Women at War

When we hear the words domestic violence, we automatically assume it refers to women being abused by their husbands, brothers or fathers. After all, men are considered the stronger sex. But if recent data are to be believed, the boot is increasingly on the other foot.

Says V. N. Sarasvati, an advocate and president of Bangalore-based domestic violence support group Asha Kiran, "Violence against men is rampant. More than half of the cases in the high court are dowry cases. Most of them are false, and are filed to harass the man's family. They file cases under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with cruelty against women and provides for the issue of a non-bailable arrest warrants without even investigation of the charge.”

Asha Kiran and Save India Family Foundation (SIFF) are two organizations that help men in such dire predicaments. SIFF was founded in Bangalore in 2003 in response to the growing incidence violence against men by their partners. The organization has branches all over India as well as in cities like New York and San Francisco and as well as the Middle East. SIFF provides legal help to men who are harassed by their wives and in-laws. They also provide marital counseling if there is any prospect of saving the marriage.

Says Aashish (name changed) 33, a hardware engineer with a multinational corporation in Bangalore, "Mine was an arranged marriage. I used to live with my brother here. After marriage my wife told me to move in with her family. I told her that my office was very far from her house. But as she insisted I had to comply. While living together, she never used to take care of me. I was diagnosed with tuberculosis and she told me to get admitted in a hospital. But even then she did not take care of me and left me on my own.”

“She used to take all my money from me and demand more,” Aashish continues. “She used to make me do the cooking as she also worked. Her job was in the morning and mine was a night shift so she used to tell me, ‘you slept all morning so now before going to office cook food’. She used to also beat me, to slap me and sometimes throw kitchen utensils at me.”

“A few months ago, her father started demanding money from me. When I refused, they filed a false case against my father and sent him to jail, saying he was demanding dowry. I didn't know what to do. Later we got divorced but I am still paying maintenance to her, for what reasons I can't understand."

Aashish’s story is not uncommon. According to a United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) report, 4.4% of Indian husbands are assaulted by their wives each year. UNPF also estimates that women are directly or indirectly responsible for the death of 50% of their spouses. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics, the ratio of suicides among men and women was 63: 37, that is, men account for almost two-thirds of suicides in India. More pertinent, according to the NCRB, nearly 44.7% of suicide victims were married men while only 25% were married women.

According to Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting or RADAR, which is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation's approach to solving domestic violence, throughout the world women in dating relationships are twice as likely as men to be perpetrators of serious domestic violence. In India, for example, in 200X, women instigated 23% of all cases of physical aggression while men instigated 15% of cases; while the rest were considered indeterminate.

Says Adip, 25, a software engineer at TESCO, "My wife's father used to demand money from me. There was no such misunderstanding between my wife and me. But one day she went to her father’s place and did not come back. It was nine months ago. From then her father started asking for 40,000 rupees. He said either pay the money or I will file a dowry case against you. I also got threatening calls from a goon called Badshah Khan, saying he will kill me if I don't pay up.”

“Later I found out that my wife had got back together with her former lover, whom she couldn't marry because her father didn't allow her to. I knew about the lover before our marriage. I had told her to tell her father that he does not have to spend anything on our wedding. To this she replied that her father did not let her study because of financial constraints and because it was more important for her brothers to be educated. He also never gave her anything. So she said let him spends money at least on the wedding.”

“Luckily for me, I recorded our conversations. She knew about this. Her father is now planning to file a case saying I took dowry during the marriage. He is going to show the expenses that he incurred. They think that I have deleted the recordings of our conversations. They don't know but that I have a back up of those recordings. "

A. Kumar, a project manager with SIFF says, "We have more than 5 lakh men coming to us with such problems. They are mostly framed with dowry charges. This act has empowered women, but has taken away the basic human right of a man to defend him. To get money from their husbands women misuse the act. These men are not even allowed to meet with their children by the in-laws. Men who come to us have lost faith in the institution of marriage.”

Says SIFF chairman Pandurang Katti, "We have a weekly meeting on Saturday, to know the progress that the cases are making and how our members are coping with the problems. Every time there are three to four new men who join us. This will tell you how extensive this problem is. Mostly all these cases are found in the urban areas. But recently we have been having cases from semi-rural and rural areas as well. Bellary is one area that we get calls and people from frequently. The number cases are also increasing in Raichur district".

“This problem is widespread in the lower and upper middle class, as well as in high society,” says A. Kumar. We have stars like Prashant, who is a big name in the Tamil movie industry coming to us. His wife filed a false dowry case against him. But it was later found out that the charges were false and that she was already married before, and had never got divorced. The police really harassed him.” (Ends)