some laws meant specifically for women,

1. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC): This section is formulated for married women who face physical and mental harassment from husband and in-laws and the cruelty is made for any unreasonable ‘demand’ (mostly dowry) from the woman and the cruelty is of such nature that it drives the woman to commit suicide or can be a danger to the life and limb of the woman.
2. Section 354 of the IPC: Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty.
3. Section 509 of the IPC: Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.
4. Section 375 and 376 of the IPC: Rape of a woman.
5. Section 498 of the IPC: Enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married woman
6. Section 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC): Power to compel restoration of abducted females.
7. Section 125 of the CrPC: Meant to provide no-fault maintenance to wife from husband.
8. Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA): Though gender neutral, is largely used by women to extract maintenance from their husbands in pendency of a divorce.
9. Section 25 of the HMA: Meant to provide alimony to women from divorce.

10.  Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act: Another provision for maintenance to wives.

11.  Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961: Though gender neutral in its definition, this Act is largely used to protect women and there are also some judgments for cases filed under this Act, which are gender biased towards women.

12.  Immortal Trafficking Prevention Act: Deals with trafficking of women.

13.  Indecent Representation of Women Act: Title is self-explanatory.

14.  Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act: Empowers women to abort their unborn children legally.

15.  Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act: Meant to tackle Domestic Violence faced by women.

These are some of the laws and Acts made to protect and empower women true to the best of my knowledge; I might have missed a few of them. However, these are only illustrative and not exhaustive of the fact that women are not only over-protected but pampered in this so called Male Dominated Society, whereas men do not have even a single NGO funded by the Govt. to be fighting for men’s cause let alone any law, section, Act or a commission or a ministry.

It should give a fairly clear idea as to how unequally men and women are placed in this gender war wherein actually men are dragged into uncalled for. On one hand, where women have weapons to the tune of Surface to air missiles to their kitty as their arsenal, men do not even have a Rampuri Chaku at their disposal.

And, as I said, the list is merely illustrative and not exhaustive; NCW has in its offing more laws to castrate men, some of them being,

1. Proposal for compensation of Rs. 2 Lakhs to rape victims.
2. Sexual Harassment Bill.
3. Workplace Harassment Bill.
4. Law to protect maids and so on and so forth.

Again the list of prospective laws is also true to the best of my knowledge and I might have missed many others in the offing.

Whilst there are neither any laws existing to protect men, nor in the offing, and the simple reason for this is, men do not fight for their right or stand up for other men who are fighting for men’s rights.

And if things continue this way, the day won’t be far when NCW will come up with a law like this one:

Inherent Protection of a Woman’s Dream Act: Any woman, who complains against a man that the man entered her dreams and molested her/outraged her modesty/raped her, shall be tried with a relevant section of the IPC. Any married woman who complains against her husband and in-laws that they entered her dreams and demanded dowry from her or harassed her and assaulted her for not bringing enough dowry shall be charged with IPC Section 498A/Dowry Prohibition Act/Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act etc.

Choice lies with men; they can allow more and more such laws to be passed by not supporting men’s rights or take a stand against all such laws and pressurize the Government to rethink about the laws.

Why the system loves breeding crime?

Before talking on the topic at hand and the theme contained therein, I will talk about a movie titled “Newyork” which I happened to watch recently. A brief outline about the movie is given:

Newyork is a movie about 3 Muslim friends who happened to study in the New York State University (NYSU) and at the end of their college tenure in NYSU, 9/11 happens which changes their lives forever. Post 9/11 the security of the States was not only a question but a big concern for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and it was under huge pressure to nab the people responsible for 9/11.

It shows how post 9/11 the FBI merely on the basis of suspicion had hauled up 1200 men into the Detention Centers (DC) designed by the FBI to ‘interrogate’ terror suspects. Although the internals of these DCs were kept highly secret giving security and severity of the incident of 9/11 as the reason, the secret had created an intellectual black hole about the functioning of these DCs and had the Human Rights Organizations (HRO) up in arms against them.

Some of the reasons the way prisoners were treated in these DCs that had irked the HROs were:-

1. 1. People, merely on the basis of suspicion, were hauled up inside the DCs and subjected to inhuman torture.
2. 2. They were denied a lawyer or any trial and subjected to barbaric punishment at the behest of the FBI.
3. 3. They used to beaten up mercilessly whole night.
4. 4. They were not allowed to urinate as well and were forced to pass on their waste in the cranked metal cell they forced to live in.
5. 5. Their faces used to be tied up in sacks and the FBI personnel inside used to urinate on them and leave them in that condition all night.

After some months the people were released due to lack of evidence. But the inhuman torture they underwent unnecessarily merely on the basis of a suspicion, fueled by a presumption propelled by a mass hatred against Muslims, turned the innocent citizens into dissidents and rebels and they started getting organized to operate ‘sleeper cells’ which used to work against the Government to spread terror.

Due to the threat cast on the security of the US by 9/11, FBI spunk into action and in order to justify its stand against terrorism, hauled up innocents and subjected them to inhuman and barbaric torture to justify their illegal detention in order to extract ‘information’. This process in turn led to transformation of the innocents who lost all trust on the system and became dissidents. And these dissidents in turn, became a terror threat to the country. The atrocities of the system allegedly designed to contain terror became breeding grounds for the same.

Most of the systems function similarly. They have grown so large and hauled up so many expenses at the cost of the public exchequer that they are in a constant fix to justify their existence. And the systems go to any level to justify their existence. The simplest way to justify their existence is to have a plethora of problems in the society so that they can say that they are needed to solve the problems.

However, societies rarely go into the root cause of the creation of problems. If there are dissident who are working to create disturbances in the system, then it is pertinent to do a root cause analysis (RCA) of the creation and propagation of the problems.  Every year we get articles in the media crying about soaring rate of crime and putting pressure on the police and the judiciary to perform and reduce the rate of crime.

And we also get articles in the media about the corruption of the police and the judiciary and the inefficacy of the judiciary and the inefficiency of the police. These articles create a pressure on the system to perform and an illusion on the society that a huge and humungous system is needed and public exchequer’s money has to be utilized.

However, what the society does not know is that the system loves crime and criminals. They are properly protected and pampered by the system (indirectly) wherein the justification for corruption comes in. And this corruption has given an unasked for intrusion of organized crime and criminals into the system who are helping breed more crime by designing the system such that it is very easy to trap innocents but very difficult to nab criminals.

One of the obvious instances of such a behavior is abuse and extortion of men and their families in false dowry harassment cases and false cases under Domestic Violence Act. The system is well aware that these laws are easily ‘misusable’ and are misused in reality to the totality as well. These laws are used as an extortion tool to treat men as FREE ATM MACHINE. And it is not that the system is oblivious to the misuse. The system here traps innocent men, merely on the basis of a suspicion (raised by a false complaint by their wives against them), fueled by a presumption propelled by a mass hatred against men in general and husbands in particular.

The system is well aware of the misuse and despite being confronted on it, feigns ignorance and allows it to continue despite drawing flak. It is quite obvious the system draws incentives and concessions from the misuse. The most obvious incentive is a cut of the extortion, extorted by filing a false case against the man and trapping him.

However, that is a very short term for the system and works more for the individuals of the system rather than, for the system per se. The system as a whole and its stakeholders has a lot to gain from the misuse. The more the misuse, the more families break which leads to more consumerism as joint families disintegrate to nuclear families and nuclear families degrade to shattered families. Also the setback of a breakup leads to increased psychological spending.

In a nutshell, broken families lead to more consumerism, which leads to increased cash flow which in turn, leads to a boost in economy and corporates are the direct beneficiary of this boosted economy who gain a better position to empower the system and further deepens the roots of the system. Broken families also lead to increased degradation of culture and enhanced frustrations in the society, a further enhancement of the justification for such a huge and humongous system to exist.

Moreover, it also gives a reasonable explanation to the system to be slow that the load is quite huge and thus the system can’t help but be slow.

Hence we see that it is all a vicious circle and the system gains immensely from being slow, inept, inefficient and breeding crime. There is no rocket science involved here. Bring the system to such a state that it becomes virtually impossible to trust the system and to get any work done, the overhead involved should be high. Such an agreement will automatically breed problems in the society and the justification for the existence and growth of the system will be self-feeding.

Also, as I cited the example of false dowry cases, allowing itself to be used as a tool to earn money, it attracts criminal minded women to misuse the provision against their husbands even if it breaks their families since it satisfies their material desires of money. And the system by allowing itself to be used as a tool of false cases, it creates an atmosphere where falsely framed men find it very de-motivating and frustrating to fight for their innocence because the system (with its powers) will plague the path of the fighter men with so many obstacles so that ultimately most of the men give up.

Those men who are framed falsely and pay up, decide that next time they get married they are definitely going to take dowry and the girl’s side, also since they have paid up, find it difficult to break the marriage as the man will then use the same money to fight the case. This leads to increase in the practice of dowry and those men are never framed. Whereas innocent men who used to despise dowry are framed and made to believe that unless they take dowry they stand the risk of a false dowry case.

Here also, the system is breeding the crime of dowry. Again since RCA is rarely done and numbers are taken as reflective of the social situation, the dowry laws are also never amended (despite being heavily misused) as huge numbers of cases (albeit false) give an impression that dowry is a big problem for the society. Again here, the system gets a chance to lay an iron hand on dowry accused and make them crumble to pay and no one questions them as they have the background support of ‘True Lies’ to protect them for the stand taken howsoever, immoral.

This is just one example wherein I have shown how the system works to create more crime in the society (albeit in the background); however this is merely illustrative and not exhaustive of the fact that SYSTEM BREEDS CRIME. There are many such areas where the system actually works to breed crime and not eradicate it. More crime helps the system grow, maintain and sustain itself without being questioned much. Obviously the system has a very valid (albeit non-righteous) reason to support and breed crime.

Press Release announcing Judicial Reforms recommendations by SIFF

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: Recommendations for Judicial Reforms by Save Indian Family Foundation

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), an NGO dedicated to promote the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony, issues this press release to announce the recommendations it has sent to the Chairman, Karnataka Law Commission – Dr. Justice V.S.Malimath. A copy of the same has also been forwarded to Shri. P.D.Dinakaran – Honorable Chief Justice of Karnataka, Shri K.G.Balakrishnan – Honorable Chief Justice of India and to the Member Secretary of the Law Commission of India.

Judicial reforms are the call of the day in wake of deteriorating trust and faith of people on the judiciary. The pile of pending cases repeatedly reported in various media reports is acting as a catalyst to the deterioration. People are even taking law in their own hands being exasperated of either of no hope or inaction from the judiciary.

Some live instances clearly enunciating the decline of hope and faith on the judiciary:-

• Amit Buddhiraj, Infosys employee killed his wife and committed suicide when he had discovered his wife’s extra-marital affair and he was allegedly threatened with a false dowry case upon confronting (as per his suicide note). Amit Buddhiraj clearly knew that in a defunct and slow system plagued with judicial complacency it will be an unnecessary legal battle of 8-9 years before he could prove his innocence. Notwithstanding the crimes he committed, it is time the judiciary introspects itself to restore hope and faith amongst the common people lest they stop committing crimes unnecessarily.
• Syed Makhdoom recently committed suicide after he was slapped with a false dowry case and was being tortured by his wife and in-laws who were demanding 10 Lakhs from him in order to allow him to meet his son, who meant the world to Makhdoom. Before committing suicide, he recorded himself in a scintillating suicide video elucidating the pain he underwent not only at the hands of his torturous and greedy wife and in-laws but also the insensitive judiciary who could not ensure access to his son which is the natural right of both the biological father and son.

These instances are merely illustrative and not exhaustive of the torture men undergo as a result of an inefficient and slow judiciary which takes 17 years to decide a divorce case and finally leave the decision to God.

Union minister of Law and Justice Shri M. Veerappa Moily has taken up judicial reforms as the top agenda of his ministry. This is a very welcome step in the right positive direction and SIFF salutes such a stand of the new Government. Even Her Excellency The Honorable President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, emphasized the need of Judicial Reforms, on the National News in the Saturday 27^th June 2009 4: 30 PM bulletin, to ensure :-

• Speedy disposal of cases because Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.
• Equal access of all to justice by finding innovative ways for the judiciary to be more people oriented.

SIFF, in its experience of dealing with false dowry harassment cases and Domestic Violence cases faced by innocent men and their families, has observed that judicial reforms is the most crucial step to prevent the crumbling of the Indian Family System under the onslaught of Legal Terrorism in the precincts of the litigating corridor of the Temple of Justice.

Judicial Reforms, if properly implemented will not only ensure proper access to justice for all, strong and weak, powerless and the powerful but also instill fear in those committing crimes leading to a reduction of crimes in the society and the foundation of a sane and just society will be laid.

Following this line of thought SIFF has submitted a memorandum containing recommendations on Judicial Reforms to the Chairman of Karnataka Law Commission, Dr. Justice V.S.Malimath, a copy of which has also been forwarded to Shri. P.D.Dinakaran – Honorable Chief Justice of Karnataka, Shri K.G.Balakrishnan – Honorable Chief Justice of India and to the Member Secretary of the Law Commission of India.

Highlights of the memorandum submitted are as under:-

Some of the problems and issues which prompted the need of Judicial Reforms:

• The Youth and vigor of Young Women and Men are lost by the time the Family Court renders it decision – be it Just or unjust.
• Suicide rates are on the rise especially amongst married / separated men due to the undue sentimental balance of the courts towards women which is being used to advantage by criminal minded women. In three years (2005 – 2007) 1, 65,528 married men have committed suicide as opposed to 88,121 married women as per suicide statistics by National Crime Records Bureau.
• In the last 11 years (1996 – 2007) 1, 56,000 husbands have committed suicide directly due to Domestic Violence. Suicide rate for married men have gone up by 6 times as compared to that for married women in 2007 as compared to 2006. Family problem is numero uno killer for men and women alike contributing 27.75% to the suicides in 2007 and 29.8% in 2006.
• Statutory mandate of law for disposal of cases by 6 months and day to day hearing is not at all followed by the Family Courts.
• The Rules framed by the High Court to dispose of cases at least within one year is flouted by granting long, luxurious and indefinite adjournments by Family Courts.
• Even when the High Court orders specific time limits for disposal of particular cases, the Family Courts do not respect such orders.
• No rules at the discretion of the Family Court as provided in the Family Court Act are also framed.
• While the Act requires recording of the gist of evidence only, the Courts elaborately records every word uttered by the witnesses religiously thus wasting the precious judicial time.
• In the name of appointing of Amicus Curie’s the Family Courts are taken over by advocates, though the Family Courts Act vide. Section 9 and 10 has specifically banned appearance by Advocates.
• Practicing lawyers of family Court are appointed as counselors and mediators thereby defeating the purpose of counseling and mediation.

And SIFF has also made some demands as part of Judicial Reforms which are as under:-

• The fear of Contempt of Court is lurking like a dead ghost over law-abiding litigants who are terrorized to raise their voice against injustices going on against them due to judicial complacency, stereotypic assumptions and overstretched judicial leniency. The concept of Contempt of Court needs to be redefined objectively, like a law and should not be kept open to interpretation of anyone’s imagination or discretionary powers. The mere presence of the concept of the Contempt of Court should not behold a citizen from taking steps to ensure ends of justice and a citizen should not be deterred to voice concerns which impediment the path to natural justice and legal equality.
• Marital cases filed more than two years back, and still in the pending stage should be disposed off in the next six months as a compensation for the time litigants have already lost due to judicial delays in cases. This will lead to drastic unloading of the unwarranted pressure on the courts to meet targets.
• Frivolous, absurd and morally correct litigations like Shilpa Shetty kissing Richard Gere are not something the judiciary should waste time on.  Prima facie rejection of cases, based on absurd allegations, illogical timelines and unexplained delay between filing of cases and cause of action, should become a norm. This will also lead drastic to unloading of the unwarranted pressure on the courts to meet targets.
• For child custody related cases, visitation to fathers should be granted in either one month of filing or two hearings, whichever is earlier. Also the visitation granted should be of such nature that it builds a sustainable parent child relationship.
• Alimony for doctors, lawyers, professionals, engineers, MBAs, CAs and the likes should be rejected prima facie and concept of lifetime parasitism be replaced by a better concept to provide interest free sustenance loans returnable in 3-5 years upon obtaining gainful employment. Voluntary incapacitation by capable spouses asking for maintenance to be made a punishable offense to discourage it. Moreover interim maintenance should not be allowed to be used as a dole leading to treatment of husbands as FREE ATM MACHINES.
• Form study circles with members from Save Indian Family Foundation who are acquitted of 498A cases, some high scholars and a few High Court judges to study husband’s issues.
• Granting of bail under Section 498a should be a norm rather than an exception and the granted bail should not attract stringent conditions rendering it ineffective in spirit if not in letter.
• Respect the dignity of husbands.
• Computerization of all court records, case details and case status in order to determine the load on a particular date, before next date is given. Often it happens that on some days there is a lot of load on the courts while on other days it is relatively less burdened. Such random fluctuations of work pressure can be reasonably smoothened with the help of IT and computerization. Other benefits include prior notification to litigants if the judge is on leave on a particular date.
• If 3 consecutive dates pass in a case and no progress happen then the judge/magistrate should be held responsible for that.
• Increased transparency into the functioning and administration of courts via enhanced respect of applications filed under the Right to Information Act.
• Provision of suo motu inquiry on all the judges involved in cases which are more than 5 years old. Failure to co-operate with the inquiry should lead to automatic termination of the service of the judge.
• Multiple provisions for maintenance viz. Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, Section 18 – HMA, Section 24 – HAMA etc. should be simplified and normalized to one single provision as people are entangled in multiple litigations for the same alleged cause of action leading to infringement of Constitutional Rights vide Article 20,21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution.

Additionally SIFF Demands that,

1. No new law/law amendment should be passed till judicial reforms are formulated and implemented.
2. Judges should be barred from attending luxurious functions, they can use the same time to dispose of cases to reduce load.

Full text of the memorandum is available at

http://www.saveindianfamily.org/articles/open-letters/436-judicial-reforms.html

Thanks and Regards

Public Relations Officer
Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore.

Memorandum to Chairman Karnataka Law Commission for Judicial Reforms

To,
Shri V Malimath
Chairman, Law Commission of Karnataka

Sub: Concerns of Save Indian Family Foundation cornering around judicial reforms.

Honorable Sir,

Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore is an NGO dedicated to promote the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony. We commandeer the cause of those grief stricken families who are victimized by the misuse of laws like Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, Child Custody laws to name a few.

As your good office might be aware, of late, these sections have come under scathing criticism by support NGOs all over India under the aegis of the Save Indian Family movement of which Save Indian Family Foundation is also a part. We have our national and international helplines to cater to distress calls received from victims of misuse of the above laws by disgruntled in – laws and extortionist wives aptly termed by the Honorable Supreme Court of India as Legal Terrorism.

Marriage as an institution is increasingly becoming a prey to changing times, and to a cultural war between the Conservatives and the Liberals. As per studies conducted in Mumbai and Delhi, 40 % of marriages are heading towards divorce.  The younger generation, being made a scapegoat in the changing times due to the ensuing cultural war between Conservatives and Liberals, wastes its useful youth in the precincts of the litigating corridors of the family courts, criminal courts and magistrate courts waiting in long queues being expectant of receiving justice.

But sadly enough expected reality is light years away from ground reality. In actual reality matrimonial cases especially those of divorce proceedings and criminal proceedings under Section 498A run for years together without any result. As a consequence of which,

• The Youth and vigor of Young Women and Men are lost by the time the Family Court renders it decision – be it Just or unjust.
• The family Court cannot restore the Youth and Vigor of the Young citizens/spouses nor compensate for their loss of youth.
• Suicide rates are on the rise especially amongst married / separated men due to the undue sentimental balance of the courts towards women which is being used to advantage by criminal minded women. In three years (2005 – 2007) 1, 65,528 married men have committed suicide as opposed to 88,121 married women as per suicide statistics by National Crime Records Bureau.
• In the last 11 years (1996 – 2007) 1, 56,000 husbands have committed suicide directly due to Domestic Violence. Suicide rate for married men have gone up by 6 times as compared to that for married women in 2007 as compared to 2006. Family problem is numero uno killer for men and women alike contributing 27.75% to the suicides in 2007 and 29.8% in 2006.
• More and more children (for wedlocks where children are involved) are losing the custody / access of one of the parents (fathers generally) leading to the foundation of a fatherless society which will again lead to the figures which we are already observing in the United States of America as laid down below,
  • 5 times more likely to commit suicide
  • 32 times more likely to run away from home.
  • 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
  • 14 times more likely to commit rape.
  • 9 times more likely to drop out of high school.
  • 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances (become drug addicts)
  • 9 times more likely to end up in a state-operated institution
  • 20 times more likely to end up in prison.
  • 3 million teenage girls have sexually transmitted diseases
  • At least 1 out of 4 teenagers (between 14years to 19years) suffers from sexually transmitted diseases.

Some other mishappenings worth considerate of your good attention are:-

• Statutory mandate of law for disposal of cases by 6 months and day to day hearing is not at all followed by the Family Courts.
• The Rules framed by the High Court to dispose of cases at least within one year is flouted by granting long, luxurious and indefinite adjournments by Family Courts.
• Even when the High Court orders specific time limits for disposal of particular cases, the Family Courts do not respect such orders.
• No rules governing the procedures are framed according to NCW recommendations.
• No rules at the discretion of the Family Court as provided in the Family Court Act are also framed.
• While the Act requires recording of the gist of evidence only, the Courts elaborately records every word uttered by the witnesses religiously thus wasting the precious judicial time.
• In the name of appointing of Amicus Curie’s the Family Courts are taken over by advocates, though the Family Courts Act vide. Section 9 and 10 has specifically banned appearance by Advocates.
• Practicing lawyers of family Court are appointed as counselors and mediators thereby defeating the purpose of counseling and mediation.

Rampant corruption, undue sentimental and gender bias, delayed (denied) justice are some of the problems with which currently the judiciary is plagued with, leading to a serious and drastic deterioration of the faith of the “Stupid Common Man” in the institution of judiciary. We beseech you to take immediate note of situation and take appropriate actions to repose faith in the judiciary lest people stop flocking to the “Temple of Justice” for justice and take the law in their own hands.

Courts asking litigants to seek God’s help in getting divorce is a saddening reality. Why should the citizens take the burden of the expense of judiciary when they are not ready to take their responsibility and want to throw off everything to God? Such instances of judicial complacency warrant strong condemnation and act as a catalyst in further degrading the already degrading faith in the judiciary.

Draconian laws like Section 498a, and the Domestic Violence Act, already drawn the ire of the Honorable Supreme Court earning dubious distinctions like “Assassin’s weapon” and “Badly Drafted”, have become weapons of family destruction, marriage erosion and a legal opportunity to encash a bad marriage at the expense of men folks in the country. And all these practices seriously and heinously jeopardize the basic human rights of husbands and breed contempt.

We wish to submit the following prayer before your lordship:-

• The fear of Contempt of Court is lurking like a dead ghost over law-abiding litigants who are terrorized to raise their voice against injustices going on against them due to judicial complacency, stereotypic assumptions and overstretched judicial leniency. The concept of Contempt of Court needs to be redefined objectively, like a law and should not be kept open to interpretation of anyone’s imagination or discretionary powers. The mere presence of the concept of the Contempt of Court should not behold a citizen from taking steps to ensure ends of justice and a citizen should not be deterred to voice concerns which impediment the path to natural justice and legal equality.
• Marital cases filed more than two years back, and still in the pending stage should be disposed off in the next six months as a compensation for the time litigants have already lost due to judicial delays in cases. This will lead to drastic unloading of the unwarranted pressure on the courts to meet targets.
• Frivolous, absurd and morally correct litigations like Shilpa Shetty kissing Richard Gere are not something the judiciary should waste time on.  Prima facie rejection of cases, based on absurd allegations, illogical timelines and unexplained delay between filing of cases and cause of action, should become a norm. This will also lead drastic to unloading of the unwarranted pressure on the courts to meet targets.
• For child custody related cases, visitation to fathers should be granted in either one month of filing or two hearings, whichever is earlier. Also the visitation granted should be of such nature that it builds a sustainable parent child relationship.
• Alimony for doctors, lawyers, professionals, engineers, MBAs, CAs and the likes should be rejected prima facie and concept of lifetime parasitism be replaced by a better concept to provide interest free sustenance loans returnable in 3-5 years upon obtaining gainful employment. Voluntary incapacitation by capable spouses asking for maintenance to be made a punishable offense to discourage it. Moreover interim maintenance should not be allowed to be used as a dole leading to treatment of husbands as FREE ATM MACHINES.
• Form study circles with members from Save Indian Family Foundation who are acquitted of 498A cases, some high scholars and a few High Court judges to study husband’s issues.
• Granting of bail under Section 498a should be a norm rather than an exception and the granted bail should not attract stringent conditions rendering it ineffective in spirit if not in letter.
• Respect the dignity of husbands.
• Computerization of all court records, case details and case status in order to determine the load on a particular date, before next date is given. Often it happens that on some days there is a lot of load on the courts while on other days it is relatively less burdened. Such random fluctuations of work pressure can be reasonably smoothened with the help of IT and computerization. Other benefits include prior notification to litigants if the judge is on leave on a particular date.
• If 3 consecutive dates pass in a case and no progress happen then the judge/magistrate should be held responsible for that.
• Increased transparency into the functioning and administration of courts via enhanced respect of applications filed under the Right to Information Act.
• Provision of suo motu inquiry on all the judges involved in cases which are more than 5 years old. Failure to co-operate with the inquiry should lead to automatic termination of the service of the judge.
• Multiple provisions for maintenance viz. Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, Section 18 – HMA, Section 24 – HAMA etc. should be simplified and normalized to one single provision as people are entangled in multiple litigations for the same alleged cause of action leading to infringement of Constitutional Rights vide Article 20,21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution.

We sincerely hope the above letter will be taken in positive spirits and the lacunae in the system resulting in great misery for the citizens will be looked into with immediate attention.

Thanks and Regards

Public Relations Officer
Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore

National Coverage of Father’s Day Celebration

A Citizen’s response to mass rape of men by feminists

In response to The Yahoo / India Times Opinion Poll wrt the Shiney Ahuja Rape Case

RAPE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & DOWRY AREN’T THESE THE TOOLS THAT GIVE A WOMAN ALMIGHTY & UNFETTERED POWERS, IF HER DEMANDS ARE NOT MET WITH…????????

WHO DECIDES WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRES WITHIN THE CONFINES OF A BEDROOM???

There was an article earlier wherein the supreme court has even gone on to state that even in the absence of clinching evidence as that of semen samples, rape can be established merely on the allegation of the woman…

WHY ARE CRIMES OF THE LIKE OF RAPE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & DOWRY ONLY AFFORDED BY WOMEN??? WHERE IS THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE THEN???

YOU BRAND A MAN GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT WHY CAN’T THE SAME RULE APPLY TO A WOMAN???

AREN’T THESE THE SAME WOMEN THAT FIGHT TOOTH & NAIL FOR EQUALITY & LIBERATION, WHY THEN THE DUAL STANDARDS???

In the case in question, considering the woman (ALLEGED VICTIM) claims to have been Raped several times on previous occasions, strangely she didn’t find it appropriate in bringing it to the attention of the Lady of the House 1st, as also to the law, instead has bided her time in possibly making extortion demands culminating in her current theory…This being true ONLY IF there was ANY SEXUAL relationship, between the 2.

On another note, the State Forensic department has opinioned RAPE by virtue of the ALLEGED VICTIMS Hymen being broken; I wonder did the State Forensic Department make it their business to check the condition of the said woman’s Hymen before she took up employment???

And Finally WHAT CREDIBILITY DOES THE WOMAN HAVE AS COMPARED TO HER EMPLOYER??? As considering her theory of being Raped on a multiplicity of occasions, she strangely has decided to CRY RAPE only now… Why not earlier??? Isn’t it a case of her being smitten by an icon from Bollywood, who being sexually active would have flaunted & offered herself on the numerous earlier occasions as she claims, and then eventually decided that she could extort monies from a celebrity as he would have a lot more to lose than she would, given the stark difference in their social & civil backgrounds.

Moreover assuming that she did have multiple sexual encounters with her employer on earlier occasions, the same would have most certainly been consensual, as if they weren’t, she had ample opportunity in either leaving his employment basis her allegations, failing which if he had infact to RAPE her as the word suggests, she would have manifested her complaint on the very 1^st occasion, whereby there would have been several physical manifestations of non-consensual intercourse. All this underwritten by the fact that she had the benefit of walking away from any perceived provocation as the precursor to any carnal desire is a base form of courting…WHICH SHE OBVIOUSLY & THOROUGHLY WOULD HAVE ENJOYED TILL SUCH TIME THAT SHE DECIDED THAT SHE COULD CAPATALIZE ON…!

AND TO THIS END SOCIETY & LAW BRANDS A MAN A CRIMINAL???????????????

In answer to NCW’s comment for Fast Track Court.

Isn’t it ironic that in the same breath of advocating justice by way of a Fast Track Court, she uses words like “allege & accused” which are in stark contrast to her line of Shiney Ahuja being proved innocent…! If its an allegation or an accusation shouldn’t the onus of proof lie in trying to prove him guilty ??? That too with Credible Hard core evidence & not mere speculation or hearsay…

Just because a woman decides to Cry Rape, interestingly after her claims of being raped several times on earlier occasions??? And then you have the forensic departments drawing conclusions by virtue of a ruptured Hymen….! Was there a Forensic test to establish an intact Hymen before the alleged victim cried Rape??? And who decides when Sex is consensual & when it is Rape??? The Victim??? Why wasn’t Rape cried before, on the very 1^st instant??? But it’s considered Rape now??? Or was it considered Rape only after demands to exploit were not met with???

WHO WILL EVER KNOW THE TRUTH??? WITNESSES…! WERE THERE ANY BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS…???

India Times Comment:

Isn’t it ironic that in the same breath of advocating justice by way of a Fast Track Court, the NCW chairperson uses words like “allege & accused” which are in stark contrast to her line of Shiney Ahuja being proved innocent…! If its an allegation or an accusation shouldn’t the onus of proof lie in trying to prove him guilty ??? That too with Credible Hard core evidence & not mere speculation or hearsay…

Just because a woman decides to Cry Rape, interestingly after her claims of being raped several times on earlier occasions??? And then you have the forensic departments drawing conclusions by virtue of a ruptured Hymen….! Was there a Forensic test to establish an intact Hymen before the alleged victim cried Rape??? And who decides when Sex is consensual & when it is Rape??? The Victim??? Why wasn’t Rape cried before, on the very 1st instant??? But it’s considered Rape now??? Or was it considered Rape only after demands to exploit were not met with???

Women like to sympathize if not Empathize with their own, but do you forget that you do have Men in your lives who rightfully or wrongfully could also become victims of circumstances, wouldn’t you then like the Truth to prevail before being the 1st to hurl your stone at the perpetrator???

WHO WILL EVER KNOW THE TRUTH??? WITNESSES…! WERE THERE ANY BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS…???

JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED BUT IT MUST BE JUSTICE !

Consolidated news coverage for CRISP Father’s rally

1. Bangalore’s ‘deprived dads’ to rally for parenting rights

2. Deprived Dad to rally for Parenting Rights

3. Child needs affection from both parents

4. Bangalore’s ‘deprived dads’ to rally for parenting rights

5. ThaIndian – Bangalore’s ‘deprived dads’  to rally for shared parenting rights

6. Sulekha – Bangalore’s ‘deprived dads’ to rally for shared parenting rights

7. Prokerala – Bangalore’s ‘deprived dads’ to rally for parenting rights

8. Gaea News – Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

9. EMagazine - Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

10. Indian Express - Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

11. Headlines India - Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

12. WebIndia – Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

13. Samay Live - Bangalore’s deprived ‘dads’ to rally for parenting rights

14. Dad, I have got something to say

15. IE – CRISP for family law reforms

16. Mangalorean – Deprived Dads to rally for parenting rights

The double-edged rape-ier

Written by Seema Kamdar

Case 1: A minor girl from Malad recently alleged that a gym instructor had raped her. But later, cops found no evidence to suggest that the youth had sexually abused the girl. The case is under investigation

Case 2: A bar dancer in Nerul accuses a policeman of raping her. Police say evidence suggests that the woman had a relationship with the accused and sex was probably consensual

Case 3: An executive in a Delhi PR company spent two months in Tihar jail for rape. Later, investigations established that he was having an affair with the woman for two years and she wanted him to marry her. When he refused, she filed rape charges which she later withdrew as ‘false’

Case 4: During the 2004 World Social Forum, a South African judge of Indian origin, Sirajuddin Desai, was accused of rape by a fellow delegate from the same country. The sessions court later let him off after she withdrew her complaint and circumstantial evidence hinted at consensual sex

Case 5: In Bhayandar last year, a 17-year-old girl falsely accused her father of rape

In common parlance, it is called a false complaint. Legal eagles call it malicious prosecution.

While rape laws in the country are justifiably stringent, recently a few cases have indicated that the law can be misused, and has end up damaging lives in profound ways. So, if the girl is found to have filed a false complaint, what is the remedy available to the accused, who, ironically, then becomes the victim?

But do the police act?

The general perception is that the cops don’t act. But lawyers say there is no reason why the police should not ruthlessly pursue cases, which have been proved to be false. The police are duty-bound to file a final report in every case, which falls into one of the three categories:

‘A final’: Says the case is true but undetected (the case is left dormant till evidence possibly emerges at a later date)

‘B final’:Says the complaint was false (it could be followed up by prosecution of the complainant)

‘C final’: Neither true nor false.

Yet, there are a few cases where a false complainant is brought to book. In one instance, dating back to the prohibition, a tenant who had falsely implicated his landlady for drunken misbehaviour found himself at the wrong end of the stick when the police detected his complaint to be bogus. He was prosecuted and convicted.

Former DGP S S Puri, a law expert as well, says false complaints are more an aberration than the norm. Police say most false complaints fall under a few laws meant for weaker sections of society like Section 498 A of the IPC (dowry cases), Protection of Civil Rights Act or the Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Crying rape is not that rare

While on one hand, rape remains a highly under-reported crime, on the other, there are instances of women seeking personal vendetta by crying rape. In the last year alone, there were two such instances reported in the city.But can a minor be sued by the police or by the aggrieved party?

Yes, say some lawyers. Section 82 of the IPC grants unconditional immunity to a child below seven years of age. However, the next section, 83, says, “An act of a child above seven and under 12 of immature understanding: nothing is an offence which is done by a child above seven years of age and under 12 who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his conduct on that occasion.”

This indicates that anybody above seven years, and with a sound mind, can be prosecuted for an offence. However, offenders under 18 years will be prosecuted by the juvenile justice board.

Advocate Shrikant Bhatt is of the view that anybody of whatever age can be prosecuted for filing a false complaint. “For IPC offenders, it doesn’t matter if he or she is a minor or major,” he says. He/she does not even get the protection of section 82 and section 83.”

Public prosecutor Rohini Salian, who represents the police in courts, however, says minors can be sued only as a juvenile under the Juvenile Justice Act before the Juvenile Justice Board. “Most of these cases, if convicted, end up in a remand home,” she says. “The conditions in remand homes are far from ideal for corrective therapy.”

A better option therefore, says advocate Raju Moray, is to introduce the idea of community service for offenders as is done in the US.

Why arrest an accused unless there is prima facie evidence?

The arrest of the gym instructor has also raised a crucial point of law: is it necessary to arrest any person named in a cognisable complaint? Lawyers claim police jump the gun and promptly arrest an accused in cognisable offences. As a result of this trend, many resort to misuse.

“I know an elderly couple who has been blackmailed by their son and daughter-in-law to sell their house for fear of being arrested by the police in a false dowry case,” says Moray.

Police admit to a certain degree of misuse. And the fact that police often act promptly on such complaints encourages their misuse, feel lawyers.

“It is not imperative for the police to arrest an accused on the basis of a complaint,” says Bhatt. Section 157 of the IPC says if the police receive information about a cognisable offence, it “should proceed to the spot, investigate facts and circumstances of the case, and, if necessary, take measures for the discovery and arrest of the offender.”

Cops, however, dispute this point. “We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” says a senior police officer. “Take this girl’s case. Had we not arrested the gym instructor, there would have, probably, been a huge women’s morcha to the police station.”

Another police officer points out that in a complaint of rape it is important to arrest the accused. “How else can we conduct a medical examination or interrogate him?” Most importantly, SC judgments clearly prescribe arrest “in prima facie serious cases”.

Section 177

A false complainant can be prosecuted for knowingly furnishing false information to a public servant “regarding the commission of an offence.” The section provides for a two-year jail term or fine or both. However, the police cannot start investigations under without a magistrate’s permission.

Section 182

The victim can also seek recourse to Section 182 of the IPC, which deals with giving false information to a public servant in order “to cause him to use his power to injure or annoy anybody”. The sentence for this offence is maximum imprisonment of six months or fine or both.

Section 211

This section goes a step further and slaps a punishment of the same description on a false complainant that would be applicable on the accused had the charge been proved.

Section 376

Rape carries an imprisonment of not less than seven years extending up to life and a fine. This provision is invoked in a false charge of offence meant with the intent to injure in such a manner that gets criminal proceedings launched against that person. Proving the “intention” of the complainant holds the key.

Section 499

Apart from police action, the aggrieved party can also file a criminal case for defamation, under Section 499. The punishment in the latter case could go up to two years in jail, along with a fine.

Section 203

A multi-causes civil suit for damages under the head of defamation causing trauma, shock damage to a career is also possible. Another provision that could be invoked on a false complainant is Section 203, which deals with giving false information concerning an offence.

Invitation for Press Conference by CRISP announcing father’s day event

INVITATION FOR PRESS CONFERENCE

To,
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Dear Sir/Madam,

Sub: – National Fathers Day Rally demanding Family Law Reforms

On the occasion of the Father’s Day, we the members of CRISP have organized a National Father’s Day Rally on Saturday the 20th June 2009 from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM near Mahatma Gandhi statue, M.G. Road, Bangalore to create awareness on the importance of the father in the life of children.

We are having a press conference on Thursday the 18th June 2009, at Press Club, Cubbon Park, Bangalore from 12:00 Noon to 12:30 PM onwards to highlight the problems faced by LAKHS of CHILDREN owing to the insensitive & biased laws of our country against the fathers in separation or divorce cases involving child custody/ visitation rights cases.

We would also be making a presentation on the serious effects of a fatherless society being imposed on our children, due to the outdated and casual approach of the Family Courts system in our country and the need for SHARED PARENTING and setting up special Guardian Courts in the interests of the children who have been denied their basic right of access to their parents.
Appreciate your presence at the press conference and help in building a better tomorrow for our children who are the future assets of our nation!

Thanking You,

Kumar V Jahgirdar
President CRISP
www.crisp-india.org

Press Release for Father’s Day Rally by CRISP in Bangalore

Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) is an NGO formed on 24th May 2008, by people who recognize the serious effects of Parental Alienation of children due to single parent families on account of divorce or separation. CRISP is also focusing on furthering the rights of children to remain connected with both parents. Our aims and objectives are based on research findings. We are a group of people from all walks of life, like software engineers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, social workers, etc. which includes women and senior citizens to address this burning issue of our present day society and its realities.

CRISP has organized National Father’s Day Rally on Saturday, the 20th June,2009 between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM at Mahatma Gandhi Statue, M.G. Road, Bangalore, to demand FAMILY LAW REFORMS and to highlight the grievances of Fathers deprived of children’s access due to biased laws and failure of our system on all fronts.

Father’s Day is a day honoring fathers, celebrated worldwide. In India also the Father’s day is being celebrated since many years as an expression of love and tribute to the Fathers. The present day fathers participate equally in parenting of their children, in all spheres of their development, physically, mentally and emotionally due to the changing scenario of our family system, especially in cities and their role is paramount.

Unfortunately, however, the divorce rates are also going up substantially. There are more than 13,000 cases in the Family Courts of Bangalore alone, pending disposal and lakhs of cases in the country. CRISP is concerned with the growing custody battles between the parents and the ill effects on the children due to their parents’ separation. We at CRISP, which includes fathers, mothers and grandparents have charted a Pro-Family agenda and are actively working against and exposing Anti-Family organisations and systems. We speak for the rights of the innocent impacted Children who are deprived of the love and affection of both their natural parents and shared parenting is the only alternative arrangement to spend quality time with both the parents.
The traditional Indian Value system has undergone a sea change from the olden days where the mother was the nurturer and fathers the provider to the child. Now the present day father is equally competent in taking care of the needs of the child and in taking on the responsibilities of child upbringing and in no way inferior to the mother and this mindset against fathers is not valid. Serious disorders like Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS),which is the worst form of child abuse wherein one parent out of revenge against the other parent deprives the child of the love and affection and care of the other parent and Reactive Associative Disorders, warp a child’s development. Studies have shown that there is a tendency for such children to become criminals in their later years, for which the society and our system are directly responsible. For details please see CRISP website http://www.crisp-india.org
Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP), demands the following:
• Grant equal access to the separated parents who are keen to take care of their children as a practice and make this law mandatory
• Educate the parents on shared parenting and benefits for the welfare of the child through compulsory counseling before the decree of divorce is granted.
• Punish persons who misuse 498A (Dowry Act) and Domestic Violence Act as a tool to deprive the father from child access.
• Set up special courts to deal with child custody cases and address the problems faced by the parents who have been deprived of the any visitation/joint custody.
• All custody/ visitation cases should be disposed off as a TOP PRIORITY, within 3 months of application.
• Ban child interviews when the children are of tender age, who have not had adequate access with the non-custodial parent.
• Parents who don’t follow court orders pertaining to children should be punished and also declared unfit to be a guardian for the child
• Crisp urges a separate Ministry for Children and to delink the same from the present Women and Child Development ministry, since the objectives are different.
• Evening courts should be set up so that litigants need not have to apply for leave
• Mediators should be trained by child psychologists to keep children’s interest in mind and encourage shared parenting and what is in the best interests of the child.
• Create a Family Court and make available all the information on this (emulate the High Court example)
• India should accede to United Nation’s Convention of International Parental Child Abduction

About CRISP and its Achievements
1. Educated the system about the concept of SHARED PARENTING and its advantages.
2. About 1000 members across India and abroad and growing…
3. Weekly meetings, successfully launched various centres in the country to give mutual support in counseling and legal awareness
4. National Commission for Protection Child Rights (NCPCR) a Government of India undertaking has appreciated CRISP for educating the society and legal fraternity on the significance of Shared Parenting
5. Launched website: www.crisp-india.org where 1000s of victims have made use of the knowledge and information posted on the web-site and is the first its kind in the country pertaining to child custody matters.
6. Even mothers who have been deprived of child custody are members of CRISP and working for its goals
7. We are engaging with leading medical professionals to prevent suicides of deprived fathers like SYED MAKHDOOM who unfortunately committed suicide recently.
8. CRISP has made a representation to Chief Justice of India, WCD Ministry and law commission signed by over 500 people requesting shared parenting among others and awaiting suitable action from the concerned authorities and also to adhere to UN’s Child’s Rights Convention.
9. CRISP has made several press meets on general and specific cases pertaining to children issues and sensitized the society.

Finally….
Research has also proved that fatherless children are prone to suffer from suicidal tendencies, running away from the house, drop out from school, abuse drugs, end up in prison, teenage pregnancies, and end up as anti-social elements. We don’t want our children who are the assets of our nation to be exposed to such an atmosphere. India is known for our Family Value System and we need to preserve our heritage and greatness.
Father’s guidance on monitoring cannot be substituted by anybody in this world. After all “One Father is better than hundred teachers!”
Joint custody is the BEST SOLUTION in the modern society since the divorce rates are as high as 40% of marriages especially in educated cosmopolitan people.
Under these circumstances, we humbly request out media friends to bring it to the notice of all our citizens and help us to take up this cause for a better tomorrow fro our children and highlight these issues so that the society is sensitized of the matter.

Thanking You,
Yours Sincerely,

Kumar V Jahgirdar
President CRISP
9845264488

–

Pre-Father’s Day coverage for CRISP

A collection of SIF Docs on Fachak

This is a collection of collections on Fachak, which is a format independent content masher. The collections consist of the various documents SIFF uses to represent its cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony to the society, media and the Government.

1. Save Indian Family Press Releases @ Fachak

2. Useful Presentations @ Fachak

3. Official Representation by SIF @ Fachak

TOI supports murderer wife, justifies her crime

Another report by the TOI justifying a crime by a woman. Well after murdering her husband, what does TOI expect the murderer will say, “I did it for fun!!”

It is quite obvious she is going to justify her murder and put up some allegation on the dead husband. But it is shameful on part of TOI to support a criminal just because she happens to be a woman.

It is because of such pampering that women are committing more and more crime and getting away with it as well.

If she was really harassed for dowry, what was stopping her from launching a 498A complaint, as it is 498A cases are easier than ordering a pizza on phone.

How do we not know that she was torturing him for his money, property and forcing him to separate from his family and when could not control him, killed him in a cold-blooded fashion?

Why does TOI need to take her version at all? A murderer’s version? How many husbands accused of spousal murders are interviewed by TOI.

TOI needs to understand that “JUSTIFICATION OF CRIME IS A BETRAYAL of Justice“

Article Link

AURANGABAD: Hell indeed hath no fury than a woman scorned. A farmer was set ablaze by his wife barely a month into their marriage because of his incessant comparison of her with a woman friend.

In her confession to the police, the wife, Komal alias Manisha (18), said she killed her husband, Srihari Yadav (25), because of his frequent taunts that she was not as beautiful as his woman friend
from Pune. He also allegedly threatened to abandon her as she had not brought a good dowry amount.

The couple lived at Kesapuri village in Beed district, about 150 km from here. They were married on May 7 and had fixed the ’suhaag raat’ for June 8, the very day the husband was set ablaze.

Speaking to TOI, assistant police inspector (API) Dhanraj Gavhane of the Pimpalner police station said Komal broke her silence to the police on June 10 after they took her into confidence. She said her husband would complain that she was too thin and that he did not even feel like looking at her. Each time, he would threaten to dump her for the “attractive” girl from Pune, whom he had met while staying at his relatives’ place there when in search of a job.

Gavhane said that the couple had visited a few religious places after their marriage. “Around 9.30 pm on the ’suhaag raat’, they went to their kitchen-cum-bedroom.

Barely half an hour later, the other family members saw Komal rushing out and smoke billowing from the room. The family found a gagged Srihari lying on the floor with his hands and legs tied and flames engulfing his body. He had already sustained about 80 per cent burn injuries and died at the Beed civil hospital the same night,” he said.

Komal refused to speak about the incident for two days thereafter. Finally, on June 10, she told the cops that she had murdered her husband.

“Komal said that when they went to their bedroom, Srihari said he would sleep on the floor rather than share the bed with her. He said he was tired after working in his father’s fields and asked Komal to tie his legs with a rope to ease the pain, which she did. As soon as he fell asleep, Komal took another rope and tied his hands and also gagged him. She then poured kerosene on him and set him ablaze,” he said.

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__,_._,___

Invitation to father’s day rally by CRISP

CHILDREN’S RIGHTS INITIATIVE FOR SHARED PARENTING (CRISP)

Flat No.3, Natasha Penta, Infantry Road Cross, Bangalore -560001.

www.crisp-india.org

To,

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Sub: – National Fathers Day Rally demanding Family Law Reforms.

We the members of CRISP (NGO) have organized a peaceful protest rally demanding justice and equality in child custody laws of our country. On this occasion of “FATHERS DAY” we want to highlight the problems faced by fathers who have been deprived of custody/visitation rights of their own children & highlight the effects of Fatherless society.

We would like to invite you to participate and make this function a grand success by creating  awareness and saving our children from this unfortunate situation when the parents are separated or divorced and demand the fundamental right of children to have access to both their natural parents.

Details of Programme:

Kumar V Jahgirdar

Date: 20^th JUNE 2009 (SATURDAY)                                               President- CRISP

Time: 10.30 to 1.30 P.M.                                                                    9845264488

Venue: Mahatma Gandhi Statue                                                        kvjahgirdar@yahoo.com

M.G.Road, Bangalore.

__________________________________________________________________________

Contact -    Jayanth: 9739441360,       Vishnu:9880286694,     Lokesh Reddy: 9844251007

___________________________________________________________________________In

Open Letter to PM for intervention in custodial rape of dowry accused

Ref. No.AIFW/100609/1

10 June 2009

To,

Dr. Manmohan Singh,
Prime Minister of India,
South Block, Raisana Hill,
New Delhi – 110001.

Sub:  Demand for (a) CBI Investigation in the case of alleged rape of an elderly woman accused of dowry harassment and (b) immediate notification of The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2008.

Respected Sir,

This is to bring to your kind attention that an elderly woman accused in a dowry case was allegedly gang raped in police custody in Jamwada village, Betul Dist., Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. This incident came to light through an article entitled “Dowry accused gang raped by Bhopal cops in custody” published in the Times of India on 06 June 2009.

The above mentioned case of rape of an accused in police custody highlights serious failure of law enforcement in the country and also the horrific human rights violations perpetrated in the name of law enforcement.

Members of All India Forgotten Women (Regd.) request you to immediately order a CBI probe into the above mentioned rape case and ensure speedy justice to the victim.

In addition, we request you to please delve into the reasons why such atrocities are happening so that proper measures are taken to prevent their recurrence.

• The third report of the National Police Commission mentions that power of arrest was one of the chief sources of corruption in the police, and that nearly 60% of arrests were either unnecessary or unjustified.
• In the last four years alone, the UPA regime witnessed more than 1,23,497 women being arrested and most of them jailed under Section 498A of IPC, without evidence or investigation.
• On the other hand, statistics published by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2007 show that an overwhelming 94% of the individuals arrested under Section 498A of IPC were found not guilty.

It should be noted that the arrest of such large numbers of innocent citizens was possible only because of the unbridled powers granted to the police in India.

The previous UPA Government has to take responsibility for the arrest of thousands of innocent citizens, in addition to the above case of gang rape of an elderly woman in police custody. It is a shame that despite approval of the CrPC Amendment Bill of 2008 by the President of India, it is the UPA Government’s failure to notify the amendments which has resulted in the continued harassment of ordinary citizens by the police.

As per the amended Section 41 of CrPC, the Investigating Officer would have had to issue a notice of appearance to the accused, and obtain the permission of the concerned Magistrate to arrest her, if necessary. This provision imposes more accountability on the police while arresting the accused, and prevents the police from misusing their powers of arrest. Such a provision would have proved very beneficial in the above mentioned dowry case on an elderly woman.

The amended CrPC Bill of 2008 also requires speedy delivery of justice in rape cases, while providing utmost protection to the victim, and ensuring confidentiality of sensitive information during the case proceedings. Such provisions would be extremely useful in cases of rape, including the present instance of custodial rape of an elderly woman accused in a dowry case.

In light of the above facts, members of All India Forgotten Women (Regd.) request your Government to notify The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2008 in the Gazette of India, and ensure that its provisions are strictly implemented without further delay.

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Uma Challa
President
All India Forgotten Women (Regd.)

Encl.:

“Dowry accused gang raped by Bhopal cops in custody”. News report from the Times of India. 06 June 2009.

Copy to:

Her Excellency. Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India

Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India

Shri. Veerappa Moily, Ministry of Law & Justice

Shri. P Chidambaram, Ministry of Home Affairs

Member Secretary, Law Commission of India

Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of UPA

Smt. Krishna Tirath, Ministry of Women and Child Development

Kum. Girija Vyas, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women

Women Empowerment or Gharana Empowerment

Does merely putting women at top sound equivalent to Women Empowerment? Probably NO because just the way, more men at top is does not mean MALE DOMINATED WORLD, similarly just getting females at the top does not mean Women Empowerment the way this pic portrays,

But even today women are raped in Police Stations

But the way women empowerment is being projected, it looks as if only a few families want their women inside and want to rule.

True women empowerment by making them independent and responsible has never been their agenda, all they want either a woman should rule or be a burden on a man’s money like a parasite.

Its time for the people to think, whether its WOMEN EMPOWERMENT or GHARANA EMPOWERMENT.

SIF Spreads a ray of hope

Written by Arnab Ganguly

“Save Indian Family Foundation“. This is a name which few people would have heard or cared about 4 years back, but today this is a force to reckon with. The membership has reached Lakhs in both India and abroad and most members consist of well heeled educated Men and their families. SIF also has a huge number of women followers and they consists of sisters, mothers, sister- in –laws, grandmothers and also unrelated women. These women are members because they too have been falsely victimized by India’s wife protection laws. The men of SIF believe that it is their duty to protect the women of their families from the extortionist wives, corrupt police and biased judiciary.

In the last 150 days SIF has been mentioned in the media for more than 60 days or in other words 60 different articles of SIF are published in the media. If every article has been read by at least 100,000 people then about 8 million people would have known or heard about SIF and that is something to be proud of.

We believe in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and we get our inspiration from this great man, we believe in his words

“First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win “.

Supreme court Justice Markenday Katju still seems to be in the second stage where he still believes that Men are something to be exploited and mocked, but in other areas we are well into the third stage where we are waging a war against many fronts. We wage a war against the biased laws in India which are created only for wives and do not think about the welfare of other women, leave alone the men. We fight against the biased judiciary which teats men with disdain and pass judgments which are totally stacked against men no matter who is at fault. We also fight against the blatant number fudging that is done by the Women’s organizations to come up with sensational false numbers in order to get media attention and attract more foreign funds, with which they can push for more gender biased laws and also justify the existence of the current biased laws. We also actively wage a war against corruption in the Police department and Crime Against Women cells because these places have becomes an extortion den where compromises are forced on husbands and money is extorted from the helpless husband and his family after trapping then under a biased law.

SIF is aware the odds stacked against it, it knows very well that media and industry would love to see more families break up, because family breakup increases spending and drives up the demands for the goods and products. A united family will own one TV while a dived family will need two is the simple reasoning. The Police and lawyers do not want the laws to change , because then they will lose their income from the Lakhs of false marital cases , bail proceeding from dowry cases and the general ability to extort money from helpless people implicated under these laws . Women’s organizations also do not want gender neutral laws since they would then have to close their ‘Women’s right shop ‘ and be out of business , since they would not be able to get foreign aid in the name of Woman empowerment.

But SIF knows it will win, because SIF is on the same side as truth is and we believe that “Truth Always Wins” (Satyamev Jayate). SIF many not have the blessings of the government of India, but we do have the blessings of thousands of senior citizens, mothers, grandmothers and sisters who work and fight with us day in and day out trying to wake up the and educate the slumbering Indian populace. SIF has the support of hundreds of small but nevertheless important NGO’s who work with us to spread the word on how gender biased laws and help drive a grass roots movement at every town and city. We know we will win and we will succeed in creating a Ministry for the Welfare of Indian Men. We know that the night is darkest before the sun shines and the SIF has no doubt that the sun will shine and spread the rays of hope , peace and family harmony that will keep the Indian family as a cohesive unit for the next ten thousand years.

Punish Persons who misuse IPC 498A and Domestic Violence Law: NGO

Submitted by editor on June 1, 2009 – 13:40

Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP), a Bangalore based first of its kind all India body (NGO) dealing with parents fighting for children’s custody disputes ongoing/over divorce battle today urged Government of India and all the concerned state governments to amend/make fresh laws to grant equal access to both parents who have been fighting for custody of their child/children. Further they appealed to make shared parenting mandatory. Requested Law Ministry to set up special courts to deal with Child Custody cases in order to speedily dispose the cases. In any eventuality, the matters must be deposed within three months of filing the case, the members of CRISP observed. They also demanded to punish persons who misuse IPC 498A and Domestic Violence Law.

CRISP has over 1000 active members across India and abroad. It has chapters all over India. Addressing a press conference in Hyderabad today Mr. Kumar V. Jahgirdar, Founder and President of CRISP who himself is fighting a legal battle for equal access to his daughter from his wife Chethana (currently married to Indian leg spinner Anil Kumble) along with some members said misuse of anti-dowry laws and other woman-protection laws has now become a well recognized problem in India. Increasing number of aged parents, sisters and children in the husband’s family are falsely accused and arrested under these inhumane laws, and find them defenseless against the harassment unleashed thereafter and multiple litigations for the same offence/allegations with violations of Article 20 and 21 of Indian constitution.

Adding further he stated that annually about 75,000 dowry harassment cases are filed across India. Approximately 1,20,000 women (related to husbands) were arrested in the 4 years (2004 to 2007) under the dowry laws. As per the National Crime Records Bureau data, more than 80% people arrested under dowry law cases have turned out to be innocent. (For example: In the year 2006, a total number of 1,37,180 persons were arrested under 498A and out of those 4,812 were not even charge sheeted. Out of the 62,746 persons who were charge sheeted – 50,895 i.e. approximately 81% were found innocent after the completion of the trial and the rest are still under trial). Every year 52,000 married men commit suicide in India as against 28,000 married women (Source: 2005 – NCR). Every year more than 1,00,000 men lose their job and become unemployed because of wrongful arrests under the dowry laws. World Health Organisation report on Elder Abuse finds misuse of dowry laws by the daughters-in-law as the main reason for the elder abuse in India. The Supreme Court of India has already termed the dowry law misuse as “Legal Terrorism”. BBC study indicates that more than 80% women under-trials (related to husbands) lodged in Tihar jail (Delhi) are booked under dowry related laws.

CRISP demands Government, Home Ministry, Chief Justice of India to act on its demand of granting equal rights to both the parents who have been fighting for the custody of the child. In many cases despite of the court orders, Fathers are not allowed to see children. Children should have equal access to both the parents in order to help the child lead a normal life. We must make shared parenting mandatory. Approximately Five Lakh parents especially fathers are suffering with this kind of cases where they don’t have access to their children. The mothers, in order to take revenge on the husband don’t allow fathers to see the child. They have been violating many court orders. The poor fathers can’t do anything. They have been suffering in silence. Now the time has come. Government must understand the pain of the father. It is not that just mothers alone have love and affection for the child. The fathers too have equal feelings towards their offspring. It is unfortunate that the laws are gender biased more towards women. According the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “All are equal before the law, and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law”. Hence, men should also be accorded protection from physical, verbal, emotional, sexual and financial abuse by women.

Gender Biased LAW should immediately be made crime based instead of any assumption that all women never lie and all the men are born as Criminals. “MEN/WOMEN” word to be replaced by word “PERSON” and word “wife/husband” to be replaced with the word “SPOUSE”.

CRISP believes in the concept of shared parenting i.e., wherein the child should have access to its natural parents, the father and the mother in the best interest of the child when both the parents are otherwise not disqualified. We take pride in the fact that National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), a Government of India undertaking recently has appreciated our initiative on child welfare and significance of love and care of both the parents in a child’s life.

In our society unfortunately 2 out of 5 marriages are ending up in divorce more so in the Metros and the educated classes of the society, especially the upper middle class and affluent class. CRISP receives various complaints in matters related to parental alienation including that of NRI’s pertaining to parental abduction of children. We are presenting to our media friends a typical case of an unfortunate father Dr. V. Ravi Chandran, a world renowned scientist who is deprived of the care and custody of his son Master Aditya aged about 6 years, from more than 670 days. Please also referwww.rescueaditya.org for further details. For more than 21 months the father doesn’t even know the whereabouts and the welfare of the child and obviously this great scientist and wonderful father is in a lot of distress due to the uncertainty of his loving child.

Dr. V. Ravi Chandran is Ph.D. & M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Florida. He has got the world patent for several important medicines… Liquid formulations of metformin, US patents 6890957, 6559187, Novel compounds with High Therapeutic Index, US & worldwide patents pending in USA, CANADA etc., and various others, to name a few. He is also the recipient of 2004 distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Florida in May 2004 for his lifetime contribution to Pharmaceutical Sciences. He has also performed as a consultant to Medical staff at Harvard Medical School.

His wife Vijayasree Voora had meticulously planned for illegal kidnapping of Aditya. She moved Aditya from place to place to avoid tracing. Past 21 months she subjected to Aditya to live in substandard motels which she changed often. She did not admit him to any school for a period of more than 21 months preventing him from having social contacts, schooling, or any stability in his life. All Aditya knows is cruelty from his mother. She had deprived Aditya of love and attention from his father, and also from all members of family from either side. Aditya was treated to mediocre schooling or no schooling, despicable apartment life, nomadic existence, and being moved all over India with his fugitive mother. Vijayasree Voora, with her reckless behavior due to severe mental illness is endangering the welfare of a child, with contempt of court orders, continues to abuse Aditya by holding him hostage. Recently Aditya was found to be suffering from bronchitis and typhoid due to the fugitive lifestyle he was subjected to.

The press conference was addressed by many members of the CRISP. To put pressure on the government for their rights, CRISP is planning to have roadshow across India, to mobilise public opinion on the same. It also urged media to highlight their righful request.

The whereabouts of Master Aditya can be informed to his father and his natural guardian Dr. V. Ravi Chandran on his mobile: 9704362000.

The parents suffering with similar problems may reach CRISP (Flat No. 3, Natasha Penta, Infantry Road Cross, Bangalore – 560001. Tel: 080 – 25593848, Fax: 080-41238847 www.crisp-india.org) to fight for the common cause to save our children to lead normal life.

Who will save men who are burnt?

As I read this article, wherein Supreme Court judge is calling for hanging of people who burn brides, a hailstorm of thoughts crosses my mind. Being the Public Relations Officer of Save Indian Family Foundation, an NGO dedicated to promote the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony; I come across cases of men wronged by their wives on a daily basis wherein men are simply penalized for the mere fact that they are MEN.

One mere complaint of harassment from their wives, whether true or not, lands them in jail along with all their family members named in the complaint without any trial or investigation. Many lose their self-esteem, jobs even; commit suicide as evident from the suicide statistics available with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). As per the statistics, 57593 married men committed suicide in 2007 vis-à-vis 30064 married women. Figures for 2006 were 55452 married men vs. 29869 married women while those for 2005 are 52483 married men vs. 28188 married women. Every year more and more married men are committing suicide. But still there is no protection given to men. A major contribution of this comes from the misuse of dowry laws against men wherein a social presumption works against them

Now coming back to the article I’ve referred, Markenday Katju, Justice, Supreme Court of India today made a statement that “Those who burn brides should be hanged.” But, who is going to prove that the bride was burned? Will a man be hanged if his adulterous wife puts kerosene on herself and dies of burning? Or if the parents of the girl kill their daughter and then put the blame on the husband, then will the husband be hung?

And when you make a gender biased statement, “Those who burn brides need to be hanged”, why is it that you are not ready to offer the same level of protection to married men who are burnt alive? What is their fault? According to the NCRB data 3400 married are burnt alive every year on an average.

Further, Justice Katju went on to say that, “They all say that. Every time they burn a bride, they say it was a suicide.” Now this is nothing short of imposing his own assumptions on to the society, a right which he does not have, not even as a Supreme Court judge. First of all, he has assumed that all married women who die of burning are killed by their in-laws. There is no basis for his assumption as death due to burning can happen due to any reason, even kitchen accidents, negligence by women, suicide etc. And it will definitely not be in the interest of justice to hang the husband for these cases but from what views have transpired out of Katju’s statement, it is clearly evident that he has taken a gender obsessed stand which is not acceptable from a Supreme Court Judge.

Justice Katju’s statements are a clear call for the need of Judicial Reforms. Also in addition, before hanging husbands for ‘allegedly’ burning brides, Justice Katju needs to remember that the police force does not conduct a fair inquiry into the incident and merely relies on statements and is thoroughly incompetent in collecting evidences. With such lousy investigation and presumptions working at the back of mind, justice cannot be expected out of courts and in such a situation; “Judicial Reforms” is the call of the day.

With M Veerappa Moily becoming the law minister and talking of “Judicial Reforms” as the first thing to be done, some hope is definitely restored because Judicial Reforms are utmost necessary in today’s times of deteriorating faith on the judiciary. With irresponsible statements coming from the judiciary, it is clearly evident that the intellectual level of the judiciary has severely degraded. SIFF calls upon all the citizens to take part in judicial reforms as that is the only way to reduce crime in the society. Today criminals have no fear of any punishment because either the judiciary is too slow and corrupt or is involved in social service with gender obsessed statements.

Justice Katju had also made controversial statement, Bow down before your wife wherein he told; listen to your wife, even if she sounds unreasonable. Such statements from the judiciary send a strong signal to men that they should not expect justice from the courts and the question still remains open, “Who will save men who are burnt?”

My question to Justice Katju, “Can you?”, “Will you?”

Consolidated Press Coverage of CRISP Press Conference

Eenadu Article on CRISP

IE NGO wants both parents to be given equal access to kids

 Indiainfoline Article on CRISP

New Kerala CRISP takes up cause of fathers’ plight ._

Sakshi Article on CRISP

The Hindu _ Andhra Pradesh _ Hyderabad News _ Special court for child custody cases urged

Webindia123 Article on CRISP

IT Engineers now face dowry harssment

Original Article

Translation:

Allegation | Wives trapping husbands for money

P K Surendran, Bengaluru

Recession hit IT engineers are now facing a double hit from wives who trap them in dowry cases. After the Domestic Violence Act came in 2005, people in IT, BPO professions and business people got hit with dowry cases to the tune of 56%.

All over India, such cases are rising at the rate of 20% per annum. This allegation has been put by Pandurang Katti, President of Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a harassed husbands association. As per him, the facts came out when last a survey was conducted amongst 1200 such people who were facing the cases. When asked, as to why only people from IT-BPO and business were most hit, Kati replied, “Because they have more money.” As per National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), 50, 703 dowry cases were registered in 2003 which has shot up to 75, 930 in 2007. SIFF has sent various memorandums to the President of India, Chief Justice of India, Law Commission of India, UPA Chairperson Sonia apprising them of the new practice of extorting money in the name of dowry cases.

Says MG Kumar from India International Law Firm, “I have seen scores of cases where high-earning husbands have been unnecessarily trapped.” Another senior lawyer says he fought a case for an IT Engineer who had married an orphan girl. But later, the relatives of the girl forced her to file a dowry case against her husband so that they can extort money from him.

Male subject line: Spare us the alimony

With either their jobs gone or their salaries cut drastically, a whole lot of men are petitioning family courts to spare them from paying alimony to their former spouses.

The recession is having unforeseen ramifications. Divorce cases are taking a strange twist, as techies who have lost jobs, or are facing steep salary cuts, are struggling to pay alimony to their former spouses. 

Bangalore’s family courts are being flooded with requests from men pleading reduction in alimony amounts. The plaintive chorus before the honourable judges runs something like this: “Sir, we have either lost jobs or are facing salary cuts, so please reduce the alimony. If not permanently, do it at least till the recession gets over.’’ 

BROKE, BUT FORCED TO PAY 

K P Vishnu Kumar, a Keralite settled in Bangalore, was working for Oracle till January this year. He married a Bangalore-based Malayali in 2005, having met her in a matrimonial meet organised at Karnataka Nair Society.

They lived happily for seven to eight months. Then, she became pregnant and went to her father’s house. According to Vishnu, she wanted him to stay at her father’s house as a ‘Ghar Jamai’. He refused to do so and the seeds of marital discord were sown.

In 2007, they went for counselling. It did not succeed. She lodged a complaint at Thyagarajanagar Police Station against him under the dowry harassment act. But the police persuaded them to strike a compromise. The couple stayed together in an independent house away from both their parents for six months. This too did not work, and the woman ultimately approached the family court in December 2008. The court directed Vishnu to pay an alimony of Rs 18,000 per month to his wife pending court proceedings. This order was passed in February 2009.

Meanwhile, Vishnu had lost his job due to the global meltdown. He is still jobless. Now, Vishnu’s advocate has approached the court, stating that his client does not have money and that he is the sole breadwinner for his aged parents, and hence should be spared from paying alimony. His petition will be heard on May 28. 

BETRAYED AND BLED

Zameer-Ul-Haq’s case is dramatic and sadder. He was a graphic designer with Quest Media Productions, Planet Asia and Convergis. He lost his job with Quest media in February this year.

He married a close friend’s sister in May 2004 in Bangalore under dramatic circumstances. His friend’s sister’s marriage had been arranged but got cancelled at the very last moment. Seeing her trauma, Zameer, playing the good samaritan, agreed to marry her. According to Zameer, his wife however was not loyal to him and before long revived her relationship with the very man who had abandoned her so casually. This led to their separation.

She filed a case against him in February 2008 and the court asked him to pay Rs 25,000 as maintenance every month. But Zameer had lost his job and petitioned the court to scale down the maintenance. In his petition he says, “At present, I cannot pay. When I get a job, I will pay but not Rs 25,000. Please reduce it, I have a dependent brother and sister.” His petition is coming up for hearing on June 8.

The truth behind dowry cases

Continued from this article

Cases of battering jump the sex divide

Cases of wives abusing their husbands and giving them sleepless nights is on the rise and so are the number of divorces in the city

“My wife wanted me to be a cuckold husband. I was pushed into wedlock by guile and threat. I’m the only son of my parents. What I suffered for 10 years in marriage will read like a film script. But, let me tell you, I suffered her abusing my sick mother as no man had ever endured. My mother, Santamma (66), is an acute diabetic, but my wife is so cruel that she bashed my mom’s head on the wall, leading to serious injuries. She was in KC hospital and later in NIMHANS,” narrating the story, K Suresh, 38, says he received no justice from the world.
Rake your brain, the name will zing. It’s Suresh who was instrumental in getting a policeman of Mahalakshmi layout trapped by Lokayukta last year while taking a bribe from him to settle his domestic trouble. Suresh is still waging a war with his wife and the two live apart.
Adarsh is a software professional. A Hindu, he married his college chum, Selina, a Christian, two years ago. The couple has a baby girl. Life turned sour pretty fast for them with Selina, an MBA but not working, would throw tantrums and create horrific scenes for flimsy reasons, sometimes at the dead of night. Adarsh says he sought the help of his mother-in-law in Uttar Pradesh but she kept giving him false promises. Adarsh’s parents are at their wits’ end, for the girl, they say, swears and uses off-colour risques when she gets into a fit of anger. Adarsh says he wants to try psychiatric help but can’t without her cooperation. Selina scoffs at the suggestion. When DNA met him, he was locked out and staying in a hotel. He showed scratches and bite marks on his body.
Wife-bashing has been around ever since Adam woke up from his slumber to find his one rib missing. But husband-battering has been invisible up till now. Recently, many young men in the third richest city are seen frequently rushing out of bedrooms howling. The 2006 and 2007 crime data say 1305 husbands in Bangalore ended their lives in 2006 and 1596 in 2007. It was 245 a decade ago. The national scene shows that 65.3 per cent of men committed suicides in eight cities in 2007. Bangalore comes third in the list.
Divorce cases of IT couples have risen steadily since 2003. If it was 283 in 2003, it rose to 526 the next year. In 2005, it was 946 cases and in 2006, the figure reached 1,246. Last year, of 3000 cases in family court, 1510 were from IT-ITES. Argues Virag Dhulia, a leading crusader for gender parity, “IT or non-IT, more and more young husbands are getting the stick. It’s not just a gender issue but an intra-gender issue. Women related to husbands are at a receiving end.” NCRB data say an average 27,000 women are arrested in a year under 498A (dowry harassment) which help male activists show as living proof of the charge.
Six of the eight psychiatrists contacted confirmed growing domestic troubles of young working couples in the city. “What I find,” says psychotherapist Dr Vinaya Prabha Baligar, “is the working girls today are financially empowered and they will not take things lying down as before.” p_surendran@dnaindia.net

Forget recession. Dowry stalks IT

56% of men who get booked for dowry harassment are techies, says forum for harried husbands

Injustice bytes IT’s Adams. Since the Domestic Violence Act 2005 came to the help of harried wives, more and more techie hubbies are getting drawn into cases involving their spouses.
Some 56 per cent of men, who get booked under the dowry prohibition Act or the domestic violence Act, happen to be those working in IT-BPO and Business, says Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a pan-Indian forum for harried husbands. All of them happen to be in the age group 24-28 years. SIFF chairman Pandurang Katti says the findings came out in a sample survey they conducted of 1,200 aggrieved husbands last year.
The foundation has shot off memoranda to the President, the Chief Justice of India, the Law Commission and Sonia Gandhi to correct the “lop-sided law that destabilises thousands of families in the country.”
Why techies and businessmen? “Blundly put,” says Katti, “it’s because the techies and biz people have more money.” It is not limited to the techno-city alone. There has been a 20 per cent annual increase in dowry-related cases all over the country in the past four years. National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data says 50,703 husbands were booked for dowry-related charges in 2003; the number went up to 75,930 in 2007.
“The domestic violence Act is skewed justice,” fumes MG Kumar, of India International Law Firm. “I handle scores of cases involving well-placed husbands getting spiked for no fault of theirs.”
A senior advocate, who did not wish to be named, says he defended a techie who had married a girl, supposedly an orphan, but this wasn’t the case. The girl’s relative sweet-talked her into filing a case under dowry harassment just to get a quick buck from her husband, the advocate points out.

Media Release: COURT OF APPEAL SELLS JUSTICE AT $4,740

MEDIA RELEASE

In reply to an application to appeal in the Court of Appeal, the court Registrar has lowered the cost of security for Wellington ’s unemployed Political Busker, Benjamin Easton to $4,740. Security is the money paid to ensure that the lawyers employed in the proceeding will be paid if they win. Mr Easton filed an application in March against a decision in the High Court by Justice Dobson. The judge ruled against him, a father of a father’s coalition in his application for a judicial review of a decision of the Broadcasting Standards Authority, on his complaint against a broadcast on Radio New Zealand ’s Nine to Noon. Easton complained the broadcast was discriminatory against fathers. The broadcast was of a Family Court lawyer talking about a review of the Domestic Violence Act. The lawyer inferred that only men commit violence and only women and children are victims. Easton believes that the statements were appalling, misrepresented domestic violence and demonstrated the bias against fathers in family law. He also believes the broadcast was inconsistent with the statutory obligations of all of the broadcasting entities. The entities disagree, saying there is no need for any balance or censure against the lawyer’s opinion.

 

Easton’s application includes finding that the lawyer acting for NZ on Air put in a falsified application to the High Court. He argues that by compiling an application on behalf of the Authority, which is the judicial and independent body of broadcasting, NZ on Air compromised its independent responsibilities to the Crown and thereafter misled the Court. “The public should be protected from lawyers falsely using the system; colluding to get the kinds of results from a proceeding that are best for their clients” says Easton . Additionally he states that NZ on Air has a responsibility to the public to ensure that his claims about an existing bias and discrimination in family law and the Family Court are brought to the public’s attention.

 

“What I am bringing for a test is information on what the public has no idea is going on where the broadcasters are acting apparently under a legal blanket that directly excuses promoting fatherhood” he continues. “In other countries such like policies have been labeled and vilified as propaganda, but in New Zealand we call it section 36 of the Broadcasting Act. What I have proved in the courts is that fathers are being demonised and now I am told I cannot test such an inherent injustice unless I produce money that the court already knows I don’t have. I have produced all the information about how much money I have which is nothing. How can I produce money out of thin air? I am an unemployed political busker not a magician or counterfeiter” he protests.

 

The Registrar is also under an obligation to consider whether or not the appeal has any chance of success.

 

“The Registrar has not made any statement about this at all” says Easton . “All the Registrar has said is that if I want to get into the Court I have to have more money than I have proved I have. I have 10 days to produce the security or my argument is lost. I am frustrated because I have already fully proved that a top lawyer from a top law firm has doctored a document in court protecting our Broadcasting Commission. I have also proved that the Commission and broadcasters like Radio New Zealand should have engaged my arguments long ago about how there is a functional discrimination and bias against dads in New Zealand . Now it seems, because I have proved the bias, it qualifies all authorities to treat me outside natural justice”.

 

Easton will file again in the Court of Appeal, appealing the Registrar’s decision. “I don’t have any choice”, he adds, “After a while, however, this kind of poor behaviour by our bureaucrats and professionals wears one down. It’s not surprising then”, he concludes, “that in New Zealand we lose one male a day to suicide when we are up against an unfair system caring so little that the dad’s lot is purposefully neglected”.

 

 

 

BENJAMIN EASTON 0273902169

SC raps Karnataka Police

The Supreme Court has rapped Karnataka police for letting the kidnapped child of an NRI scientist slip away in Feb and has given it three months time to trace the child.

Aditya, the son of an NRI scientist Dr Ravi Chandran, has been kidnapped by his mother Vijayasree Voora. Ravi Chandran has been searching for his son from two years. The SC order states: “As a last chance, the State of Karnataka, particularly the Director General of Police, Karnataka, is directed to take appropriate steps to trace the child. A copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretary, State of Karnataka.”

Vijayasree Voora was found in a lodge in Rajajinagar on Feb 17 with Aditya. Though Bangalore cops found the mother and child at the lodge, for some reason they did not take them into custody. Chandran requested the cops to keep the duo with them till he arrived in Bangalore from Hyderabad with all legal documents. Before he landed in Bangalore, the cops allowed Vijayasree to escape. An angry Chandran then knocked on the Supreme Court’s doors.

MOM IS KIDNAPPER
Ravi Chandran is a pharmaceutical scientist based in the USA for the past 30 years. He met Vijayasree, an IT professional and a green card holder, in 2000 at a function in Indiana. They fell in love and married in Tirupati. But their marriage turned sour after Aditya’s birth in 2002. They divorced in 2005. As per a US court’s directions Chandran paid Vijayasree Rs 1 crore as a one-time settlement and agreed to pay Rs 1 lakh per month as child support. The court allowed Aditya to stay 20 days with his mother and the remaining 10 days with Chandran.

However, Chandran says Vijayasree developed psychological problems and was not able to take care of Aditya. In August 2006, Chandran sought the court for Aditya’s complete custody. In June 2007 a US court granted his request. But Vijayasree requested the court permission to take Aditya for a month to India. The court granted her plea and directed her to return Aditya on August 3, 2007. That was the last Chandran saw Aditya. The family court in New York and the Chennai High Court have issued arrest warrants against Vijayasree. The FBI has issued a look-out notice for her. Chandran believes Vijayasree is hiding in India.

Renuka Sans Ministry, SIFF celebrates

Original Article

Despite her defeat in the general elections from Khammam seat from Andhra Pradesh, but being one of the prominent women faces in the Congress Party, former Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Renuka Choudhary, guesses were making rounds of her being included in the portfolio this time as well.  But when in yesterday’s swearing-in ceremonies, her name did not appear in the list, there were some organizations in the city that had a reason to celebrate the event. On trying to know the reason, it came to light, as per the members of the organization that in Renuka’s tenure, torture and atrocities on men had skyrocketed.

Men’s Rights NGO, Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), was one of those organizations. As per foundation member, Virag, Renuka has not only completely failed to curb incidents of Domestic Violence, but also when apprised of the rising torture of men due to misuse of Domestic Violence Act, she failed to take any action to bring down the misuse as well.

National Crime Records Bureau statistics tell us that in 2007, 57593 married men became victims of Domestic Violence. As per Virag, these men take recourse to suicides having no respite. As per Foundation President, Pandurang Katti, dowry harassment under Section 498A of the IPC and the Domestic Violence Act are being heavily misused and a lot of men are being falsely implicated in these cases. He adds, Renuka’s remark that, “It’s time for men to suffer now”, has led to the torture and atrocities on men. As per him, in the four years tenure of Renuka, 123,497 women and close to 500,000 men have been arrested on false dowry harassment charges, merely on the basis of a complaint, without trial or investigation.

President of NGO CRISP, Kumar Jahgirdar told that he received a lot of smses about Renuka losing elections and being kept out of ministry from all over India wherein people expressed their happiness over the defeat of Renuka Choudhary. It was not that only men smsed; even women did participate in smsing.

Press Release celebrating the defeat of Renuka Choudhary

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: SIFF Celebrating defeat of Renuka Choudhary in general elections.

Activists of Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) have decided to celebrate as Union Minister for Women and Children Renuka Choudhury lost her parliamentary seat with a huge margin of 124448 votes and left communist parties got decimated.

For last 4 years, SIFF conducted many Dharnas across cities India, where our slogan was, “Renuka Choudhury. Hai Hai. Hai Hai”.

As a woman and children’s minister Renuka Choudhury was responsible for arrest of 123,497 women under section 498a of IPC without investigation or evidence. All the cries of these innocent women had no impact on her. In an interview to Karan Thapar after passing of Protection of Women under Domestic Violence Act, Renuka Choudhury has asserted, “It’s the men’s turn to suffer now”, which is pure hate speech against a particular gender.

Renuka Choudhury did nothing being a minister for children and women except seeking media attention with her loud mouth. She went to the other extreme by calling for “Pub Bharo” in response to attacks on pub going youngsters by right wing extremists.

With her loss, the writings on wall are very clear. The extremists are wiped out, whether they are right wing extremists, left wing extremists or feminist extremists. It is also to be noted that Left party leaders like Brinda Karat and Left organization AIDWA opposed any attempts to make section 498a bailable and compoundable. The loss of Renuka Choudhury and decimation of left parties shows that extremists and nuisance makers have no place in Indian politics.

SIFF members celebrate the defeat of Renuka Choudhary as the beginning of the end of radical gender extremism in India and an onset towards a sane society where Domestic Harmony and not Domestic Violence is the call of the day and everyone is respected irrespective gender caste or creed. SIFF members in Bangalore had organized a get together meet on Sunday in Koramangala area to celebrate Choudhary’s defeat.

It is time Rahul Gandhi prevails upon the Government to continue the good governance, with immediate implementation of Judicial reforms and police reforms. There cannot be good governance, when courts are dysfunctional and police extorts and fails to do its duty. With judicial reforms, the harassment of people running around courts will reduce. With trust of judiciary increasing, fear of law by the criminals and corrupt will increase and this in turn will improve overall health of the society.

Renuka’s loss, our Gain

Ex-Union minister Renuka Chaudhary’s election defeat is being celebrated by a group of men who have been demanding the abolition of the controversial Domestic Violence Act. They are happy that with Chaudhury’s ouster as the women and child development minister, the act may be done away with Former Union minister Renuka Chaudhary lost the Lok Sabha elections from Khammam constituency in Andhra Pradesh.   The winner, Nama Nageshwara Rao of the Telugu Desam Party, is celebrating. But Swarup Sarkar of Delhi is celebrating more. The law will stay: Renuka Chaudhary The reason: Sarkar is the Delhi coordinator of Save Family Foundation (SFF), a group that has been demanding the abolition of the controversial Domestic Violence Act (DV Act) that they allege is pro-women and is often abused in cases of marital discord.  The group holds Chaudhary responsible for introducing and supporting the DV Act and Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). “Renuka is among the people who introduced the draconian Section 498-A of IPC and the Domestic Violence Act. These laws have become a tool to harass married men by giving unlimited benefits to wives,” said Sarkar. The SFF is celebrating the former woman and child development minister’s defeat with crackers, sweets and congratulatory messages. “I received almost 50-60 messages on the day of counting.  People from all over the country were celebrating Renuka Chaudhary’s loss. Later on, we forwarded the congratulatory emails to the official mail address of the Women and Child Development Ministry,” said Sarkar. Sarkar and SFF have been running a campaign against the DV Act and Section 498-A, demanding the creation of a Men Welfare Ministry on the lines of the one for women.  “Every year, lakhs of men throughout the country lose their reputation, job and almost everything because their wives lodge complaints against them under these laws.   Not just the men but their mothers, sisters and other family members are harassed under false complaints of dowry and ill treatment by in-laws,” said Sarkar.   SFF and Sarkar had met Chaudhary before the elections regarding their demands but after being denied any help, the group started a campaign against the former minister through emails, SMSes and blogs.  The campaign also targeted Congress leader Margaret Alva, who the SFF claims, was the brain behind Section 498-A when it was introduced in 1983.  MiD DAY tried contacting both Chaudhary and Alva for their reactions. While Alva was not available on her landline phone numbers, Renuka in an irritated tone accepted that she knew about SFF.  “I know about their celebrations. It’s a democratic country and let him celebrate. But I don’t think it is worth celebrating,” Chaudhary said. When asked about the SFF’s demand to abolish the DV Act and amend Section 498-A, she came up with a big no.  “The law cannot be changed. It is there to save women who are harassed by their in-laws. I don’t think there is any strength in their demand,” Chaudhary said. What the laws say Section 498-A, IPC, provides wives with the right to move court against any act of cruelty for dowry.  The DV Act covers not only wives and live-in-partners, but also sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law or any other female relative living with a violent man, who can be jailed for a year for beating, threatening and even shouting at them.  While the DV Act provides yet another provision for a woman with ulterior motives to initiate criminal proceedings against the husband, a major loophole in the Act is its Section 14(5).  The section reads that the respondents shall not be allowed to plead any counter justification for the alleged act of domestic violence, a clear flouting of Human Rights.

Do as your wife says – A Judialysis

Two weeks ago I was watching a program, on Lok Sabha TV on Gender Discourse. It was a TV Discussion on misuse of dowry laws. Save Family Foundation’s Secretary, Mr. Swarup Sarkar quoted the Chief Justice of India expressing concern over the rampantly growing misuse of dowry laws. He was countered by Supreme Court Lawyer Meenakshi Lekhi who said, “Who says judges can’t be wrong?”

When I heard this sentence, I was flabbergasted as I could not believe a Supreme Court lawyer openly criticizing the judiciary. But today I agree with Meenakshi Lekhi as I read today’s leading newspapers carrying the news that the Supreme Court of India has said, “Do as your wife says.” The news item has broken my delusion and shaken my faith on judiciary.

The article has more to it than it meets the eye as the judges Markenday Katju and Deepak Verma went on to say that, “If you want to be happy, do as your wife says even if it is does not make sense. We all do the same (hum sab bhugta bhogi hain)”. Now that’s a new one. Till now men were expected to keep their wives and in-laws happy or else the luxury of false cases was always available to the wife and her parents, but now it seems husbands have to keep their wives and in laws happy as per the whims and fancies of the wives and in-laws or face legal consequences.

This statement does not come as a surprise to me, a prominent men’s right organization’s Public Relation Officer, as I come across the abuse men face on a daily basis and am well aware of the various social and legal biases that exist against men in this otherwise so called MALE DOMINATED WORLD.

More importantly it also highlights one very important fact. And the fact is that men are not willing to protect men in this otherwise so called MALE DOMINATED WORLD. For example, take the case of these two men, Markenday Katju and Deepak Verma, in their dusky days, occupying the position of Supreme Court judges; they are well aware of the Domestic Violence that men undergo (having themselves admitted that they have experienced it), and yet they are not ready to do anything to address the issue. On the contrary, they are telling men, ‘Undergo the abuse the way we are undergoing and do not speak about it or else you will face legal consequences’.

This is a very dangerous behavioral pattern of men which is harming not only men but also women which we will see in a while. Meanwhile a pertinent question comes up that if these two judges are henpecked before their wives, do they possess the authority to dictate the same to other men, who may not be willing to do everything as per their wives? Probably not, as those men might also have some self-respect and individuality of their own.

Being non-judgmental about their wives, I will assume they are good and understanding wives, at least I hope so (having seen the disastrous lives of men with bad wives), but another pertinent question comes up here. What will a man do if his wife is just out to ruin him (for whatsoever reason, may be her greed or due to her parents undue influence and interference in the marriage) by expecting thoroughly immoral, unethical and illogical demands from the man well outside the purview of the capacity of the man to fulfill? Can they knock the doors of the court to get any relief? Probably not, for whatever messages have transpired today from the controversial statement made by Supreme Court judges, it is very evident that it has become a crime for Indian men to not only marry but also to expect any kind of justice from the courts in case their marriage is on rocks for NOT LISTENING TO THE WIFE because all the judge will say is “Listen to your wife”.

But I am wondering, have the learned Supreme Court judges even thought once before making such a controversial and far-reaching statement? Probably not, for they clearly say, ‘Listen to your wife or go to jail’. But Sir, what should a man do if his wife puts him in some of the below listed situation.

1. Wife says, “Darling I will be happy only if when you empty the entire toothpaste from the tube on to the plate and undo the situation by putting the toothpaste back into the tube.”
2. Wife says, “Darling if you want to see me happy, please go and throw a slipper on a judge or else I will file a false dowry case?” Now the man has to make a choice, as to whether he wants to go to jail for a false dowry case or for Contempt of Court?
3. Wife says, “Disown your parents and become son to my parents and take care of them.”
4. Wife says, “I am bored with you and want to have an affair, will that be OK to you?”

Have any answers, gentlemen? Probably not, for all you say is “Listen to what your wife says even if it is unreasonable.”

Now coming back to the dangerous behavioral pattern harming both men and women, referred to earlier in the article, I will NOT be talking about the abuse that every third Indian husband undergoes in the form of false cases of dowry harassment, treatment as FREE ATM MACHINE, Domestic Violence at the hands of wife and in-laws, etc., but I will instead highlight the pampering attitude of the judiciary towards wives and their refusal to protect men.

Such an attitude is a direct threat to the institution of marriage and in such a case the situation is grimmer for women rather than men because the very basis of the foundation of the social institution called marriage was to provide women a protective environment and in the wake of the institution being killed systematically, the day will not be far when women will have to stand on national highways to beg for husbands (as is also evident from the TV Program Star Vivah) and still they won’t get as they would have dug their own grave.

While a peek into history does bring up some surprises for us as it is the same judge Markenday Katju who had asked the UP Government to implement the provision for Anticipatory Bail and a direct bearing of that would have reflected on providing respite to men framed falsely in dowry harassment cases. It seems the judge is visibly upset with the Chief Justice of India for his inaction on the ongoing misuse of dowry laws.

But still, making such a controversial and irresponsible statement cannot be defended by any justification and it is a moral crime to do so. People sitting at such looked upon and responsible positions should be extremely cautious of making statements and not get carried away by personal emotions. It is very important for the social health.

Citizens respond to 498A Missuse coverage by Pune Mirror

Pune Mirror carried an exclusive coverage of the misuse of Section 498A on 15th May 2009. Based on that it carried citizen’s response on the following day uploaded here.

Response 1

Response 2

Marry Shades of Grey

 

Harassed husbands? The SC’s recent observation calling for a review of dowry laws (on the grounds that they are often misused) might have women’s organisations up in arms but more and more ‘harassed’ husbands have been raising their voices after being falsely implicated. Sriranjitha Jeurkar investigates why many dowry cases no longer remain plain black and white today

My name is Kumar. I am 28 years old. I wanted to marry a poor girl, so that I could help a poor family. When I told my father about this, he suggested that I marry the daughter of one of his distant relatives, from a town in Andhra Pradesh. I believed that when he had chosen nothing but the best for me until now, he could not go wrong in this decision either. I agreed. I didn’t know much about the family, except that the girl’s father was a bus conductor. We demanded no dowry and even agreed to foot the wedding expenses.  It was a perfect wedding. My wife and I lived together for a month and she went back to her home for some rituals. That’s when I realised I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease from her. I was too embarrassed to tell my parents. When I asked my wife about it, she confessed that she had had an affair with someone else and had married me due to pressure from her family. “You didn’t ask for dowry, so we thought you had something to hide too,” she said.  I was shocked. But I wanted to save my marriage, so I asked her to come with me for treatment. She wasn’t interested. She told me that she would give me a divorce by mutual consent if I gave her Rs 5 lakh. And she didn’t want to discuss the matter with her parents because she was afraid they’d take away the money from her. Still, I was glad she had told me the truth. I told my parents. Then my company sent me abroad for a project. We applied for divorce by mutual consent, and before I left, both of us went to the family court on six occasions. After I returned to India, she went back home saying that her mother was ill, and didn’t return — not even to attend the hearings. All of a sudden, she started saying that she didn’t want a divorce, and demanded that I pay her Rs 25,000 a month as maintenance. She claimed that I was earning far more than I really was, that my family had a lot of property (which is untrue) and said we had thrown her out of the house because she refused to bring Rs 2 lakh from her parents. She claimed that her family had spent a sum of Rs 10 lakh to conduct the wedding. She even went to the extent of saying that we had forged her signature on the divorce petition! She filed a dowry case, and I was named as an accused — along with my mother, dad, cousin and aunt. I was taken into custody and stayed there for seven days, despite my family producing documents, which refuted her claims. She told me that if I paid her Rs 10 lakh in cash, she would withdraw the case. But she also had another demand —that I give it to her in writing that I am impotent.  My aged parents had to wait for three months to get bail. We were stripped, and our fingerprints taken, as if we were petty criminals. Until then, we knew very little about the law, and even less about Section 498A. My parents, at one point were on the verge of committing suicide. Due to all the stress, my performance at work suffered. I was terminated. Three years later, the case is still on — and I am still looking for a job. I received three job offers — all of which were withdrawn once they conducted a background check and found out that I had a case pending against me. My future looks uncertain, but there’s one thing I’m sure about: I have lost faith in the institution of marriage. I will never marry again. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (Dowry Prohibition and Prevention of Marital Cruelty) is aimed at protecting the woman from harassment — from either her husband or her in-laws. But the loopholes in the law have led to misuse by women across the country. The common perception, that a helpless woman is abused for dowry by her husband’s family and the law is her only saviour — is being turned on its head.  Bangalore-based advocate Shankarappa, who has been practicing law for the last 18 years, handling many high-profile cases, says that he has seen at least 120 cases of dowry harassment in his career, “But unfortunately about 100 of the complainants had falsely implicated their husbands and husbands’ families.” Advocate M T Nanaiah says that approximately 80 per cent of the 600 dowry-related cases he has handled over 32 years have turned out to be false implications. “Most of the remaining 20 per cent cases are mostly small disagreements that arise in every household. They get converted into dowry harassment cases.” No warrant, no investigation What is it about the anti-dowry law that makes such blatant misuse possible? First, the entire case hinges on the statement or allegations made by the wife.  A single oral complaint can land the husband’s family in jail. No investigation or warrant is needed before police arrest the husband or his family, or begin proceedings. It is non-bailable; the accused must appeal before the court to seek bail. It is not compoundable: the complaint cannot be withdrawn. Worst of all, there is no punishment against the petitioner if the complaint is proved false. Besides, legal experts argue, since the police do not require any proof before arrest, it takes away a basic human right. “Once a woman lodges a complaint, the husband and his relatives are implicated. Even the police register complaints without investigation. They drag the husband, aged in-laws and even young children to the station. The charges may be proved false later, but a criminal record is a criminal record, after all,” says Shankarappa.  Lawyers say that most women who file false dowry complaints do so for a few common reasons: to get out of a marriage; to get money, or a favourable divorce settlement; if they had a premarital affair, and were married off by force; for child custody; if they want an attitude change in the behaviour of the husband or the family; to take revenge on their husbands, or in most cases, to get out of a joint family setup.  And ironically, the law that aims at helping women, ends up harassing women too. The Save Indian Family Foundation contends that on an average, 30,000 women are jailed every year in connection with dowry cases. “Once the woman files a complaint, the mother-in-law, sister-in-law are also arrested. Why restrict the law to protecting only the wife? What kind of protection do these women have?” asks Philip, whose family was falsely implicated in a case. Virag Dhulia, a member of the Bangalore Chapter of the Save Indian Family Foundation — an organisation that provides support to harassed husbands — narrates his horror story. “A few months after our wedding, my wife went back to her parents’ home and didn’t return. She said she wouldn’t return unless I agreed to live away from my parents. Then her family filed a dowry harassment case against us,” he says.  Dhulia recalls how his parents, who are in their sixties, suffered for months — the fear of being arrested, anxiety about the regular court visits, and the outcome of the case, the shame and humiliation, all adding to their health problems. In what is probably the first such instance in the State, Dhulia has filed a complaint against his wife for giving dowry. “My wife has, in her complaint, stated that she and her parents gave me dowry in the presence of their relatives. According to the Dowry Prohibition Act, taking, giving and abetting the giving of dowry is a crime — the giver and taker are equally culpable. I have not accepted dowry; but if as per her claim, she says she has given dowry, then she is guilty too.” He says that at first, the police refused to file an FIR. “Then I went to the ACMM Court. The magistrate there took cognizance of this complaint and asked the jurisdictional police to investigate into the matter and file a report,” he explains. Even four months after the court’s order, no action has been taken, Dhulia alleges. “I have now filed an RTI application to get information about the progress of the investigation, but have still not received any info.” Help is at hand The social stigma was what prompted Arun Murthy, yet another ‘498A victim’ to set up Sangyabalya — a helpline for ‘husbands and families victimised by the anti-dowry laws.’  The helpline was set up in 2003, after Murthy’s sister-in-law filed a dowry harassment complaint against his younger brother. “She was from an orphanage, and she said we had demanded dowry. It was ridiculous,” Murthy says. After his entire family — including his mother and sister were implicated — Murthy’s brother, a hardware engineer, lost his job and became a mental wreck. “I saw how the system works — people are arrested on Friday evening, so they cannot get bail. They have to stay in jail till Monday. And consider this — if you are a government employee, and you are in jail for more than 24 hours, even if under false accusations, then your job is in jeopardy.” Murthy then wrote to a newspaper, and received many calls from other victims. That’s when he set up a helpline for these harassed husbands. A few months later, Sangyabalya was registered as an NGO.  “A lot of people are on the verge of suicide after being arrested. We give them moral support.  Sometimes, the lawyers take them for a ride, so we extend legal aid too. But most importantly, it is a collective voice for proper representation of our problems,” he says. The Save Indian Family Foundation, another organisation that aid people implicated under Section 498A, was first set up as an online community, but later evolved into an NGO. The Foundation now has set up helplines for men in distress. The members of the Bangalore chapter meet at Cubbon Park every Saturday. New members who approach the Foundation are given moral support, and legal advice. “Usually when someone is implicated like this, he tends to feel that he is the only one facing such a problem. When they come here and see that they are not alone, then they feel that they have some support.” Members of the foundation, who come from various backgrounds — from software to government service — study the law and help each other with inputs on how to fight their cases. There are several other organisations working for these ‘harassed husbands’, but most of them have common demands. “The problem arises from extravagant marriages. The giving and taking of dowry should be tackled. No one makes it a point to stop this at the source. After all, prevention is better than cure,” says Dhulia. Murthy agrees, “There should be a mandatory registration of marriages with a record of all gifts exchanged. These gifts are referred to as dowry when things go wrong. And such disputes are family matters. There should be proper counselling available, before the woman goes to the police.” He adds, “The law in itself is not bad. What we need is thorough checks and balances to ensure that it is not misused. We assume that women are all white and men, all black. We must acknowledge that there are shades of grey everywhere.” But most important, these organisations say, is to make provision for action against those who file false complaints, and to ensure that no arrests are made without proper evidence. “Once the complainant sends her husband and his family to jail, chances of reconciliation are few. She thinks its a victory. But that’s the only victory, things go downhill from there,” Murthy says. That probably underlines the need for a thorough review of the law as it exists now. The loopholes have to be plugged, activists say, and soon. For the welfare of the women, so that genuine victims of dowry harassment do not suffer because of those who have misused the law. That is the only hope, for the welfare of hundreds of women across the country. (Some names have been changed to protect identities.) Review necessary? Justice J D Kapoor of the Delhi High Court had recommended a review of the dowry laws. He suggested that Sections 406 (misappropriation of dowry articles) and 498A (harassment for dowry) be made bailable and if necessary, compoundable, in cases where no grave physical injury has been inflicted.  He had observed, “There is a growing tendency to come out with inflated and exaggerated allegations roping in each and every relation of the husband and if one happens to be of higher status or of vulnerable standing, then he or she becomes an easy prey for blackmailing and bargaining.” Some suggestions of the judge are: Such cases should be investigated by civil authorities, and cognisance taken only after findings. Only police officer above the rank of ACP should investigate harassment and misappropriation of items. A DCP should investigate dowry death cases. When minor, schoolchildren are named, they should not be arrested or sent to court.

Men gang up to take on Section 498 (A)* missuse – NP View

Click on below links to see the actual Newspaper images of the article below

Pune Mirror – Men gang up to take on Section 498 (A)* missuse - Frontpage

Pune Mirror – Men gang up to take on Section 498 (A)* missuse – Actual

Men gang up to take on Section 498 (A)* missuse

 

Men gang up to take on Section 498 (A)* missuse

This is Mahesh Kalge, a techie. He and his folks were charged for his wife’s suicide. The only thing is, his wife is alive and kicking. He says she misused the law to torture him (*That’s the Domestic Violence Act)

Mahesh Kalge (30), a techie from Chinchwad, was arrested along with his parents in December ‘07 for their alleged involvement in abetting the suicide of his estranged wife.  

Kalge’s wife had left their house, accusing him and his family of harassing her. As a result they had to spend several days in jail. He is now taking on the law that makes villians out of even good men — and there are many like him.

Who wronged whom
Recalling the agony, Mahesh says, “We were about to shift to a new flat. My wife was angry as my parents were to stay with us. 

On December 28, ‘07, she gulped poison and immediately informed my mother. My mother promptly took her to Lokmanya Hospital where she was admitted and cured.”

He adds, “After she recovered, my mother informed her parents about the incident. That evening, they arrived with 50-60 people, abused and manhandled my parents, my married sister and me. 

Then they filed a case against us under Indian Penal Code section 498 (A) and we were arrested. The next day, when we applied for bail, the police slapped us with IPC section 306 for abetting suicide. 

We languished in jail for 27 days while my wife went to live with her parents taking 37 tolas of gold and other belongings from my house. That was the last time I saw my son. He was five months old.”

“In November ‘08, a chargesheet was filed against us. Then I realised she was still alive, living with her parents. I  started looking for information on misuse of laws and came to know about SFII. 

I‘ve been associated with them ever since. Although I am not a lawyer, I know most laws protecting women now. In fact, the police should have filed a case for attempted suicide against my wife but she got away with it and we suffered.” 

Mission save the family 

According to the law

Article 498A of the IPC states that if a husband or any of his relatives subject the wife to cruelty which could drive her to commit suicide, seriously harm her physically or mentally in any way or unlawfully demand any  property or money from her, they are liable to be imprisoned for upto three years and also may be liable to pay a fine.

Today Mahesh is a member of Save Family, a subsidiary of the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), and vehemently promotes that various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005,  the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, under the relevant provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, the Special Marriages Act and Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 are being used by women to harass men.

To support his argument, he quotes the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, “The acts once promulgated to protect women are now taking their toll on men.

While 52,483 married men committed suicide , in ‘05, across the country in ‘06 it went up to 55,452. The number of married women committing suicide was 28,188 in ‘05 and 29,869 in ‘07.”

“NCRB’s findings reveal unscrupulous women who attack husbands and in-laws with frivolous dowry torture complaints is a chief causes of suicides among married men. Section 498 (A) of the IPC has been handy for women to torture their husbands and in-laws.”

Women are not abusers
Of course, womens’ organisations refuse to buy his argument. Julia George, a lawyer and nun associated with the Pune’s Stree Wani says, “The law is never misused. Women  do not usually take such drastic measures.”

Dr Neelam Gorhe, founder, Stree Adhar Kendra, says, “Most women never misuse laws. There may be  few cases where they have acted on the wrong advice of lawyers and resorted to such tactics, but most harassment cases are real. If conviction rates in such cases is as low as 10 per cent, it is because they aren’t investigated  well.”

SIFF-ting through issues
But Mahesh refuses to accept this. “We are not against laws that protect women. We are against women who misuse them. We are specifically fighting against the abuse of old, sick people and kids. 

We are fighting against wives who force men to disown parents and live as per their wishes or force in-laws on their husbands. 

We’re trying to create   awareness of ‘legal terrorism’ going on in the name of women’s empowerment. We are trying to protect the Indian family system from the onslaught of greedy and unscrupulous women,” he says.

“In Pune, SIFF has successfully executed mass awareness campaigns by staging dharnas and rallies to encourage victims to come forward and protest against the misuse of laws by women.

We hold counselling sessions, run a toll-free helpline for harassed men and offer advice online. We are working constructively,” he says.

Mahesh accuses the cops of being high-handed when acting on harassment complaints by women. “The law is partial to begin with. To make matters worse, police do not spare senior citizens alleged to be tormentors. 

They are detained, arrested and put in jail on the basis of the complainant’s word. Proper investigations don’t take place and at times there are attempts to misrepresent the case to the judiciary,” he says.

The law’s fair
But Gorhe denies the law is partial. She insists, “Laws are not made in a hurry. All aspects are considered while drafting bills and promulgating them. 

Laws are the pillar of the Indian Constitution. We never misrepresent cases. All we do is encourage distressed women to take a stand and help them.

If a woman rightfully demands money for her sustenance, how can it be an abuse of the law? This is nothing but propaganda by men who have trouble with the law,” she fumes.

Julia George feels such cases must be handled with care. “Even I avoid asking women to file cases under the IPC which may result in widening the rift. Normally women too are sensitive towards their spouses and in-laws and are reluctant to lodge criminal cases.

To file a criminal case, a woman has to struggle a lot and convince police officials. I feel the Domestic Violence Act is the best tool to deal with such cases. It leaves open the possibility for a reunion,” she says.

NRI says ex-wife abducted son

Deeksha Chopra | TNN 

New Delhi: An NRI scientist has alleged that his estranged wife has kidnapped his six-year-old son. Alleging that his ex-wife abducted his child from New York on June 28, 2007 and brought him to India, Dr V Ravi Chandran says that he hasn’t heard from them since that day. 

    Even as he claims that a New York court, Karnataka High Court and Madras High court and Supreme Court have given him the sole custody of his son, Chandran says that his wife continues to be on the run with his child. 

    On Friday, he made an appeal through Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP), a Bangalore-based NGO, to help rescue his son. ‘‘I always wanted to share equal custody after divorce from my wife in 2005, but she accused me of child abuse in a New York court. I produced medical records proving that my wife was a schizophrenic. And on September 14, 2007, I was given the legal and physical custody of my son by a New York court. In good faith, I allowed her to bring him to India to meet his grandparents but she never returned. Today I don’t even know his whereabouts and I’m not certain about his well being.’’ 

    Chandran was accompanied by the relatives of a man, who had allegedly committed suicide after being denied the right to see his son. The two sisters of 38-yearold Syed Ahmed Makhdoom, a techie in Bangalore, found it difficult to hold back their tears while talking about their brother. In his dying declaration on April 6, he had stated that ‘‘he was ending his life because he could not see his son’’. 

    ‘‘Our brother was a Canadian national, based in Bangalore. He doted on his son. Syed would never have taken such a drastic step had he been allowed to visit his son. He left behind a dying declaration on video as well as documentary evidence to show that his exwife had married and divorced thrice earlier too for money,’’ said Asta Nausheen, his eldest sister. 

    deeksha.chopra@timesgroup.com 

CRY FOR HELP: Asta Nauseen and Ravi Chandran 

SC Quashes dowry case against NRI Husband

The Supreme Court (SC) has rushed to the rescue of a man hounded by criminal proceedings initiated by his estranged wife alleging fake charges relating to the period when they were together in Canada. 
“We, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, have absolutely no doubt in our mind that the allegations in the FIR had been made with an ulterior motive to harass the appellants (husband),” said a bench of justices SB Sinha and Mukundakam Sharma. “Continuance of the criminal proceeding against them (husband and his parents) would, therefore, amount to abuse of process of the court,” the bench said.
The apex court passed the order while upholding an appeal by Punjab resident Harmanpreet Singh Ahulwalia, challenging registration of criminal cases under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) IPC against him and his parents.
Though the police chief had recommended withdrawal of the complaint and the charge-sheet saying if any offence was committed it was within the jurisdiction of Ontario, Canada, the trial court concerned continued with the prosecution. The apex court also wondered why, when the alleged offence was committed in Canada, Kaur’s father filed the case in India. Kaur’s father, Inter Pal Singh, is a retired police inspector and permanent resident of Canada. Kaur had married Harmanpreet in Jalandhar in 2000 after divorcing her earlier husband in Canada.
After a month’s stay in India, she left for Canada. In 2001, she gave birth to a girl child in Canada. Harmanpreet went to Canada on her sponsorship in 2001. He got the job of a driver there. Soon, differences surfaced between Kaur and her new husband. In 2003, she allegedly left with all her belongings and withdrew Canadian $24,500 from the joint account she held with Harmanpreet.
Harmanpreet initiated divorce proceedings before the Ontario court saying his wife left home to live with her parents in India while he had gone to work. She took with her all her personal belongings, like jewellery. He also alleged that she was “threatening to hurt herself and get him involved with the police to deport him from Canada”.
Differences between the couple were sorted out for some time, after Kaur admitted to her mistake. But they surfaced again and the couple started living separately. During a visit to India in 2006, Interpal Singh lodged a complaint against Harmanpreet under Section 406 and 420 IPC along with an affidavit from Kauri alleging that he demanded dowry and misappropriated dowry articles.

Is There Anything Good About Men?

Roy F. Baumeister

www.denisdutton.com

---

 

This invited address was given at a meeting the American Psychological Association in San Francisco on August 24, 2007. The thinking it represents is part of a long-range project to understand human action and the relation of culture to behavior. Further information about Prof. Baumeister and his research can be found at the foot of this page. — D.D.

 

You’re probably thinking that a talk called “Is there anything good about men” will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like Men Are Not Cost Effective speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd’s book was called Are Men Necessary? and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Louann Brizendine’s book, The Female Brain, introduces itself by saying, “Men, get ready to experience brain envy.” Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain!

Nor are these isolated examples. Alice Eagly’s research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as “The WAW effect.” WAW� stands for “Women Are Wonderful.” Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do.

My purpose in this talk is not to try to balance this out by praising men, though along the way I will have various positive things to say about both genders. The question of whether there’s anything good about men is only my point of departure. The tentative title of the book I’m writing is “How culture exploits men,” but even that for me is the lead-in to grand questions about how culture shapes action. In that context, what’s good about men means what men are good for, from the perspective of the system.

Hence this is not about the “battle of the sexes,” and in fact I think one unfortunate legacy of feminism has been the idea that men and women are basically enemies. I shall suggest, instead, that most often men and women have been partners, supporting each other rather than exploiting or manipulating each other.

Nor is this about trying to argue that men should be regarded as victims. I detest the whole idea of competing to be victims. And I’m certainly not denying that culture has exploited women. But rather than seeing culture as patriarchy, which is to say a conspiracy by men to exploit women, I think it’s more accurate to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems — and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause.

Also I think it’s best to avoid value judgments as much as possible. They have made discussion of gender politics very difficult and sensitive, thereby warping the play of ideas. I have no conclusions to present about what’s good or bad or how the world should change. In fact my own theory is built around tradeoffs, so that whenever there is something good it is tied to something else that is bad, and they balance out.

I don’t want to be on anybody’s side. Gender warriors please go home.

Men on Top

When I say I am researching how culture exploits men, the first reaction is usually “How can you say culture exploits men, when men are in charge of everything?” This is a fair objection and needs to be taken seriously. It invokes the feminist critique of society. This critique started when some women systematically looked up at the top of society and saw men everywhere: most world rulers, presidents, prime ministers, most members of Congress and parliaments, most CEOs of major corporations, and so forth — these are mostly men.

Seeing all this, the feminists thought, wow, men dominate everything, so society is set up to favor men. It must be great to be a man.

The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top. If one were to look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds mostly men there too. Who’s in prison, all over the world, as criminals or political prisoners? The population on Death Row has never approached 51% female. Who’s homeless? Again, mostly men. Whom does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? US Department of Labor statistics report that 93% of the people killed on the job are men. Likewise, who gets killed in battle? Even in today’s American army, which has made much of integrating the sexes and putting women into combat, the risks aren’t equal. This year we passed the milestone of 3,000 deaths in Iraq, and of those, 2,938 were men, 62 were women.

One can imagine an ancient battle in which the enemy was driven off and the city saved, and the returning soldiers are showered with gold coins. An early feminist might protest that hey, all those men are getting gold coins, half of those coins should go to women. In principle, I agree. But remember, while the men you see are getting gold coins, there are other men you don’t see, who are still bleeding to death on the battlefield from spear wounds.

That’s an important first clue to how culture uses men. Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups.
Stereotypes at Harvard

I said that today most people hold more favorable stereotypes of women than men. It was not always thus. Up until about the 1960s, psychology (like society) tended to see men as the norm and women as the slightly inferior version. During the 1970s, there was a brief period of saying there were no real differences, just stereotypes. Only since about 1980 has the dominant view been that women are better and men are the inferior version.

The surprising thing to me is that it took little more than a decade to go from one view to its opposite, that is, from thinking men are better than women to thinking women are better than men. How is this possible?

I’m sure you’re expecting me to talk about Larry Summers at some point, so let’s get it over with! You recall, he was the president of Harvard. As summarized in The Economist, “Mr Summers infuriated the feminist establishment by wondering out loud whether the prejudice alone could explain the shortage of women at the top of science.” After initially saying, it’s possible that maybe there aren’t as many women physics professors at Harvard because there aren’t as many women as men with that high innate ability, just one possible explanation among others, he had to apologize, retract, promise huge sums of money, and not long afterward he resigned.

What was his crime? Nobody accused him of actually discriminating against women. His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought, namely that there might be more men with high ability. The only permissible explanation for the lack of top women scientists is patriarchy — that men are conspiring to keep women down. It can’t be ability. Actually, there is some evidence that men on average are a little better at math, but let’s assume Summers was talking about general intelligence. People can point to plenty of data that the average IQ of adult men is about the same as the average for women. So to suggest that men are smarter than women is wrong. No wonder some women were offended.

But that’s not what he said. He said there were more men at the top levels of ability. That could still be true despite the average being the same — if there are also more men at the bottom of the distribution, more really stupid men than women. During the controversy about his remarks, I didn’t see anybody raise this question, but the data are there, indeed abundant, and they are indisputable. There are more males than females with really low IQs. Indeed, the pattern with mental retardation is the same as with genius, namely that as you go from mild to medium to extreme, the preponderance of males gets bigger.

All those retarded boys are not the handiwork of patriarchy. Men are not conspiring together to make each other’s sons mentally retarded.

Almost certainly, it is something biological and genetic. And my guess is that the greater proportion of men at both extremes of the IQ distribution is part of the same pattern. Nature rolls the dice with men more than women. Men go to extremes more than women. It’s true not just with IQ but also with other things, even height: The male distribution of height is flatter, with more really tall and really short men.

Again, there is a reason for this, to which I shall return.

For now, the point is that it explains how we can have opposite stereotypes. Men go to extremes more than women. Stereotypes are sustained by confirmation bias. Want to think men are better than women? Then look at the top, the heroes, the inventors, the philanthropists, and so on. Want to think women are better than men? Then look at the bottom, the criminals, the junkies, the losers.

In an important sense, men really are better AND worse than women.

A pattern of more men at both extremes can create all sorts of misleading conclusions and other statistical mischief. To illustrate, let’s assume that men and women are on average exactly equal in every relevant respect, but more men at both extremes. If you then measure things that are bounded at one end, it screws up the data to make men and women seem significantly different.

Consider grade point average in college. Thanks to grade inflation, most students now get A’s and B’s, but a few range all the way down to F. With that kind of low ceiling, the high-achieving males cannot pull up the male average, but the loser males will pull it down. The result will be that women will get higher average grades than men — again despite no difference in average quality of work.

The opposite result comes with salaries. There is a minimum wage but no maximum. Hence the high-achieving men can pull the male average up while the low-achieving ones can’t pull it down. The result? Men will get higher average salaries than women, even if there is no average difference on any relevant input.

Today, sure enough, women get higher college grades but lower salaries than men. There is much discussion about what all this means and what should be done about it. But as you see, both facts could be just a statistical quirk stemming from male extremity.
Trading Off 

When you think about it, the idea that one gender is all-around better than the other is not very plausible. Why would nature make one gender better than the other? Evolution selects for good, favorable traits, and if there’s one good way to be, after a few generations everyone will be that way.

But evolution will preserve differences when there is a tradeoff: when one trait is good for one thing, while the opposite is good for something else.

Let’s return to the three main theories we’ve had about gender: Men are better, no difference, and women are better. What’s missing from that list? Different but equal. Let me propose that as a rival theory that deserves to be considered. I think it’s actually the most plausible one. Natural selection will preserve innate differences between men and women as long as the different traits are beneficial in different circumstances or for different tasks.

Tradeoff example: African-Americans suffer from sickle cell anemia more than white people. This appears to be due to a genetic vulnerability. That gene, however, promotes resistance to malaria. Black people evolved in regions where malaria was a major killer, so it was worth having this gene despite the increased risk of sickle cell anemia. White people evolved in colder regions, where there was less malaria, and so the tradeoff was resolved differently, more avoiding the gene that prevented malaria while risking sickle cell anemia.

The tradeoff approach yields a radical theory of gender equality. Men and women may be different, but each advantage may be linked to a disadvantage.

Hence whenever you hear a report that one gender is better at something, stop and consider why this is likely true — and what the opposite trait might be good for.
Can’t Vs. Won’t 

Before we go too far down that path, though, let me raise another radical idea. Maybe the differences between the genders are more about motivation than ability. This is the difference between can’t and won’t.

Return for a moment to the Larry Summers issue about why there aren’t more female physics professors at Harvard. Maybe women can do math and science perfectly well but they just don’t like to. After all, most men don’t like math either! Of the small minority of people who do like math, there are probably more men than women. Research by Jacquelynne Eccles has repeatedly concluded that the shortage of females in math and science reflects motivation more than ability. And by the same logic, I suspect most men could learn to change diapers and vacuum under the sofa perfectly well too, and if men don’t do those things, it’s because they don’t want to or don’t like to, not because they are constitutionally unable (much as they may occasionally pretend otherwise!).

Several recent works have questioned the whole idea of gender differences in abilities: Even when average differences are found, they tend to be extremely small. In contrast, when you look at what men and women want, what they like, there are genuine differences. Look at research on the sex drive: Men and women may have about equal “ability” in sex, whatever that means, but there are big differences as to motivation: which gender thinks about sex all the time, wants it more often, wants more different partners, risks more for sex, masturbates more, leaps at every opportunity, and so on. Our survey of published research found that pretty much every measure and every study showed higher sex drive in men. It’s official: men are hornier than women. This is a difference in motivation.

Likewise, I mentioned the salary difference, but it may have less to do with ability than motivation. High salaries come from working super-long hours. Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.) One study counted that over 80% of the people who work 50-hour weeks are men.

That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell.

Creativity may be another example of gender difference in motivation rather than ability. The evidence presents a seeming paradox, because the tests of creativity generally show men and women scoring about the same, yet through history some men have been much more creative than women. An explanation that fits this pattern is that men and women have the same creative ability but different motivations.

I am a musician, and I’ve long wondered about this difference. We know from the classical music scene that women can play instruments beautifully, superbly, proficiently — essentially just as well as men. They can and many do. Yet in jazz, where the performer has to be creative while playing, there is a stunning imbalance: hardly any women improvise. Why? The ability is there but perhaps the motivation is less. They don’t feel driven to do it.

I suppose the stock explanation for any such difference is that women were not encouraged, or were not appreciated, or were discouraged from being creative. But I don’t think this stock explanation fits the facts very well. In the 19^th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output. There were no great women composers, no new directions in style of music or how to play, or anything like that. All those female pianists entertained their families and their dinner guests but did not seem motivated to create anything new.

Meanwhile, at about the same time, black men in America created blues and then jazz, both of which changed the way the world experiences music. By any measure, those black men, mostly just emerging from slavery, were far more disadvantaged than the middle-class white women. Even getting their hands on a musical instrument must have been considerably harder. And remember, I’m saying that the creative abilities are probably about equal. But somehow the men were driven to create something new, more than the women.

One test of what’s meaningfully real is the marketplace. It’s hard to find anybody making money out of gender differences in abilities. But in motivation, there are plenty. Look at the magazine industry: men’s magazines cover different stuff from women’s magazines, because men and women like and enjoy and are interested in different things. Look at the difference in films between the men’s and women’s cable channels. Look at the difference in commercials for men or for women.

This brings us to an important part of the argument. I’m suggesting the important differences between men and women are to be found in motivation rather than ability. What, then, are these differences? I want to emphasize two.
The Most Underappreciated Fact 

The first big, basic difference has to do with what I consider to be the most underappreciated fact about gender. Consider this question: What percent of our ancestors were women?

It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who ever lived were women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the people who ever lived who have a descendant living today. Or, put another way, yes, every baby has both a mother and a father, but some of those parents had multiple children.

Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

Right now our field is having a lively debate about how much behavior can be explained by evolutionary theory. But if evolution explains anything at all, it explains things related to reproduction, because reproduction is at the heart of natural selection. Basically, the traits that were most effective for reproduction would be at the center of evolutionary psychology. It would be shocking if these vastly different reproductive odds for men and women failed to produce some personality differences.

For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe.

For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities. Sailing off into the unknown may be risky, and you might drown or be killed or whatever, but then again if you stay home you won’t reproduce anyway. We’re most descended from the type of men who made the risky voyage and managed to come back rich. In that case he would finally get a good chance to pass on his genes. We’re descended from men who took chances (and were lucky).

The huge difference in reproductive success very likely contributed to some personality differences, because different traits pointed the way to success. Women did best by minimizing risks, whereas the successful men were the ones who took chances. Ambition and competitive striving probably mattered more to male success (measured in offspring) than female. Creativity was probably more necessary, to help the individual man stand out in some way. Even the sex drive difference was relevant: For many men, there would be few chances to reproduce and so they had to be ready for every sexual opportunity. If a man said “not today, I have a headache,” he might miss his only chance.

Another crucial point. The danger of having no children is only one side of the male coin. Every child has a biological mother and father, and so if there were only half as many fathers as mothers among our ancestors, then some of those fathers had lots of children.

Look at it this way. Most women have only a few children, and hardly any have more than a dozen — but many� fathers have had more than a few, and some men have actually had several dozen, even hundreds of kids.

In terms of the biological competition to produce offspring, then, men outnumbered women both among the losers and among the biggest winners.

To put this in more subjective terms: When I walk around and try to look at men and women as if seeing them for the first time, it’s hard to escape the impression (sorry, guys!) that women are simply more likeable and lovable than men. (This I think explains the “WAW� effect” mentioned earlier.) Men might wish to be lovable, and men can and do manage to get women to love them (so the ability is there), but men have other priorities, other motivations. For women, being lovable was the key to attracting the best mate. For men, however, it was more a matter of beating out lots of other men even to have a chance for a mate.

Tradeoffs again: perhaps nature designed women to seek to be lovable, whereas men were designed to strive, mostly unsuccessfully, for greatness.

And it was worth it, even despite the “mostly unsuccessfully” part. Experts estimate Genghis Khan had several hundred and perhaps more than a thousand children. He took big risks and eventually conquered most of the known world. For him, the big risks led to huge payoffs in offspring. My point is that no woman, even if she conquered twice as much territory as Genghis Khan, could have had a thousand children. Striving for greatness in that sense offered the human female no such biological payoff. For the man, the possibility was there, and so the blood of Genghis Khan runs through a large segment of today’s human population. By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but for the few men who do, the gains have been real. And we are descended from those great men much more than from other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no descendants at all.
Are Women More Social? 

Let me turn now to the second big motivational difference. This has its roots in an exchange in the Psychological Bulletin about ten years ago, but the issue is still fresh and relevant today. It concerns the question of whether women are more social than men.

The idea that women are more social was raised by S.E. Cross and L. Madsen in a manuscript submitted to that journal. I was sent it to review, and although I disagreed with their conclusion, I felt they had made their case well, so I advocated publishing their paper. They provided plenty of evidence. They said things like, look, men are more aggressive than women. Aggression could damage a relationship because if you hurt someone then that person might not want to be with you. Women refrain from aggression because they want relationships, but men don’t care about relationships and so are willing to be aggressive. Thus, the difference in aggression shows that women are more social than men.

But I had just published my early work on “the need to belong,” which concluded that both men and women had that need, and so I was worried to hear that men don’t care about social connection. I wrote a reply that said there was another way to look at all the evidence Cross and Madsen covered.

The gist of our view was that there are two different ways of being social. In social psychology we tend to emphasize close, intimate relationships, and yes, perhaps women specialize in those and are better at them than men. But one can also look at being social in terms of having larger networks of shallower relationships, and on these, perhaps, men are more social than women.

It’s like the common question, what’s more important to you, having a few close friendships or having lots of people who know you? Most people say the former is more important. But the large network of shallow relationships might be important too. We shouldn’t automatically see men as second-class human beings simply because they specialize in the less important, less satisfying kind of relationship. Men are social too — just in a different way.

So we reexamined the evidence Cross and Madsen had provided. Consider aggression. True, women are less aggressive than men, no argument there. But is it really because women don’t want to jeopardize a close relationship? It turns out that in close relationships, women are plenty aggressive. Women are if anything more likely than men to perpetrate domestic violence against romantic partners, everything from a slap in the face to assault with a deadly weapon. Women also do more child abuse than men, though that’s hard to untangle from the higher amount of time they spend with children. Still, you can’t say that women avoid violence toward intimate partners.

Instead, the difference is found in the broader social sphere. Women don’t hit strangers. The chances that a woman will, say, go to the mall and end up in a knife fight with another woman are vanishingly small, but there is more such risk for men. The gender difference in aggression is mainly found there, in the broader network of relationships. Because men care more about that network.

Now consider helping. Most research finds that men help more than women. Cross and Madsen struggled with that and eventually just fell back on the tired cliché that maybe women don’t help because they aren’t brought up to help or aren’t socialized to help. But I think the pattern is the same as with aggression. Most research looks at helping between strangers, in the larger social sphere, and so it finds men helping more. Inside the family, though, women are plenty helpful, if anything more than men.

Aggression and helping are in some ways opposites, so the converging pattern is quite meaningful. Women both help and aggress in the intimate sphere of close relationships, because that’s what they care about. In contrast, men care (also) about the broader network of shallower relationships, and so they are plenty helpful and aggressive there.

The same two-spheres conclusion is supported in plenty of other places. Playground observation studies find that girls pair off and play one-on-one with the same playmate for the full hour. Boys will either play one-on-one with a series of different playmates or with a larger group. Girls want the one-to-one relationship, whereas boys are drawn to bigger groups or networks.

When two girls are playing together and the researchers bring in a third one, the two girls resist letting her join. But two boys will let a third boy join their game. My point is that girls want the one-on-one connection, so adding a third person spoils the time for them, but it doesn’t spoil it for the boys.

The conclusion is that men and women are both social but in different ways. Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.
Traded-Off Traits 

Again, important personality differences probably follow from the basic motivational difference in the kind of social relationship that interests men and women.

Consider the common finding that women are more emotionally expressive than men. For an intimate relationship, good communication is helpful. It enables the two people to understand each other, appreciate each other’s feelings, and so forth. The more the two intimate partners know about each other, the better they can care for and support each other. But in a large group, where you have rivals and maybe enemies, it’s risky to let all your feelings show. The same goes for economic transactions. When you are negotiating the price of something, it’s best to keep your feelings a bit to yourself. And so men hold back more.

Fairness is another example. Research by Brenda Major and others back in the 1970s used procedures like this. A group of subjects would perform a task, and the experimenter would then say that the group had earned a certain amount of money, and it was up to one member to divide it up however he or she wanted. The person could keep all the money, but that wasn’t usually what happened. Women would divide the money equally, with an equal share for everybody. Men, in contrast, would divide it unequally, giving the biggest share of reward to whoever had done the most work.

Which is better? Neither. Both equality and equity are valid versions of fairness. But they show the different social sphere orientation. Equality is better for close relationships, when people take care of each other and reciprocate things and divide resources and opportunities equally. In contrast, equity — giving bigger rewards for bigger contributions — is more effective in large groups. I haven’t actually checked, but I’m willing to bet that if you surveyed the Fortune 500 large and successful corporations in America, you wouldn’t find a single one out of 500 that pays every employee the same salary. The more valuable workers who contribute more generally get paid more. It simply is a more effective system in large groups. The male pattern is suited for the large groups, the female pattern is best suited to intimate pairs.

Ditto for the communal-exchange difference Women have more communal orientation, men more exchange. In psychology we tend to think of communal as a more advanced form of relationship than exchange. For example, we’d be suspicious of a couple who after ten years of marriage are still saying, “I paid the electric bill last month, now it’s your turn.” But the supposed superiority of communal relationships applies mainly to intimate relationships. At the level of large social systems, it’s the other way around. Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange.

There’s also the point about men being more competitive, women more cooperative. Again, though, cooperation is much more useful than competition for close relationships. What use is there in competing against your spouse? But in large groups, getting to the top can be crucial. The male preference for dominance hierarchies, and the ambitious striving to get to the top, likewise reflect an orientation toward the large group, not a dislike of intimacy. And remember, most men didn’t reproduce, and we’re mainly descended from the men who did fight their way to the top. Not so for women.

One more thing. Cross and Madsen covered plenty of research showing that men think of themselves based on their unusual traits that set them apart from others, while women’s self-concepts feature things that connect them to others. Cross and Madsen thought that this was because men wanted to be apart from others. But in fact being different is vital strategy for belonging to a large group. If you’re the only group member who can kill an antelope or find water or talk to the gods or kick a field goal, the group can’t afford to get rid of you.

It’s different in a one-to-one relationship. A woman’s husband, and her baby, will love her even if she doesn’t play the trombone. So cultivating a unique skill isn’t essential for her. But playing the trombone is a way to get into some groups, especially brass bands. This is another reason that men go to extremes more than women. Large groups foster the need to establish something different and special about yourself.
Benefits of Cultural Systems 

Let’s turn now to culture. Culture is relatively new in evolution. It continues the line of evolution that made animals social. I understand culture as a kind of system that enables the human group to work together effectively, using information. Culture is a new, improved way of being social.

Feminism has taught us to see culture as men against women. Instead, I think the evidence indicates that culture emerged mainly with men and women working together, but working against other groups of men and women. Often the most intense and productive competitions were groups of men against other groups of men, though both groups depended on support from women.

Culture enables the group to be more than the sum of its parts (its members). Culture can be seen as a biological strategy. Twenty people who work together, in a cultural system, sharing information and dividing up tasks and so forth, will all live better — survive and reproduce better — than if those same twenty people lived in the same forest but did everything individually.

Culture thus provides some benefit from having a system. Let’s call this “system gain,” which means how much better the group does because of the system. Think of two soccer teams. Both sets of players know the rules and have the same individual skills. One group has only that, and they go out to play as individuals trying to do their best. The other works as a team, complementing each other, playing with a system. The system will likely enable them to do better than the group playing as separate individuals. That’s system gain.

And one vital fact is that the scope of system gain increases with the size of the system. This is essentially what’s happening in the world right now, globalization in the world economy. Bigger systems provide more benefits, so as we expand and merge more units into bigger systems, overall there is more gain.

There is one crucial implication from all this. Culture depends on system gain, and bigger systems provide more of this. Therefore, you’ll get more of the benefit of culture from large groups than from small ones. A one-on-one close relationship can do a little in terms of division of labor and sharing information, but a 20-person group can do much more.

As a result, culture mainly arose in the types of social relationships favored by men. Women favor close, intimate relationships. These are if anything more important for the survival of the species. That’s why human women evolved first. We need those close relationships to survive. The large networks of shallower relationships aren’t as vital for survival — but they are good for something else, namely the development of larger social systems and ultimately for culture.
Men and Culture 

This provides a new basis for understanding gender politics and inequality.

The generally accepted view is that back in early human society, men and women were close to equal. Men and women had separate spheres and did different things, but both were respected. Often, women were gatherers and men were hunters. The total contribution to the group’s food was about the same, even though there were some complementary differences. For example, the gatherers’ food was reliably there most days, while the hunters brought home great food once in a while but nothing on other days.

Gender inequality seems to have increased with early civilization, including agriculture. Why? The feminist explanation has been that the men banded together to create patriarchy. This is essentially a conspiracy theory, and there is little or no evidence that it is true. Some argue that the men erased it from the history books in order to safeguard their newly won power. Still, the lack of evidence should be worrisome, especially since this same kind of conspiracy would have had to happen over and over, in group after group, all over the world.

Let me offer a different explanation. It’s not that the men pushed the women down. Rather, it’s just that the women’s sphere remained about where it was, while the men’s sphere, with its big and shallow social networks, slowly benefited from the progress of culture. By accumulating knowledge and improving the gains from division of labor, the men’s sphere gradually made progress.

Hence religion, literature, art, science, technology, military action, trade and economic marketplaces, political organization, medicine — these all mainly emerged from the men’s sphere. The women’s sphere did not produce such things, though it did other valuable things, like take care of the next generation so the species would continue to exist.

Why? It has nothing to do with men having better abilities or talents or anything like that. It comes mainly from the different kinds of social relationships. The women’s sphere consisted of women and therefore was organized on the basis of the kind of close, intimate, supportive one-on-one relationships that women favor. These are vital, satisfying relationships that contribute vitally to health and survival. Meanwhile the men favored the larger networks of shallower relationships. These are less satisfying and nurturing and so forth, but they do form a more fertile basis for the emergence of culture.

Note that all those things I listed — literature, art, science, etc — are optional. Women were doing what was vital for the survival of the species. Without intimate care and nurturance, children won’t survive, and the group will die out. Women contributed the necessities of life. Men’s contributions were more optional, luxuries perhaps. But culture is a powerful engine of making life better. Across many generations, culture can create large amounts of wealth, knowledge, and power. Culture did this — but mainly in the men’s sphere.

Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere. This is what pushed the men’s sphere ahead. Not oppression.

Giving birth is a revealing example. What could be more feminine than giving birth? Throughout most of history and prehistory, giving birth was at the center of the women’s sphere, and men were totally excluded. Men were rarely or never present at childbirth, nor was the knowledge about birthing even shared with them. But not very long ago, men were finally allowed to get involved, and the men were able to figure out ways to make childbirth safer for both mother and baby. Think of it: the most quintessentially female activity, and yet the men were able to improve on it in ways the women had not discovered for thousands and thousands of years.

Let’s not overstate. The women had after all managed childbirth pretty well for all those centuries. The species had survived, which is the bottom line. The women had managed to get the essential job done. What the men added was, from the perspective of the group or species at least, optional, a bonus: some mothers and babies survived who would otherwise have died. Still, the improvements show some value coming from the male way of being social. Large networks can collect and accumulate information better than small ones, and so in a relatively short time the men were able to discover improvements that the women hadn’t been able to find. Again, it’s not that the men were smarter or more capable. It’s just that the women shared their knowledge individually, from mother to daughter, or from one midwife to another, and in the long run this could not accumulate and progress as effectively as in the larger groups of shallower relationships favored by men.
What Men Are Good For 

With that, we can now return to the question of what men are good for, from the perspective of a cultural system. The context is these systems competing against other systems, group against group. The group systems that used their men and women most effectively would enable their groups to outperform their rivals and enemies.

I want to emphasize three main answers for how culture uses men.

First, culture relies on men to create the large social structures that comprise it. Our society is made up of institutions such as universities, governments, corporations. Most of these were founded and built up by men. Again, this probably had less to do with women being oppressed or whatever and more to do with men being motivated to form large networks of shallow relationships. Men are much more interested than women in forming large groups and working in them and rising to the top in them.

This still seems to be true today. Several recent news articles have called attention to the fact that women now start more small businesses then men. This is usually covered in the media as a positive sign about women, which it is. But women predominate only if you count all businesses. If you restrict the criteria to businesses that employ more than one person, or ones that make enough money to live off of, then men create more. I suspect that the bigger the group you look at, the more they are male-created.

Certainly today anybody of any gender can start a business, and if anything there are some set-asides and advantages to help women do so. There are no hidden obstacles or blocks, and that’s shown by the fact that women start more businesses than men. But the women are content to stay small, such as operating a part-time business out of the spare bedroom, making a little extra money for the family. They don’t seem driven to build these up into giant corporations. There are some exceptions, of course, but there is a big difference on average.

Hence both men and women rely on men to create the giant social structures that offer opportunities to both. And it is clear men and women can both perform quite well in these organizations. But culture still relies mainly on men to make them in the first place.
The Disposable Male 

A second thing that makes men useful to culture is what I call male expendability. This goes back to what I said at the outset, that cultures tend to use men for the high-risk, high-payoff undertakings, where a significant portion of those will suffer bad outcomes ranging from having their time wasted, all the way to being killed.

Any man who reads the newspapers will encounter the phrase “even women and children” a couple times a month, usually about being killed. The literal meaning of this phrase is that men’s lives have less value than other people’s lives. The idea is usually “It’s bad if people are killed, but it’s especially bad if women and children are killed.” And I think most men know that in an emergency, if there are women and children present, he will be expected to lay down his life without argument or complaint so that the others can survive. On the Titanic, the richest men had a lower survival rate (34%) than the poorest women (46%) (though that’s not how it looked in the movie). That in itself is remarkable. The rich, powerful, and successful men, the movers and shakers, supposedly the ones that the culture is all set up to favor — in a pinch, their lives were valued less than those of women with hardly any money or power or status. The too-few seats in the lifeboats went to the women who weren’t even ladies, instead of to those patriarchs.

Most cultures have had the same attitude. Why? There are pragmatic reasons. When a cultural group competes against other groups, in general, the larger group tends to win out in the long run. Hence most cultures have promoted population growth. And that depends on women. To maximize reproduction, a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but a few penises can do the job. There is usually a penile surplus. If a group loses half its men, the next generation can still be full-sized. But if it loses half its women, the size of the next generation will be severely curtailed. Hence most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way while using men for risky jobs.

These risky jobs extend beyond the battlefield. Many lines of endeavor require some lives to be wasted. Exploration, for example: a culture may send out dozens of parties, and some will get lost or be killed, while others bring back riches and opportunities. Research is somewhat the same way: There may be a dozen possible theories about some problem, only one of which is correct, so the people testing the eleven wrong theories will end up wasting their time and ruining their careers, in contrast to the lucky one who gets the Nobel prize. And of course the dangerous jobs. When the scandals broke about the dangers of the mining industry in Britain, Parliament passed the mining laws that prohibited children under the age of 10 and women of all ages from being sent into the mines. Women and children were too precious to be exposed to death in the mines: so only men. As I said earlier, the gender gap in dangerous work persists today, with men accounting for the vast majority of deaths on the job.

Another basis of male expendability is built into the different ways of being social. Expendability comes with the large groups that male sociality creates. In an intimate, one-to-one relationship, neither person can really be replaced. You can remarry if your spouse dies, but it isn’t really the same marriage or relationship. And of course nobody can ever really replace a child’s mother or father.

In contrast, large groups can and do replace just about everybody. Take any large organization — the Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Army, the Green Bay Packers — and you’ll find that the organization goes on despite having replaced every single person in it. Moreover, every member off those groups knows he or she can be replaced and probably will be replaced some day.

Thus, men create the kind of social networks where individuals are replaceable and expendable. Women favor the kind of relationships in which each person is precious and cannot truly be replaced.
Earning Manhood 

�The phrase “Be a man” is not as common as it once was, but there is still some sense that manhood must be earned. Every adult female is a woman and is entitled to respect as such, but many cultures withhold respect from the males until and unless the lads prove themselves. This is of course tremendously useful for the culture, because it can set the terms by which males earn respect as men, and in that way it can motivate the men to do things that the culture finds productive.

Some sociological writings about the male role have emphasized that to be a man, you have to produce more than you consume. That is, men are expected, first, to provide for themselves: If somebody else provides for you, you’re less than a man. Second, the man should create some additional wealth or surplus value so that it can provide for others in addition to himself. These can be his wife and children, or others who depend on him, or his subordinates, or even perhaps just paying taxes that the government can use. Regardless, you’re not a man unless you produce at that level.

Again, I’m not saying men have it worse than women. There are plenty of problems and disadvantages that cultures put on women. My point is just that cultures find men useful in these very specific ways. Requiring the man to earn respect by producing wealth and value that can support himself and others is one of these. Women do not face this particular challenge or requirement.

These demands also contribute to various male behavior patterns. The ambition, competition, and striving for greatness may well be linked to this requirement to fight for respect. All-male groups tend to be marked by putdowns and other practices that remind everybody that there is not enough respect to go around, because this awareness motivates each man to try harder to earn respect. This, incidentally, has probably been a major source of friction as women have moved into the workplace, and organizations have had to shift toward policies that everyone is entitled to respect. The men hadn’t originally built them to respect everybody.

One of the basic, most widely accepted gender differences is agency versus communion. Male agency may be partly an adaptation to this kind of social life based on larger groups, where people aren’t necessarily valued and one has to strive for respect. To succeed in the male social sphere of large groups, you need an active, agentic self to fight for your place, because it isn’t given to you and only a few will be successful. Even the male ego, with its concern with proving oneself and competing against others, seems likely to be designed to cope with systems where there is a shortage of respect and you have to work hard to get some — or else you’ll be exposed to humiliation.
Is That All? 

I have not exhausted all the ways that culture exploits men. Certainly there are others. The male sex drive can be harnessed to motivate all sorts of behaviors and put to work in a kind of economic marketplace in which men give women other resources (love, money, commitment) in exchange for sex.

Cultures also use individual men for symbolic purposes more than women. This can be in a positive way, such as the fact that cultures give elaborate funerals and other memorials to men who seem to embody its favorite values. It can also be negative, such as when cultures ruin a man’s career, shame him publicly, or even execute him for a single act that violates one of its values. From Martin Luther King to Don Imus, our culture uses men as symbols for expressing its values. (Note neither of those two came out the better for it.)
Conclusion 

To summarize my main points: A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has.

Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers.

Culture is not about men against women. By and large, cultural progress emerged from groups of men working with and against other men. While women concentrated on the close relationships that enabled the species to survive, men created the bigger networks of shallow relationships, less necessary for survival but eventually enabling culture to flourish. The gradual creation of wealth, knowledge, and power in the men’s sphere was the source of gender inequality. Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems.

What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren’t as lovable as women.

The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

Do note vote for Congress – Vote for Sudhir Anand

A man goes fishing and gets a fish for his wife to cook. His wife, however refuses to cook as there is 

1. No Gas

2. No Electricity

3. No Water

Husband puts fish back in water and the fish says,

“Jai ho Congress”

Do not vote for Congress as there is no gas, no water, no electricity in Congress Raj.

Vote for someone who cares for your family, Vote for Sudhir Anand.

See Attached Picture

महिला की आत्मकथा

Source

नमस्कार
मै आज की सक्षम नारी हूँ
राष्ट्रीय महिला आयोग की आभारी हूँ

मै उस विलुप्त मूर्ती की एक अन्तिम अवशेष हूँ
जिसे कभी माता शब्द से पहचाना जाता था

मै मेरे माता पिता की लाडली हूँ
मै मुक्त हूँ मै मनचली हूँ
घरेलू काम से वंचित , मुझसे कोई भी काम नही करवाई है
सोचती हूँ की इस मुक्ती से, क्या मैंने पायी है?

नारी कभी सहनशीलता और संस्कृति की मूर्ती थी
नारी कभी सक्षम सुंदर और सम्पूर्ण परिवार की स्फूर्थी थी
आज मै न सहनशील हूँ और नाही सक्षम हूँ
सम्पूर्णता में मेरे नारी पूर्वजों से कई गुना कम हूँ
न मै गृहस्ती संभाल पाऊँ , और नही पति की सहचारी हूँ
मै आज की अस्थिर अपर्याप्त और असम्पूर्ण नारी हूँ
राष्ट्रीय महिला आयोग की आभारी हूँ

मदिरा सेवन के विरुद्ध कई हमने निदर्शन किए
इस प्रकार के कई समाज सेवक प्रदर्शन किए
आज मै पूर्ण मुक्ती से मदिरा सेवन करती हूँ
धूम्रपान के कलुषित धूम्र में स्वास लेती हूँ
आज्ञापत्र पकडाई है मुझे देश के उन्नत नारी ने
पंख प्रदान किए है मुझे शाशन की अधिकारी ने

अनुशाशन हीन शाशन की अवैद कर्मचारी हूँ
कहने को मै आजकी नारी हूँ
राष्ट्रीय महिला आयोग की आभारी हूँ

जानती थी मै की नारी के प्रति सामाजिक सत्कार था
न्यायशास्त्र का दुरुपयोग मेरा जन्मसिद्ध अधिकार था
शोक ग्रस्त है एक परिवार , सदैव जहाँ पर प्यार था
पति बेच कर धन मै पाऊँ , ऐसा कुछ विचार था

न मेरे पास आज पति है, और नही मेरी परिवार है
न मेरी अभिमान मेरे पास है , और नाही किसीका प्यार है

माता पिता वृद्ध है आज, और भाई सुखी गृहस्त है
मुझे इस स्तिथी में लाने वाले आज सभी बहु व्यस्त हैं
किसीका साथ नही है आज, और धन से भी कुछ भोग नही
सुखी गृहस्ती जीवन का , इस जीवन में मुझे योग नही

क्या मै बन पाऊंगी आज, पुन: किसीकी प्रिया?
क्या मै जोड़ पाऊंगी रिश्ते , जिसको मैंने तोड़ दिया?

दुष्ट आयोग की प्रेरणा से, हर कोई सुख मै हारी हूँ
आज मै सचमुच एक अबला दुखित नारी हूँ
राष्ट्रीय महिला आयोग की आभारी हूँ

Husband harassed by dowry

Original Article

Translated Version:

Jaipur: It’s been the wives who have been at the receiving end of the dowry harassment for decades together. However, contrary to the popular notion, a young man has filed a petition in the court alleging that his wife and in-laws are harassing him and conspiring against him by giving him dowry. Taking cognizance of the complaint filed by C-Scheme resident ChandraBadan Sharma, a competent city court passed orders on Tuesday for registering a case.

11^th Judicial Magistrate, Jaipur city has forwarded the complaint to Ashoknagar Police Station, asking the Police Inspector to register the case, investigate and submit a report in the court. ChandraBadan has made his father-in-law Satyanarayan Purohit, mother-in-law Pushpa Purohit, brothers-in-law Kapil and Vikas Purohit in addition to his wife Ritu as accused in the complaint, all of whom are residents of Dausa. Despite his strong refusal to accept any article from his in-laws in marriage, held in 2006, his in-laws were offering him dowry articles which the complainant ChandraBadan flatly refused, argues his lawyer Ashwini Bohra.

After some days of marriage, the in-laws went to the complainant’s house and kept the dowry articles there. Later his in-laws started pestering him to transfer his father’s property in Ritu’s name and stay separate. His in-laws have hatched a criminal conspiracy to give ‘dowry articles’ to him which is a crime as per Section 3, Dowry Prohibition Act.

On the other hand, wife Ritu has also lodged cases of dowry harassment and domestic violence implicating ChandraBadan and his family members.

Arrest My Wife

News 9 a local channel had done a program on the case that I have filed against my wife and in-laws for having admitted to giving dowry to me in a false dowry harassment case lodged against me.

Here is some crude recording of the same.

Part 1:

Part 2: 

The Background of the above videos can be found at, I want Justice.

PS: Read the blog I want Justice bottom to top for better clarity.

Invitation to Press Conference for Condemning Non-Notification of CrPC

 

Invitation for Press Conference

To,

Sub: Invitation for Press Conference on Wednesday, 29^th April 2009 at 11: 00 AM at Press Club, Bangalore

Respected Sir / Madam,

            Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), single largest NGO promoting the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony, is organizing a Press Conference on the 29^th April 2009 at the Press Club of Bangalore at 11 am for voicing our views on the recent decision of the Government to not to notify the recently proposed CrPC Amendment Bill 2008.

We cordially invite your media correspondents / cameramen to this Press Conference and grace the occasion.

We are looking forward to your active participation in making the event a grand success

 

Date: 27 April 2009                                                                                       Thanks and Regards,

Place: Bangalore                                                                                                                     Virag
Public Relations Officer
                                                                                    Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore
 

Speakers:

Virag: 9986378801 (English)

Anil Kumar: 9845143724 (English)

Vishnu: 9880286694 (Kannada)

Press Release condemning non-notification of CrPC Amendments

PRESS RELEASE

Sub: Condemning the decision of non-notification of CrPC Amendment Bill 2008

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), an NGO dedicated to promote the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony, wishes to express its views on the recent decision of the Govt. of India via the Ministry of Home Affairs, to notify the CrPC Amendment Bill 2008 after some modifications in the amended Sec 41-1(A) pertaining to powers of arrest by police.

Brief Background:

After a lot of deliberation and studies done by various committees like the Malimath Committee, the National Police Commission, various landmark judgments by the Honorable Supreme Court, etc. the CrPC Amendment Bill was proposed in 2006 and a public debate was also invited on the same. The same was notified via various media reports.

Some of the key points which led to introduction of ‘Accountability, checks and balances on the powers to arrest by the police’ in the proposed CrPC Amendment Bill 2008 are:-

1. As per the third report of the National Police Commission, 60% of the arrests carried out by the police are thoroughly unnecessary and unjustified. If arrest data provided by the National Crime Record Bureau for the year 2007 is anything to go by then in 2007 alone 40 lakh innocent people have been arrested unnecessarily out of the total 68 lakh arrested since 60% of the arrests were unnecessary.
2. Such arrests have congested the jails with unwarranted under trials to such an extent that it contributes to 43.2% of jail expenditure – a burden on the public exchequer.
3. Unjustified arrest of a person, not only violates his right to liberty as mandated by article 21 of the Indian Constitution, but also leads to serious ignominy and fatal degradation of his social reputation. This has been highlighted in the landmark Supreme Court judgment Joginder Kumar vs. Union of India.
4. The same judgment also lays emphasis on the thin line between the power to arrest and the need to arrest.
5. The Malimath Committee in its report, titled “Reforms of Criminal Justice System” dated March 2003, had suggested that the non-bailable nature of Section 498A (Cruelty by husband and/or relatives on married woman) of the IPC makes it mandatory for police to arrest the accused and this severely degrades the chances of a re-union, if the case is false and as per Govt. records 98% of such cases are false. Thus the committee had suggested making the Section 498A bailable.
6. Several incidences of police atrocities insides lock-ups and misuse of powers of arrest by police in connivance with lawyers had come to light and various State HRCs as well as NHRC had recommended strong curbing of the power to arrest. Various media reports corroborate the fact.

Keeping in mind all these points, the 154^th report of the Law Commission of India, drafted the CrPC Amendment Bill, the USP of which was,

Section 41-1(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), wherein, if notified, the police shall not arrest a person, accused for an offense punishable for less than seven years, unless a ‘Notice of Appearance‘ is issued to the accused person and the accused person fails to comply with the notice along with other rights of the accused like hiring a lawyer, a medical check-up, provision of FIR copy, etc. Also, the reasons for arresting the person have to be recorded by the police in the court diary.

However, various lobby lawyers all over India resorted to hooliganism, illegal strikes and violent road shows in various parts of India demanding the repealing of Section 41-1(a) as it was directly affecting their business. If people won’t fear an immediate arbitrary arrest by the police, they won’t be panicky if police calls them and the lawyers will not be in a position to extort money from accused persons in the name of providing relief from arrest, and other bail proceedings etc.

The protests by lawyers were condemned by SIFF and its allied NGOs and the decision of the Govt. of India to notify the CrPC Amendment Bill was welcomed by the NGO groups. Various memorandums were also sent to the Govt. of India and to The Honorable President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil to this effect.

However, it is interesting to note that while these official correspondences failed to make any mark on the Govt. of India, it chose to be held hostage by lobbying, protesting and egg-pelting lawyers who are co-incidentally supposed to be the Custodians of Constitution as well.

Present Scenario:

As per various media reports last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs notified that the CrPC Amendment will not be notified till the next Govt. formation and not without further amendments keeping in mind the interest of the ‘potentially degradable business’ of lobby lawyers.

It is a very sad state of affairs that where the life and liberty of 40 lakh innocent citizens is at stake, the Govt. of India chose to ignore their plight and rolled back one of the best decisions taken hitherto giving in to hooliganism by groups with vested interests.

Looks like as if the 2 houses of the Parliament viz. the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and the Office of the President of India have been reduced to dummies in front of protests and road shows by certain groups. Decisions taken inside the houses are potentially delicate and politically non-immunized, to be over-ruled by protests and road shows. In such an event the 2 houses and the Office of the President of India, might as well be closed down to drastically reduce the burden on the public exchequer since now lawyers have gained prominence to decide the course of action of laws and related amendments by their road shows, protests, hooliganism, egg-pelting or talibanism in short.

To this effect, even SIFF and its allied NGOs have been protesting against the misuse of dowry laws, Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act, treatment of husbands as FREE ATM MACHINES etc. for the past 5 years either on internet or on ground, however the Govt. of India chose to ignore them conveniently and Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Renuka Choudhary also went to the extent of making a mockery of their cause and talking rudely to them.

If the Govt. of India can put the life and liberty of 4 Million people at stake in order to appease a handful of lawyers, then why are the demands made by SIFF and its allied NGOs falling on deaf ears when it is affecting an estimated 15 Million people. Some of the demands of SIFF are:-

1. Ministry of Men’s Welfare and National Commission for men.
2. All laws to be made Gender neutral.
3. Check ongoing misuse of gender biased laws till gender neutral laws come in place

SIFF’s views:

1. The present situation clearly shows a hijack of the entire Govt. machinery by lobby lawyers for their commercial interest and the inability of the Govt. machinery to prevent the hijack and only showcases the rampant level of deeply embedded corruption. The system is totally broken and a common man has no say in it. The interests of a common man have no place in policy decisions which are taken to appease various lobbying groups to extract political mileage.
2. If things are going to go on at this pace then the day is not far when jungle raj will descend upon India which is already on its way to become a functioning anarchy.
3. Today, in this press conference, and with the help of our esteemed media friends, SIFF appeals the society to raise its voice against the injustice going on in the name of “Criminal Justice System” to protect the rights of certain lobby groups. Criminal Justice System is not meant to be used as a tool to either settle personal scores or mint money.
4. But unfortunately the way it is functioning currently in the area of martial laws and domestic violence, the criminal justice system has lent itself to be used a tool to harass husband’s family to treat him as a FREE ATM MACHINE. This practice is being aided by lobbying lawyers who fear that with the regularization of the powers of arrest, their illegitimate income will be adversely affected and hence they have hijacked the Govt. machinery for their own vested interests.

SIFF feels the way things are going on in the Criminal Justice System; it is nothing less than fascism and needs to be stopped with immediate effect. Once again it is a choice with the society to either ignore the warning or heed to it seriously.

Thanks and Regards

Public Relations Officer
Save Indian Family Foundation

 

Techie sues wife for ‘giving’ dowry

Bangalore-based engineer who had been imprisoned for accepting dowry has filed a case against his wife and in-laws for paying him dowry. His contention: Giving dowry is as much an offence as accepting it

HEMANTH KASHYAP 

BANGALORE: Demanding dowry is a crime, so is giving it. In a first of its kind in the state, a city-based software engineer jailed for taking dowry has filed a case against his wife and in-laws for ‘giving’ him dowry. Virag Dhulia, 28, who had been imprisoned for two days, was later released on bail. 
    Virag has filed cases against his wife Viral Goda and his in-laws saying they had paid him dowry. Virag separated from his wife within two months of their marriage. Viral and her parents filed a complaint in the Mahadevapura police station saying they had paid Virag Rs 12 lakh as dowry. 
    Not to take it lying down, he too filed a complaint against them. “My wife says I have received dowry, which is illegal. But it’s equally illegal to give dowry. So I have filed a case against her,” he said. 
    “I have not taken any dowry, but they have filed a false case against me. I am shocked at the steps taken by my wife. I read law books and filed the case. This is my answer to my wife who has filed false cases against me,” Virag said. 
    As per the law, giving dowry is as much a crime as demanding it. Hence, it attracts equal punishment under Section 3 of Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. 
    Police records clearly say his wife and in-laws had paid him dowry, but he had not demanded it. The case has been admitted in Tenth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Mayo Hall. In January this year, the court directed the jurisdiction police to investigate the case and file a first information report. 
    Virag said, “The misuse of Dowry Prohibition Act and Domestic Violence Act should be stopped or it can get many innocent people into trouble.” 
    “I don’t know what the police are doing. Even after the court ordered an inquiry, the police have not done anything,” he alleged. 
WIFE’S CHARGE 
Viral filed dowry harassment case against Virag on September 10, 2007. “I was harassed mentally and physically by my husband and his parents. They tortured me for more dowry. They demanded Rs 12 lakh more as dowry and warned that if they don’t get money, I would be sent back,” said her complaint. 
    Viral has alleged Virag had assaulted her for more money and she was “not allowed to eat ‘good food’ and not allowed to talk to friends”. “I was feeling insecure,” she has said. Virag, however, denied all these allegations. “I have already said all her allegations are baseless. She did all this as I didn’t come out of my family,” he said. 
SHORT MARRIAGE 
Virag and Viral married on February 12, 2007 in Kolkata. Virag is a software engineer working in i2 Technologies located in Marathahalli in Bangalore. She was staying with him in Bangalore, where Virag had bought her a flat. Virag’sparents too were staying with him as he was their only son. 
    “I bought her a flat and I loved her very much. Problems started after a month. She didn’t want to stay with my parents,” said Virag. 
    “She asked me to separate from my parents and started demanding more money. She went to her parents’ house, but did not come back. Virag called her several times, visited her and even wrote to her. But she didn’t return,” said Virag. 
    Later, she came with her parents and uncles and filed dowry harassment cases against him. “She also asked for a divorce and filed for maintenance which I am paying,” he said. 
CASE HISTORY 
Husband’s name:Virag R Dhulia Wife’s name:Viral V Dhulia 
    Police station:Mahadevapura PS Court:X ACMM,Mayo Hall Court Case status: FIR registered by police. No action taken 
    Sections filed: Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 for ‘voluntary confessional admission’ of having given dowry, Section 120(B) IPC – criminal conspiracy, Section 34 IPC – common intention

Virag Dhulia and Viral Goda at their wedding ceremony

Techie sues wife FOR ‘giving’ dowry

The wedding photos of Virag and Viral

A Bangalore-based software engineer has filed a case against his wife and in-laws for paying him dowry. His contention: Giving dowry is as much an offence as receiving it

Demanding dowry is a crime, so is giving it. In a first of its kind in the state, a city-based software engineer jailed for taking dowry has filed a case against his wife and in-laws for ‘giving’ him dowry.

Virag Dhulia, 28, who had been imprisoned for two days, was later released on bail.

Virag has filed cases against his wife Viral Goda and his in-laws saying they had paid him dowry. Virag separated from his wife within two months of their marriage. Viral and her parents filed a complaint in the Mahadevapura police station saying they had paid Virag Rs 12 lakh as dowry.

Not to take it lying down, he too filed a complaint against them. “My wife says I have received dowry, which is illegal. But it’s equally illegal to give dowry. So I have filed a case against her,” he said.

“I have not taken any dowry, but they have filed a false case against me. I am shocked at the steps taken by my wife. I read law books and filed the case. This is my answer to my wife who has filed false cases against me,” Virag said.

As per the law, giving dowry is as much a crime as demanding it. Hence, it attracts equal punishment under Section 3 of Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

Police records clearly say his wife and in-laws had paid him dowry, but he had not demanded it. The case has been admitted in Tenth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Mayo Hall. In January this year, the court directed the jurisdiction police to investigate the case and file a first information report.

Virag said, “The misuse of Dowry Prohibition Act and Domestic Violence Act should be stopped or it can get many innocent people into trouble.”

“I don’t know what the police are doing. Even after the court ordered an inquiry, the police have not done anything,” he alleged.

WIFE’S CHARGE
Viral filed dowry harassment case against Virag on September 10, 2007. “I was harassed mentally and physically by my husband and his parents. They tortured me for more dowry. They demanded Rs 12 lakh more as dowry and warned that if they don’t get money, I would be sent back,” said her complaint.

Viral has alleged Virag had assaulted her for more money and she was “not allowed to eat ‘good food’ and not allowed to talk to friends”. “I was feeling insecure,” she has said. Virag, however, denied all these allegations. “I have already said all her allegations are baseless. She did all this as I didn’t come out of my family,” he said.

SHORT MARRIAGE
Virag and Viral married on February 12, 2007 in Kolkata. Virat is a software engineer working in i2 Technologies located in Marathahalli in Bangalore. She was staying with him in Bangalore, where Virag had bought her a flat. Virag’s parents too were staying with him as he was their only son.

“I bought her a flat and I loved her very much. Problems started after a month. She didn’t want to stay with my parents,” said Virag.

“She asked me to separate from my parents and started demanding more money. She went to her parents’ house, but did not come back. Virag called her several times, visited her and even wrote to her. But she didn’t return,” said Virag.

Later, she came with her parents and uncles and filed dowry harassment cases against him. “She also asked for a divorce and filed for maintenance which I am paying,” he said.

Case history
Husband’s name: Virag R Dhulia
Wife’s name: Viral V Dhulia
Police station: Mahadevapura PS
Court: X ACMM, Mayo Hall Court
Case status: FIR registered by police. No action taken
Sections filed: Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 for ‘voluntary confessional admission’ of having given dowry, Section 120(B) IPC – criminal conspiracy, Section 34 IPC – common intention

Cong too pro-women?

Bangalore: At least, that’s what men’s rights activists think. In fact, they are even asking people not to vote for the party’s candidates  

A group of men’s rights activists staged a dharna near Mahatma Gandhi statue yesterday asking people not to vote for the Congress.

The reason for their protest is that they feel that the party is “too pro women.” They believe men are being exploited by the Congress.  Through the Domestic Violence Act, the Congress party has incited a woman versus woman war, and the price is paid by Indian men,” said Virag Dhulia of Save Indian Family Foundation.
They allege that the Congress never herd their plea. “Inspite of the Supreme Court terming the Misuse of Section 498A as ‘Unleashing of a new Legal Terrorism on innocent husband’s family’ and Domestic Violence Act as ‘one of the most clumsy drafted law’, the Congress led UPA government has not taken any corrective action and the entire family of husbands is suffering today because of that,” said Kumar Jahgirdar of Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting.

The Bangalore based foundation has started their campaign against the Congress throughout the country. 
“Our Delhi and Pune members have already distributed pamphlets and are asking people not to vote for the party. We at Bangalore have designed our pamphlet and will distribute them soon. Besides, we have also been sending emails and have put up the appeal on our various websites and blogs,” said Virag.

The group claims that they are confident that their votes are huge enough to defeat the Congress. “Men harassed by misuse of women’s law amount to two per cent of the total votes in the country. If these people do not vote for the Congress, there will be a spin at the government formation,” he said.

The group has no problem if the people vote for any party other than the Congress. “Vote for any party, but not for congress and give a clear message that anti-husband, anti-men, anti-family and anti-child law and policy will not be accepted in this country by political party.

Don’t vote!
>>All-India Milli Council has also asked its members to vote for secular parties.
>>The Catholic Church has asked its members not to vote for parties that don’t uphold secularism.
>>Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), has asked its members not to vote for those who preach atheism.
>>Hindu organisations have been asking people not to vote for those who don’t support the Hindutva cause.

A Voice for men

Politicians beware! Battered men, who no longer wish to be bullied by women misusing laws such as the Domestic Violence Act (DV Act) and the 498A for personal gains, are back with a vengeance and it looks like they mean business this time around. “We have decided to get together and take active part in the election campaigning process this year,” says Suresh of the Save Indian Family Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working to save Indian families from being broken. 
    “We decided to campaign because we realised that political parties are trying to create a gender divide by creating a women’s vote bank. They have been turning a blind eye to issues concerning men,” he says with conviction and cites the recent case of a techie called Syed Makhdoom, who committed suicide in Bangalore after being separated from his son by his wife. 
    “Syed’s case is not a one off incident. In the last few years, suicides by men have gone up as have false cases against them,” he claims. “We are demanding a separate ministry for the welfare for men. Also, we want the DV act to be made gender neutral. At the moment, the DV act prescribes punishment only for men. It goes without saying that any party willing to back us will receive our support. We will campaign for such parties. We have been sending mails to political parties in this regard,” Suresh says. 
    Talking about his organisation’s campaign in certain other parts of the nation, Suresh claims, “On the net, we have already put out 300 blogs and more are to follow. At the field level, we intend to distribute flyers and conduct rallies.” He adds, “In Delhi, our campaign is going strong. In Nagpur, we conducted two rallies. Chennai is in the last phase of elections. So, we are just beginning our campaign here.” 
    Kumar Jahgirdar of CRISP, an organisation working to the protect the rights of children and that is working along with SIFF in this regard, points out that their campaign, though small, might be able to make a difference, nevertheless. 
    “We might not be able to create a big impact but even a small change can prove crucial,” he says. 
    Ask Jahgirdar for approximately the number of people they hope to reach out to and he says it is difficult to say. “On the net, a blog is read by so many people. And it is difficult to gauge the kind of impact theyhave. But we do intend to create an awareness,” he says hopefully.A 

Families in false dowry cases and marital problems call to “Divorce Congress”

PRESS RELEASE

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), Bangalore, the single largest NGO working towards the cause of Family Harmony, Gender Equality and Men’s Rights announces a flash dharna at the Gandhi Statue, M.G. Road, Bangalore tomorrow on 19^th Apr. 09 to bring public awareness of the serious problems faced by the Indian husbands and their families owing to many anti-family legislations that have been introduced in the last three decades.

In the last four years alone, over 1,23,497 women have been arrested under IPC Section 498A alone, without any evidence or investigation, not for committing any crime under law, but only because they were related to a man. Noted women’s rights activist Madhu Kishwar acknowledged that IPC Section 498A is heavily misused, and that a significant proportion of individuals who approach “Manushi” these days are mothers-in-law and husbands who are falsely accused of marital cruelty and dowry harassment. Renowned IPS officer Kiran Bedi admitted that many poor and illiterate mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, who are falsely charged under anti-dowry laws, are languishing in prison every year.

Inspite of The Honorable Supreme Court terming the Misuse of Section 498A as “Unleashing of a new Legal Terrorism on innocent husband’s family” and Domestic Violence Act as “one of the most clumsily drafted law”, the Congress led UPA government has not taken any corrective action and the entire families of Indian husbands are suffering today because of that. This is an extreme case of “bad governance” by Congress party.

• Congress wants to divide the country based on gender and it wants to show itself as a savior of women for Vote Bank politics. In reality, Congress is most insensitive and brutal towards women of this country. Congress arrested over 1,23,497 women in last 4 years without investigation or evidence in last 4 years. Even pregnant women were not spared.
• This shows how selfish and insensitive Congress is towards women and children, even though the Chief of Congress is a woman.
• Divorce has sky-rocketed during Congress rule, as this party provided special incentive for women to file divorce and marry multiple times.
• Congress has used hate speech. A Congress Cabinet Minister Renuka Choudhury says,” it’s time for Men to suffer”. That is hate speech and this minister was given ticket to contest elections.
• Congress did not implement judicial reforms which were recommended in 2003. As a result, the divorce cases are increasing rapidly while there are no courts to handle these cases. That is extremely poor governance as young people’s lives are hung standstill in the middle.
• Congress passed many bills in parliament without debate or discussion. This includes the Domestic Violence against women bill. Congress denied the protection to old women if they are harassed or thrown out of house by their daughters-in-law by making last minute changes in the law.
• This shows Congress does not believe in democracy, otherwise why it will pass bills without discussions on finer-print?
• Home Minister Shivaraj Patil and Women and Child Minister Renuka Choudhury were the most incompetent of all ministers. Renuka Choudhury did not make any provisions in law for prevention of abuse of children. She did nothing for Children. The only thing she’s interested in is media attention using her loud mouth.
• Small Children are worst sufferers when there is a divorce or separation as they are cut off suddenly from one parent, in case of marital problems.
• Thousands of children got separated from their fathers or mothers for prolonged periods starting from few months to many years due to Congress neglecting family courts, while it promoted rampant divorce everywhere in India. The damage Congress caused to the future generations is enormous.
• Family Harmony is an election issue even in the United States. People there do not tolerate any party that promotes divorce and is insensitive to children. Barack Obama himself spent lot of time in his campaign talking about problem of children living with only one parent. But Indian Congress Party entirely neglects this issue. No Congress party leader has ever talked about family harmony as immediate need for Indian society. It is not even in their manifesto.
• We are in no mood to forgive Congress for its insensitivity and bad governance, especially in the area of family harmony and family courts.
• Congress has been a slave of foreign forces, which are pumping money into India to destroy our family system with lies and false statistics.
• We also urge other political parties not to support Congress and abet “Family Breaking”.

So, we call for people to just “Divorce Congress”, after all Congress promotes divorce.

• People must vote.
• People must vote any party or even independents, but not Congress.
• The message is for all political parties. Any party that neglects the family system promotes divorce will get “DIVORCED by Indian People”.
• We do not mind to have a hung parliament and anther election. But, Congress has to go.
• We warn all political parties if they neglect Indian family system, which is the envy of the world.
• We’ve started a nationwide campaign to “Divorce Congress” and many of our members have stood in elections as independents.
• Our activist Sudhir Anand has filed his nomination as an independent candidate in New Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency.
• We have couple of thousand volunteers in New Delhi to campaign for him.

A Sorry state of the Justice System and Gender Equality in India; a feat achieved by the Congress Government in the last 60 years.

Every year, close to 4,000 innocent senior citizens are arrested (i.e. one innocent elderly person every 2.5 hours) under IPC Section 498A. Many retired elders have been ill-treated, thrown out of their own homes and deprived of their meager means of sustenance by greedy or vengeful daughters-in-law. Senior citizens are further harassed through false cases of domestic abuse and dowry harassment and denied mental peace during the last leg of their lives. More and more elderly parents are unable to depend on their sons for the fear of false dowry harassment cases by resentful daughters-in-law. The World Health Organization, in its report on India cited IPC Section 498A as one of the major reasons for the “Increasing Abuse of the Elderly in India”.

• According to National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) data of 2005: 52000 Married Men committed Suicides while 28000 Married Women committed Suicides.
• 2006 Crime Bureau Data: Married Men Suicide: 55452 vs. Married Women Suicide: 29869.
• 2007 Crime Bureau Data: Married Men Suicide: 57593 vs. Married Women Suicide: 30064.

Still there is no LAW to Protect Men, why?

We have repeatedly requested the Congress led UPA Government by providing all the data and official statistics of suffering of Indian men in general and husbands in particular and demanded that all Gender Biased LAW should immediately be made crime based void of any assumption that women never lie and men are born as Criminals. “MEN/WOMEN” word to be replaced by word “PERSON” and word wife/husband to be replaced with the word “SPOUSE”.

But it has fallen on deaf ears of the Congress led UPA Government and in return the Union minister for Women and Child Development makes the following derogatory statements against Indian men while being in office:

• It’s the turn of the Indian men to suffer, as women suffered for long. (Its like Mughals had destroyed many temples, so let’s demolish all the Mosques in India).
• Don’t trust Your Men; trust Condom in the name of reducing AIDS. (Forgetting the fact that relationships are based on trust alone. And she seems to be spreading the message to all the women to have sex without having any relationship with the men).
• It’s Diwali Gift to Indian women (on the DV Act). (Within two weeks, four women were sent behind the bars under first DV act case in Pune and one age old women left her own house as her daughter-in-law walked into her house with all her friends and parents. Who was the gift for?).

Promoting family harmony and true gender equality is the need of the day, to ensure social stability and responsible citizenship in the country. We strongly condemn all the above-mentioned assaults on the human rights and constitutional rights of men, women, children, senior citizens and families.

Citizens may choose to vote for Congress and ensure that more and more suffering follows for Indian men and their families. Congress government has converted the Indian Criminal Justice system into a wholesale free money earning business through Legal Extortion from Husbands and their family members.

Vote for any party, but not for congress and give a clear message that anti-husband, anti-men, anti-family and anti-child law and policy will not be accepted in this country by any political party.

Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore

Contacts: Anil: 9845143724 (English), Girish: 9902029992 (Kannada)

Press Release for Candle Light March for Syed Makhdoom

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) and Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP), NGOs working towards the cause of Family Harmony, Gender Equality and Child Rights announces a “Candle Light March” in condolescence of the unfortunate demise of Mr. Syed Makhdoom, who committed suicide on 5th April 2009 after he was no longer able to bear the domestic violence being done on him by his wife and in-laws as they trapped him in false dowry harassment cases and separated him from his child. His suicide came to light on the 9th April 2009 after his landlord grew suspicious.

In a bone-chilling, 8 minute video that he recorded of himself on his mobile, minutes before he committed suicide, Syed Makhdoom expressed the pain that he underwent in an insensitive society and before an insensitive judiciary that trivialized his pain, never understood a father’s feelings and did not grant him visitation to his child which is the natural and biological right of both the child and the father.

Syed Makhdoom’s case is not a one off case. Every year 57,000 married men are committing suicides, unable to bear the torture meted out on them by their wives and in-laws. In the year 2007, 57593 married men committed suicide. Similar figures for the years 2006 and 2005 are 55452 and 52000 respectively as per National Crime Records Bureau. Since 1996 suicide rates have shot up by 40%. Every year the suicide rate is going up by 4% whereas population grows at the rate of 1%. 4 times more men are committing suicides than they are born. Compared to women, the suicide of married men is 1.86 times and grows at 6 times the rate of growth of married women’s suicides.

SIFF and its allied NGOs have been creating awareness about this hidden problem since the past 4 years and has been demanding a Men’s Welfare Ministry but the demands have fallen on deaf ears of the Congress led UPA Government. Hence this election, SIFF appeals to the people, “Vote for any party, but not for Congress”.

Today, April 16, 2009 SIFF and CRISP members are gathering at Gandhi Statue at 7: 00 PM in a “Candle Light March” to pay tribute to the departed soul of Mr. Syed Makhdoom. Additionally we wish to convey this message to the society that “Killing men is not a social service” and men are committing suicides in larger numbers with increasing rate every year, merely for the reason that they are not given proper communication channels to express their problems and an environment where in their problems can get addressed. Hence it is a choice left to the society; it can continue to ignore men and their problems and create a fatherless society or take note of the issue and take responsibility for it as well.

Today in this Candle March, in addition to paying homage to the departed soul of Mr. Syed Makhdoom, SIFF, CRISP and its allied NGOs makes the following demands from the Government of India:

1. Form a National Commission for Men and a Men’s Welfare Ministry to look into the issues that men are facing.
2. Owing to skyrocketing suicides due to family distress and domestic disputes, a national debate needs to be called for. The debate needs to address the issues the current family system faces.
3. Grant interim visitation/custody orders to non-custodian parents within the first month.
4. Clear the huge backlog of pending matrimonial cases and appoint evening courts and more judges for the same.
5. Eliminate all gender biased laws and replace them with Gender neutral laws by replacing the words “Husband” and “Wife” with “Spouse” and “Man” and “Woman” with “Person”.
6. Eliminate all redundant legal provisions of applying for maintenance by the wife.
7. Amend the Domestic Violence Act which currently does not cater to female to female violence, female to male violence and male to male violence.

Invitation to attend Candle Light March

 

Invitation for Candle Light March

To,

Sub: Invitation for Candle Light March on Thursday, 16^th April 2009 at 7: 00 PM at Gandhi Statue, Bangalore

Respected Sir / Madam,

            Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), single largest NGO promoting the cause of Gender Equality and Family Harmony, is organizing a Candle Light March on 16^th April 2009. This candle light march is being organized to mark our tribute to the departed soul of Mr. Syed Makhdoom who committed suicide due to domestic violence.

We cordially invite your media correspondents / cameramen to this Press Conference and grace the occasion.

We look forward to your active participation in making the event a grand success.

 

                                                                                                            Thanks and Regards,

Virag
Public Relations Officer
                                                                                    Save Indian Family Foundation, Bangalore
 

Contact Persons

Virag: 9986378801 (English)

Kumar Jahgirdar: 9845264488 (English)

Girish: 9902029992(Kannada)

Shiv Shankar: 9743183369 (Kannada)

Son, behold thy father

Read the parting message of a dying father to his beloved son.

Men are committing suicides due to Domestic Violence

Bangalore, 11 April: Canadian citizen of Indian origin Mr. Syed Makdoom committed suicide recently, unable to bear the pain of separation from his child by his estranged wife with whom he was involved in a custody dispute. He had been fighting a court battle since 2005 with estranged wife in Bangalore after misunderstandings cropped up between the two. As per Mr. Kumar Jahgirdar, President of Non Governmental Organization, “CRISP”, Makdoom committed suicide as he was unable to bear the mental torture meted out to him. On this, Panduram Katti, President, Save Indian Family Foundation, raised a point that there has been a phenomenal increase in suicides by men and this tells us that they are being tortured to a very high level.

As per statistics by National Crime Records Bureau analysis in the year 2007, 158,000 married men committed suicide in the last 11 years. Some Non Governmental Organizations believe that the main reason of increase of suicides of married men is the mental torture and harassment meted out to them. Jahgirdar receives a lot of cases where men are tortured. He said most of these cases are either cases where Domestic Violence Act has been misused against them or those cases where they are a victim of acute mental stress and depression in absence of any available channel of relief from Domestic Violence that they suffer from. Often the torture culminates in men’s suicides.

Panduram Katti also told that social problems like divorce and domestic disputes are increasing. Foundation did a nationwide survey on about 334 couples and found out that when it comes to confidence and strength, husbands are much weaker than their wives. This is manifested by their mental stress. As per Katti, this ultimately leads to suicide for many men.

Foundation member Virag, told that all over the country 158,000 married men have committed suicides in the last 11 years due to domestic violence. Especially after 1998 the suicide rate has shot up and risen by 40% he added. As per him, every week 50 cases are received by the Foundation. Karntaka Rakshana Vedike member Prem Kumari has said that every week she receives around 300 cases of domestic violence out of which 50-60 cases are of men facing domestic violence.

As per Jahgirdar, around 2 years back, Domestic Violence Act was passed by the Parliament, And after the enactment whether there has been a reduction in the number of incidents of domestic violence on women is a matter of research, however, men’s suicides have increased a lot and because of that men’s harassment coming to forth is a matter of concern.

Makdoom left suicide message on his phone

Click here to read how a father separated from his son commits suicide as he was not allowed to meet his son. He left a parting video as a message to the society.