498A battered. Seriously!!! Why Shalini Nairs's Article is worth a laugh and more.

After reading this article in The Indian Express titled 498A battered, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/498a-battered-supreme-court-misuse-of-dowry-law-women-harassment-cruelty-sneha-sharma-allahabad-hc-4794220/, I felt compelled to write this since most of her arguments were totally wrong and highly misandric.

Feminists are on an overdrive, since they have been given a small pinch on their ears by the Supreme Court like we elders do to misbehaving kids - to remind them that society does not believe them anymore especially in the case of 498A. For all this author's  melodrama of how woman are suffering due to battery by husbands, she does not anywhere give any indication on why such consternation when the SC had only wanted the complaints to be checked for prima facie truthfulness  and not for the law to be scrapped - as it rightly should.

She goes on to quote NFHS3 survey. These surveys have only woman as the sample points in the study and no men are interviewed for the same. This has been pointed out by MRAs for long. For instance, question is asked to woman on  how many times  a husband has hit her. But the same question is never asked to men whether wives have hit them. Then, what credibility is there in such results derived from such surveys. It has been a sick strategy of feminists - to make a base premise made on questionable surveys and then build a case based on such premise.

 An article published in 'The Wire' was written by another feminist journo with conclusions drawn  on a survey carried out by some organisation called  Vimochana on misuse of 498A. She goes on to say that the survey is unpublished. How can any responsible journalist or a journal base their arguments  on an 'unpublished survey'. We have misgivings as to whether such a survey really took place in the first place.If it had really taken place, then there would  be  results in the survey which are unpalatable to the feminists and are against their feminist interests. That may be the only reason why such a survey if it exists is  even now unpublished.

Without going any further on the arguments put up by this author, let us see what the former president of the Republic of India, that too a woman, has to say on this subject. Smt Pratibha Patil says

 "Another disquieting trend has been that women themselves have not been innocent of abusing women. At times women have played an unsavory, catalytic role in perpetrating violence whether against the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law or female domestic helps. Instances exist whereby protective legal provisions for the benefit of women have been subjected to distortion and misuse to wreak petty vengeance and to settle scores. Some surveys have concluded that 6 to 10 percent of dowry complaints are false and were registered primarily to settle scores. It is unfortunate if laws meant to protect women get abused as instruments of oppression." 

So, the honourable President of the Republic of India is convinced, based on surveys, that 6 to 10 percent of dowry complaints are false.This is not the cases where courts decides to let free the  accused because the prosecution cannot prove the case. But what Smt. Pratibha Patil is referring to are the cases where it has been proved that such cases are false.  Taking the average 8 % as proved false cases, then also we have around 15000 proved false cases being registered every year. Which means, a minimum 15000 men are being incarcerated without trial every year based on this law, on the mere unverified demands of a wife. Not only them, their relatives from two year old kids up to 90 year old grand parents are routinely incarcerated with them. 

The person who seems to have  taken a serious affront to the Supreme court judgement seems to be Indira Jaisingh, a noted feminist and the additional Solicitor General in the Congress government. Jaisingh has been chastised by the MHA reports in the FCRA violation cases in which she is a serial accused. MHA report has this to say about her and actions of her NGO.  " Rs 88,978 was paid to Delhi Network of Positive People on October 21, 2009 for paying 250 people for holding a dharna outside the Law Ministry”. It further reported that “The MHA inspection team found that a large part of the money was spent on activities which were outside the list of items for which it had been collected. Paying volunteers to organise dharnas, receiving foreign contributions while working for the government, sending foreign donations outside India, spending foreign money to lobby with parliamentarians are some of the main violations listed in the report.”TOI further reported “The report says Rs 13 lakh was spent on media and advocacy with 67 MPs in April 2010 and 99 MPs in August 2010”.

So, the moot point - what credibility is there for what such people say? 

The question to be asked now is without even allowing  a person to utter a word in his defence, can the state arrest a man and his relatives in a scenario where more than 15000 proven false cases are being filed every year? Is  such a stance correct  for a democracy whose bounden responsibility is the protection of  human rights of it's citizens? 

The legislature is the true culprit succumbing  to the lobbying of the feminist and not coming to the protection of the citizens by amending 498A -  eyeing the woman vote bank. It is a crying shame that the Supreme court of the country itself is forced to step in when such gross violation of human rights of the citizens becomes a daily affair. It is all the more shameful that articles like this tries to drive wedges in the efforts of the Supreme court to provide justice to the citizens of this nation.