TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Men have finally gotten sick of all the attention paid to women’s rights in the country. Frustrated that society has `ignored’ their rights, they’re going to take a day off, sit back and relax. Like Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, they want one day a year set aside to celebrate manhood. They also seek a ministry to safeguard their welfare and champion their rights.

Members of the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) will observed International Men’s Day on November 19 — the first time that Indian men will join in the celebrations since the day was first observed in 1999. They plan to hold seminars and protests across the country against `denial of basic human rights of men in India’ across the country.

SIFF says men created the internet, climbed Mt Everest, pioneered space travel, and discovered gravity and the Theory of Relativity —enough reason for a celebration. The day will remind men about their responsibilities towards family and society, say SIFF members.

They will also submit a memorandum questioning the non-existence of a ministry for men to the governor, apart from urging the Centre to separate the child welfare department from that of the women’s ministry.

Men’s rights organisations justify their demand for a dedicated ministry by quoting a Crime Bureau of India finding: of 1,13,000 suicide cases in India every year, 72,000 are men. SIFF members claim they have faced false dowry cases, extortion, threats and `legal terrorism’. The internet is filled with blogs and forwards on instances when men have been at the receiving end.

Members add that most Indian men are reluctant to get married as they fear being slapped with false dowry cases. “This indirectly amounts to denial of basic rights of men, as they have no hope of any protection from abuse under existing Indian laws. Thousands of men are forcibly separated from their children because of differences with their wives,” says Manuel, a member of SIFF. SIFF, founded in Bangalore in 1998,, has over 6,000 members, mostly software professionals.

toiblr.reporter@ timesgroup. com

New Delhi, Nov 19 – Claiming men are subjected to severe discrimination under law and their basic rights are violated every day, a group of men activists on International Men’s Day Monday demanded a separate department be set up to deal with ‘crimes against men’.
The activists observed International Men’s Day for the first time in the country and submitted a memorandum to the offices of the prime minister and the home minister, urging for the setting up of a ‘Ministry for Men’s Welfare’.

‘Men perform some of the most risky and challenging jobs in society and while the government of India collects 82 percent of its tax revenues from men, not a single rupee has been allocated in the name of men’s welfare in the budget in the last 60 years,’ said Swarup Sarkar, an activist with Save India Family Foundation, an NGO.

‘An increasing number of men are losing employment, more women are entering the job market and defying their traditional roles within the family and the society. Nevertheless, the society is refusing to free men of their traditional duties of protecting and providing for women, children and the aged.

‘In addition, men are being subjected to severe discrimination under law and their basic human rights are being violated every day in the name of more and more legal provisions that claim to empower and protect women,’ Sarkar added.

International chapters of Save Family Foundation will make a similar request at the Indian embassies in Britain, the US, Australia and the Mid-East.

Neeraj Aggarwal, another activist, said thousands of men are becoming victims of ‘legal terrorism’ unleashed through the misuse of the Indian Penal Code section 498 A, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws, laws against rape and sexual harassment, and even laws pertaining to divorce, maintenance and child custody.
According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), the number of suicides by males in every age group studied outweighs the number of suicides by females, in the recent years.

‘In the year 2005 alone, nearly twice as many married men – 52,483 – compared to married women – 28,186 – committed suicide unable to withstand verbal, emotional, economic and physical abuse and legal harassment,’ Aggarwal said.

Sarkar added: ‘The NCRB figures suggest that only two percent of 120,000 men arrested in the country under dowry charges are being convicted, which suggests that a large number of men are implicated in false cases.’

A well-known woman activist, dismayed at the men activists’ demands, remarked: ‘Though anti-dowry laws and domestic violence acts are tough, and sometimes men become victims of them, but it largely helps women get justice in a male-dominated society.’

Monday, November 19, 2007  18:30 IST

NEW DELHI: Marking the International Men’s Day, a group of men on Monday urged the government to set up a separate ministry for their protection against abuse at home and work place.

The men, who celebrated the day for the first time under the aegis of ‘Save Family Foundation’ (SFF), submitted a memorandum to this effect to President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“All laws meant for the protection of women in India are gender biased. It is high time that ministry for men’s welfare was set up in India,” Swaroop Sarkar, coordinator of the Foundation told.

“As per data of the Crime Bureau of India over 72,000 men commit suicide every year. Suicide of married men is much higher than that of married women. Indian men have no legal protection,” he said.

The memorandum claimed that men contribute for 82 per cent of the total revenue to the government, but get nothing in return.

The Foundation rued that increasing number of men are losing jobs to the fairer sex.
“Nevertheless, the society is refusing to free man of his traditional duties of protecting and providing shelter for women, children and the aged,” it said.

A group of men’s right activists claim the feminist agenda has pushed ahead so far that men are now the worst victims.

Raghu Karnad

In Defence Of Men’s Rights…
• A nationwide group of some 8,000 men, most of them techies and engineers, have formed a “husbands’ rights” movement, spearheaded by the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF)
• They claim they’re being victimised, abused and framed by their wives and greedy lawyers, who use laws like the Domestic Violence Act and IPC 498A which deals with dowry harassment, to extort money, grab family property, deny them child custody etc.
• The movement is active in nine cities, operates a national helpline, has published a Guide to Surviving 498A
• SIFF says the high ratio of male to female suicides (64:36) is largely due to domestic cruelty against men [National Crime Records Bureau 2005].
***
On August 26 this year, International Women’s Equality Day, yet another demonstration was under way at Jantar Mantar, the centre of gravity for social protest in the nation’s capital. No one driving by would have spared the protesters a second glance, except that the bunch shouting slogans– “Hai Hai”, “Down Down”– was an incongruous one: software engineers, corporate managers, officers of the merchant navy and marketing execs. More incredible were the signs they were carrying: ‘Stop Legal Terrorism. Stop Husband Suicides’, and ‘Protect the Elderly from the NCW’, NCW being not the National Commission for Women but ‘National Criminal Wives’. On Women’s Equality Day, the centrestage belonged to one of the most unexpected byproducts of the women’s rights movement: a movement for men’s rights.

Spearheading it is Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a front organisation, formed in 2005, the year the Domestic Violence Act came into force for a nationwide group of some 8,000 men. SIFF and their affiliates have a novel view of women’s equality in India — that the feminist agenda has pushed ahead so far that men are now the worst victims.

They view a small cluster of central legislations—including the DV Act and Section 498A of the IPC, which deals with cruelty and dowry harassment—as instruments that allow unscrupulous wives to abuse, manipulate and blackmail husbands and in-laws for money and revenge.

Meanwhile, husbands battered by wives receive no protection. The Axis of Evil in this arrangement, they say, comprises Union minister for women’s and child development Renuka Chowdhury, NCW chairperson Girija Vyas and Supreme Court senior advocate Indira Jaisingh. For SIFF, the laws they’ve pushed through and defended from criticism define every domestic squabble as an act of cruelty, and are beginning to undermine the institution of marriage in India.

“Every marital argument will get converted into legal action, and once the trust is gone, the institution of marriage will be destroyed,” Sandeep Bhatia, a software engineer and a SIFF member, told Outlook . “More and more children will be raised in single-parent households. A fatherless society really is the direction we’re going in.”

The reality of the situation is complex. It became grossly obvious in the ’70s that simply making violence against women in its many forms—rape, domestic violence, dowry harassment—illegal did not provide sufficient protection for women. Deeply lodged sexism in society, and among the police and magistrates, meant that even the most flagrant cases were dismissed. Before 498A, say women’s activists, abused wives were laughed out of police stations when they went to lodge a complaint. The calls for more proactive, forceful legal protection led to the passage of laws in which many conventions of due process were set aside.

Dowry complaints became cognisable, meaning the police could make arrests without warrants, and non-bailable ones at that.

The DV Act dramatically expanded the ambit of what could be called violence, who could demand protection, and what kinds of protection they should be given. The proponents argued persuasively that they were necessary to provide thorough protection against ancient social evils. Opponents say they only created new victims—husbands and in-laws—and a new social malady.
And if SIFF’s members are any indication, most such victims are well-groomed, earnest, and successful. “Rickshaw-wallahs never face these cases,” says SIFF’s ebullient spokesman, Swarup Sarkar. “Because there’s no question of getting money out of them. But when a husband is an IIT software engineer, the in-laws think—ah, I can screw him!”
But if success be the downfall of these men, it is also their saving grace. After all, who but they—the face of a modern, resurgent India—could have the temerity to claim that, in India, so much has changed that men are now subject to systematic victimisation by women? SIFF members let their appearance—well-groomed, earnest, and successful—win half the argument for them. The fact that they are media-smart and technology-savvy (members run as many as 30 blogs) may help them win the other half. They can tack their way through arguments, sounding like lawyers. They have financial resources. The movement is active in nine cities, operates a 24-hour national helpline and has published a guide to surviving 498A.
But to actually feel sympathy for SIFF’s members, you must leave their shrill protests at Jantar Mantar and drop in on their weekly support group meetings, where the men share their stories. On the lawns of Patiala House Court, the group sit around open snack boxes, subdued, plucking at the grass. Some women supporters are also present, mostly their mothers and sisters who are co-accused. The men take long pulls on their cigarettes and share their stories.
Naveen, an engineer with an MBA, is one of them. Gaunt, balding and downcast, he told Outlook how his wife abused him and his elderly mother. His wife, he says, was a volatile, raging individual—one night, he recounts, she sent him to hospital with a black eye. When he filed for divorce, she approached the Crimes Against Women Cell. Suddenly, he found himself accused of dowry harassment, as were his mother and sister, who had never lived with them. Naveen says he had to go into hiding and pay off the police while he tried to obtain bail. In accordance with the DV Act, he and his mother were evicted from their home so his wife could live there. Then she filed for maintenance. “I’m lucky I haven’t had a heart attack,” he says. “I’m lucky my mother is still alive, although she’s a mental wreck. And my wife is sitting in our matrimonial home, with a government job, and fighting for maintenance. That’s the beauty of this law.”
Then, Naveen contacted SIFF on their helpline. On their advice, he began recording the calls his wife made to his cellphone as evidence. And slowly drifted into the support group meetings.
There is no reason to think Naveen is lying. The legal community acknowledges that 498A and the DV Act are misapplied, whether by necessity or by malice. The laws have been overtly criticised by some judges in the Delhi High Court, even though women activists are quick to point out how the judges themselves have records of making chauvinistic remarks in court or penning eccentric books on the perils of marrying intellectual women. Still, the fact remains—that there are husbands and their families who have suffered the consequences of hard-hitting laws. The legal process alone is purgatory: a long, heavy drag through police stations, lawyers’ meetings and courts, while their careers, reputations and finances crack around them.
Parents and young siblings are charged, sometimes evicted from their home, sometimes jailed for years.
Men’s rights activists, pointing to the high rate of male suicides, say these are overwhelmingly motivated by unhappy domestic lives. They cite Crime Bureau statistics to indicate that, in the age groups where most victims can be presumed married, the male-to-female suicide ratio is 64:36. Of course, women activists point to the report’s contradictory conclusion: that “social and economic causes have led most of the males to commit suicide whereas emotional and personal causes have mainly driven females to end their lives”.
At their weekly meet, SIFF sometimes receives husbands on the brink of taking that drastic step, and urges them back. But claiming that 30,000 Indian men are driven to suicide by wives every year, there are too many they cannot help. Sarkar, in fact, goes on to claim that even Vidarbha’s farmers are committing suicides “because their wives give them no mental peace at home”.
Of course, the movement is not without its share of rhetoric. While arguing against dowry laws, the original problem of dowry for Sarkar is little more than a figment of the feminist imagination, a profitable conspiracy between greedy lawyers and unscrupulous wives.
To Sarkar, the motives of the women’s rights activists are clear. “Why did we oppose TADA and POTA,” he asks, “but not this? Nobody in the legal community has an interest in fixing the law. This is bread and butter for the likes of Indira Jaisingh.”
With these sweeping statements and chauvinist reactions, SIFF has fenced off the middle ground that it might have shared with the women’s activists. Many of their concerns are the same: for instance, if only 2% of cases booked under 498A lead to convictions, it may mean that most of the people being booked are innocent, but it also means that most of the guilty are not being booked. What could have been a cooperative movement to design fair laws is now a vicious contest: you are either pro-husband or pro-wife.
At first pass, the idea of men anywhere in India being abused by their wives seems paranoid. It does not help their case when a prominent complaint on the SIFF website has to do with Levis Ads, starring Sushmita Sen, which objectify semi-nude male models as furniture. Or when they comment on the laws being “Made for Sitas, used by Surpanakhas.”
On November 19, SIFF was back at Jantar Mantar, trying to kick off a tradition of International Men’s Day (a regrettable choice of date, as one member remarked, as it was also Indira Gandhi’s birthday). Akhilesh Kumar, a Delhi University professor, held forth animatedly to the crowd, which included a few bemused foreign tourists: ” Jo women’s activists hain, wo shaadi-shuda nahin hain, ghar unka toota hua hai.” They, he said, were like animal activists who secretly eat mutton in restaurants. Sarkar took the mike to predict a day when, like the polio drive, the NCW would go door-to-door to flush out husbands; then he led a rousing chorus of ” Renuka Chaudhury Bharat Chhodo!” The foreign tourists took pictures to show to friends back home: of Indian men who oppose anti-dowry laws. They probably got a photo of Naveen, who had spoken the other day of tiredness, incomprehension, and pain—sounding, for all the world, like a battered woman.

D-day is here. Tomorrow, the country’s ‘oppressed and abused’ men will celebrate International Men’s Day for the first time. Their top demand from the government: “set up a ministry for men’s welfare”.

“We will submit a memorandum urging the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi to set up such a ministry,” says Swarup Sarkar of the Save Family Foundation (SFF), which has declared November 19 as International Men’s Day along with organisations such as My Nation, Protect Indian Family and Asha-Kiran. International chapters of Save Family Foundation will make a similar request at the Indian embassies in the UK, the US, Australia and the Mid-East.

Men cry against dowry
Every 4 minutes, one man is falsely accused of dowry harassment
Every 2.4 hours, one senior citizen is falsely accused of dowry demands
(Source: an RTI application filed by the Save Family Foundation)

“The government gets 82 per cent of its taxes from men, but not a rupee has been allocated for men’s welfare in the budget in 60 years,” says SFF activist Neeraj Aggarwal.

The organisations have also been protesting against the misuse of dowry and domestic violence laws. “Men’s Day isn’t just about men,” says Prem Ahuja, wife of a men’s rights activist, and herself a men’s group member.  She adds, “Many senior citizens are being harassed, abused and blackmailed by their daughters-in-law in the name of dowry.” On Monday, men activists will visit such elderly ‘victims’ of the dowry law in Tihar Jail and distribute woollen clothes among them.
The event will also be marked in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. In Bangalore, the organisation plans to declare it a dry day.

New Delhi (PTI): Marking the International Men’s Day, a group of men on Monday urged the government to set up a separate ministry for their protection against abuse at home and work place.

The men, who celebrated the day for the first time under the aegis of ‘Save Family Foundation’ (SFF), submitted a memorandum to this effect to President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“All laws meant for the protection of women in India are gender biased. It is high time that ministry for men’s welfare was set up in India,” Swaroop Sarkar, coordinator of the Foundation told PTI.

“As per data of the Crime Bureau of India over 72,000 men commit suicide every year. Suicide of married men is much higher than that of married women. Indian men have no legal protection,” he said.

The memorandum claimed that men contribute for 82 per cent of the total revenue to the government, but get nothing in return.

The Foundation rued that increasing number of men are losing jobs to the fairer sex.
“Nevertheless, the society is refusing to free man of his traditional duties of protecting and providing shelter for women, children and the aged,” it said.

Monday, November 19, 2007 18:44 [IST]
New Delhi: Claiming men perform some of the riskiest jobs and that the government collects 82 per cent of its tax revenue from them, a men’s organisation today demanded a ministry dedicated to the welfare and protection of their gender.

Aggrieved at what they say is discrimination against them, a group of men under the aegis of Save Family Foundation celebrated the International Men’s Day today and wanted that a ministry be set up for their welfare and protection against verbal, emotional, economic, physical and sexual abuse at home and at work place.

The Foundation submitted a memorandum to this effect to President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“All laws meant for the protection of women in India are gender biased. It is high time that a ministry for men’s welfare should be set up in India,” Swaroop Sarkar, coordinator of the Foundation, said.

“As per data of Crime Bureau of India more than 72,000 men commit suicide every year. Suicides by married men are higher than those by married women. Indian men have no legal protection,” Sarkar added.

Interestingly, the foundation claims that increasing number of men are losing employment and more women are entering the job market, defying their “traditional” role within the family and society.

“Nevertheless, society is refusing to free men of their traditional duties of protecting and providing for women, children and the aged,” it said.

Source : PTI

New Delhi, Nov 19 (IANS): Claiming men are subjected to severe discrimination under law and their basic rights are violated every day, a group of men activists on International Men’s Day Monday demanded a separate department be set up to deal with ‘crimes against men’.

The activists observed International Men’s Day for the first time in the country and submitted a memorandum to the offices of the prime minister and the home minister, urging for the setting up of a ‘Ministry for Men’s Welfare’.

“Men perform some of the most risky and challenging jobs in society and while the government of India collects 82 percent of its tax revenues from men, not a single rupee has been allocated in the name of men’s welfare in the budget in the last 60 years,” said Swarup Sarkar, an activist with Save India Family Foundation, an NGO.

“An increasing number of men are losing employment, more women are entering the job market and defying their traditional roles within the family and the society. Nevertheless, the society is refusing to free men of their traditional duties of protecting and providing for women, children and the aged.

“In addition, men are being subjected to severe discrimination under law and their basic human rights are being violated every day in the name of more and more legal provisions that claim to empower and protect women,” Sarkar added.

International chapters of Save Family Foundation will make a similar request at the Indian embassies in Britain , the US , Australia and the Mid-East.

Neeraj Aggarwal, another activist, said thousands of men are becoming victims of “legal terrorism” unleashed through the misuse of the Indian Penal Code section 498 A, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws, laws against rape and sexual harassment, and even laws pertaining to divorce, maintenance and child custody.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), the number of suicides by males in every age group studied outweighs the number of suicides by females, in the recent years.

“In the year 2005 alone, nearly twice as many married men – 52,483 – compared to married women – 28,186 – committed suicide unable to withstand verbal, emotional, economic and physical abuse and legal harassment,” Aggarwal said.

Sarkar added: “The NCRB figures suggest that only two percent of 120,000 men arrested in the country under dowry charges are being convicted, which suggests that a large number of men are implicated in false cases.”

A well-known woman activist, dismayed at the men activists’ demands, remarked: “Though anti-dowry laws and domestic violence acts are tough, and sometimes men become victims of them, but it largely helps women get justice in a male-dominated society.”

“The NCRB data also shows that in this vast billion-plus nation, 25 violent crimes take place every hour, 59 housewives commit suicide every day, and two rapes, four murders, 10 culpable homicides and one dowry death occur on an hourly basis,” she said.

The activist said that crimes against women always remain very high in comparison to those against men, and such demands should not be accepted.

New Delhi: Marking the International Men’s Day, a group of men today urged the government to set up a separate ministry for their protection against abuse at home and work place.

The men, who celebrated the day for the first time under the aegis of the ‘Save Family Foundation’ (SFF), submitted a memorandum to this effect to President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“All laws meant for the protection of women in India are gender biased. It is high time that a ministry for men’s welfare was set up in India,” Swaroop Sarkar, coordinator of the Foundation told PTI.

“As per data of the Crime Bureau of India over 72,000 men commit suicide every year. Suicide of married men is much higher than that of married women. Indian men have no legal protection,” he said.

The memorandum claimed that men contribute for 82 per cent of the total revenue to the government, but get nothing in return.

The Foundation rued that increasing number of men are losing jobs to the fairer sex.
“Nevertheless, the society is refusing to free man of his traditional duties of protecting and providing shelter for women, children and the aged,” it said.

Source: PTI

‘Save Family Organisation’(SFO), an NGO, and its sibling organisations, while giving a call to observe November 19 as ‘International Men’s Day’, quoted a report of the Labour and Employment Ministry to assert that during the years 2001-05, men employed in the public and private sectors lost 14,000 jobs while women gained 1,00,000 jobs during the same period. ”While an increasing number of men are losing employment, more women are entering the job market and defying their traditional roles within the family and society,” it said in a statement. In addition, men are being subjected to severe discrimination under law and their basic human rights are being violated everyday in the name of more and more legal provisions that claim to empower and protect women, it alleged.

The statement may sound ironical when viewed against the backdrop of the statement made by a Punjab minister yersterday that women can be bought at a price less than that of a buffalo.
While discrimination against women has been an obnoxious social reality of both the traditional India and the India on the upswing, ‘Save Family Organisation’ alleged that thousands of men are becoming victims of ”legal terrorism” unleashed by the misuse of certain sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws and divorce, maintenance and child custody laws. ”To make things worse, male members of a family, regardless of their age, health or marital status, are arrested based on unsubstantiated allegations of dowry harassment and domestic abuse, and are subjected to long-drawn trials,” SFO activist Wasif Ali said. He claimed while men perform some of the most risky and challenging jobs in society and contributing 82 per cent of the government’s tax revenue, ”not a single rupee has been allocated in the name of men’s welfare in the country’s budget in the last 60 years”. While claiming that the growing disregard and hatred against men in Indian society is forcing many Indian men to end their lives, it quoted the statistics of the National Crime Bureau to contend that the number of suicides by males in every age group outweighed the number of those by females.

In the year 2005 alone, the NGO said nearly twice as many married men (52,483), comparted to married women (28,186) committed suicides, unable to withstand verbal, emotional, economic and physical abuse and legal harassment.

The SFO also demanded that the government should establish a ”Ministry of Men’s Welfare’ to cater to men’s needs in the changing society and end the ‘legal terrorism’ perpetrated through the misuse of ‘anti-male, anti-family laws.’ Further, civil and criminal laws should be gender-neutral and Article 51A (e) of the Constitution be amended to read ”…to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women” (and also men, as opposed to just women).

Another demand of the organisation is that custody of a child should be given jointly to both spouses upon dissolution of marriage and make provisions to punish those who abuse the judicial process, irrespective of gender.
 (UNI)