Men's Rights India: Is Dowry Law Abuse The Only Issue Men Face?

By Virag Dhulia: On July 2, 2014, a nation went berserk after a landmark judgment was passed by the Supreme Court of India directing police not to arrest without following due procedures in dowry cases, and there were reactions coming in from all sides - positive and negative.
Some over-enthusiastic people even went to the extent of thinking that dowry law had been diluted and men could breathe easy as its misuse would now be curbed.
And thus it made me think, “Is dowry law abuse the only issue men face?”
Also, how does one judgment ensure that men won’t be arrested under other false charges? In a society where we have a plethora of anti-male laws, such a hope is far-fetched and wrought with imagination.
I recently came across two such instances wherein men have been arrested under sections 107/151 on a complaint of creating a public nuisance without trial or investigation.
The real issue isn’t that of section 498A being merely misused. The real issue is the absence of the concept of men’s rights in society. As a result, men have no dignity in this country, and any man can get arrested on a complaint of a woman even without investigation or due compliance with laws and legal procedures and no one would bat an eyelid.
Section 498A is merely an example of one such law that is being widely and conveniently used to jail men at will because of the negative social context created around dowry against men, mainly due to the feminist media spreading lies and misinformation about women’s issues.

However, that does not mean that men can be arrested only under section 498A. Because it’s not section 498A that’s responsible for the arrests of innocent men and the underlying torture and extortion of men therein, but an anti-male social mindset, fueled by misandry (social hatred against men) that validates abuse of men, that is responsible. Owing to which, literally any complaint by a woman against a man can be used as an excuse to arrest the man without following due procedures.
Moreover, there are many other such legal provisions like the Domestic Violence Act, section 125 CrPC, that have covert provisions for arresting men. As we saw above, even petty sections like 107/151 are being used to arrest men, also many times sections 307 and 506B are invoked to get men arrested.
Hence,

1. Section 498A is not the only weapon available to arrest men sans evidence, and
2. Arrest is not the only issue that men face, as we see further.

Men also face emotional abuse, financial abuse, verbal abuse, and social abuse in society. And of all these, financial abuse is the one that’s paramount. In fact, all other types of abuse are pivoted around financial abuse.
It’s always expected of the man to earn money and spend it on others, which means that he must sweat and earn and then spend the earned money on others. Even advertising and media content are flavored with the message of men spending their money on others being a great thing.
In fact, a man who spends money on himself is tagged as non-caring and selfish. The same argument does not hold for a woman. Most working and earning women spend money only on themselves and once again no one bats an eyelid.
And then men who do not wish to do so or cannot do so are very easily tagged as criminals, and their abuse is socially validated. This is a serious issue from a men’s rights perspective, more serious than a one-time arrest since the abuse herein is lifelong.
And it is the very mindset from which the concept of alimony and maintenance arises wherein a man has no relief available. Even though he might have been abused to the core in the marriage, still he would be ordered to pay maintenance to his wife by the courts, as the courts also work under the same social mindset of penalizing the man because he is not willing to spend money on his wife. There is no respect for a man’s choice here, and this is an issue from a men’s rights perspective.
And interestingly, even the government is hitting men on this front. Since there is a lot of hue and cry about dowry law misuse and innocent men getting arrested, the government seems to be offering some mild dilution of arrest law to men, but at the same time it also proposes to widen the definition of dowry and give the woman a choice as to where she wants to file the case. If that is done, it would actually increase problems for men since more false cases would be registered and men would be made to run to remote locations to fight cases.
Moreover, on the maintenance front, still it is men who need to prove that their wives are working and earning rather than the courts using their authority to find out the information. And if a man is unable to find out the employment of his wife, then even if his wife is working, he will be ordered to pay maintenance to her.
Often women dump men in relationships and then trap them in false rape cases. Men, on the other hand, make their best efforts to reconcile the relationship and are also willing to marry the woman, but because the woman is no longer interested in the man or is interested in another man, she would rather trap this innocent man in a false rape case, and his life would then be hung on the gallows, trying to prove himself innocent of a crime he did not commit.
Other than these cases, there are many other forms of abuse that men undergo silently in daily life. And many times it’s their own family of men who abuses them. Men are suppressed emotionally by their own families, and this emotional suppression is rarely ever mentioned. It comes out only when men share their pain with someone who listens to them. However, the natal domestic abuse that men undergo is largely unreported, unrecognized, and, of course, unaddressed.
Until the time that this larger social mindset pitted against men changes for the betterment of men, merely stopping automatic arrests or saying misusers will be punished are all paper tigers and promises in the air. Society must stop hating men and must not abuse them.



AVfM Editorial note: this item originally appeared on Fight For Justice. –DE

About Virag Dhulia

Virag R. Dhulia, an author and a social entrepreneur, is a prominent men's welfare advocate in India. He has been engaged in creating awareness about the abuse of men and their families through anti-male and gender biased laws like Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act etc. He has been instrumental in networking with fellow men's rights activists both across India and abroad and has played key roles in organizing events to create awareness about abuse of men by the society. He is the author of The Secrets of Manhood, a collection of short articles which focus on issues and problems faced by men and how men are victims of social stereotypes.

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