There is a welfare ministry for women, why not one for men?

Three years since the Protection of women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act was enforced, the Indian Family Foundation (IFF), comprising husbands allegedly victimised by the misuse of the law, demanded a law to protect them from abusive wives.

The IFF, an offshoot of the Save Family Foundation, consists of 30 members who have had matrimonial disputes and claimed to have their fingers “burnt”.

Addressing the media on Monday, Jinesh Zaveri of IFF said they had been conducting meetings for husbands, distressed owing to marital disputes, every weekend at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivli, and the Deshmukh Garden, Mulund, for a year.
“Every weekend we have at least 10 new cases coming before us where the wife has either vindictively lodged a false complaint against the husband and his family or threatened to do the same.”

Pointing out the loopholes in the DV Act, the IFF has stated that the law is “not woman-centric but wife-centric” as there is no remedy in it for a mother-in-law harassed by a daughter-in-law or protection against domestic violence for the husband, senior citizens and children.

“If a man files a complaint of cruelty against his wife it is treated as a non-cognisable offence. But when a woman files a cruelty complaint under 498A of the IPC, an FIR is registered and the husband and his family faces arrest,” Zaveri said. “Police custody for a common man is as good as conviction,” he added.

Bunty Jain of IFF said safeguards in the law should be introduced for men as well. “Let there be a section 498B in the IPC where even a man can complain against his wife for cruelty.” Moreover, he added, the right to maintenance given to the wife under section 125 of the CrPC is being misused for “legal extortion” from the husband. “Instead of asking the husband to pay maintenance, the law should make women self-sufficient.”
Citing a supreme court ruling, Zaveri said only 2% of cases under 498A are found to be genuine and the rest are false.

“In such instances, there should be a provision in law to punish the wife for lodging a false complaint,” he said.

Sandip Kedia of Child Rights and Family Welfare said when there is a women’s welfare ministry as well as an animal welfare board, there is an equally pressing need for men’s welfare ministry as well.

Women’s rights advocate Veena Gowda said IFF is raking a largely urban issue. “For a few urban men, who may have had problems, the law cannot be changed for the whole country,” she said. She said the section 498A is in fact under-used. In Mumbai, she said there were 380 cases filed under 498A in 2007.

“Are we to believe that in city with 163 lakh people, only 380 women were beaten by there husbands?” If the number of cases under 498A is compared with the number of women dying within a marriage, the latter will be far greater, she said, as a number of women never report the violence they are subjected to at home.

Gowda added that apart from the legal statistics, one cannot ignore social reality. “Indian society is still patriarchal and it has not reached a level where it can deal with gender neutral laws.”