India is a common law country with diverse traditions, several religious cultures and a history dating back to ages. The constitution of India has been envisaged with the principle of equality as an essential factor for societal development. India’s sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world’s younger nations; however, in spite of economic and social advancements, there is seemingly unyielding poverty, religious and caste related incidents of violence, separatism and other social evils still prevalent in the country.

Men’s rights activists scored a significant victory in India recently when the Supreme Court essentially identified them as the victims in domestic violence cases. The judges weren’t making the law gender neutral, however. They stated that Indian women were filing inaccurate claims of domestic violence.

“Most of such complaints are filed in the heat of the moment over trivial issues,” read the ruling. It went on to state that women were not visualizing the “implications and consequences” of registering a criminal complaint against their abusive husbands. “Uncalled for arrest may ruin the chances of settlement.”

Women’s groups are furious at what they see as a regressive judgment that prioritizes extended families and preserving marriages over the rights of the woman. Sixteen groups have sent a memorandum to the chief justice of India, demanding that the ruling should be reversed.

“We are deeply concerned and dismayed that the entire judgment proceeds on the basis that women are liars and file false cases,” read the statement, quoting data by the National Family Health Survey, which found that 1 in 3 women faces mental, physical and verbal domestic violence. “The judgment is part of a backward trend that … completely overlooks the fact that women are daily recipients of harassment for dowry and of domestic violence.”

Multiple studies have shown that social stigma and insensitive attitudes of police lead women to avoid filing domestic assault charges. According to a decade of data on 1,675 abused women, which was collected by Dilaasa, a crisis intervention center, only 47 percent of women went to the police. A third of those who did not approach the police had faced violence for three to five years, two-thirds had faced violence during pregnancy, and a third had attempted suicide. A quarter also experienced rape and sexual assault with objects.

Human beings are violent and aggressive. Women are not an exception to it. Research in the field of domestic violence has shown that men and women act violently in relationships at about the same rate. Furthermore, men and women are equally likely to instigate violence against one another. The truth is surprisingly egalitarian: About half of all domestic violence occurs with both partners abusing each other.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, India’s only source for numbers on sexual crimes, 100 instances of rape are reported every day. Just over one-fourth of them lead to a conviction. Skirting some of the reasons why rape cases in India are withdrawn—coercion by family members, victim blaming, and severely backlogged courts—MRAs use this discrepancy to cry foul.

The bibliographic study by Fiebert (2007) has examined 209 studies (161 empirical studies, 48 reviews/analysis of approximate sample size of 201,500) that show that women are physically aggressive, in fact, more violent than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. Definitely, power-relations, gender roles, norms, values, and socio cultural environment affect and influence expression of these behaviors. For centuries, it has been depicted in various mythologies, literature, and forms of expressions that women are inferior and men are superior. So men are powerful, aggressive, and oppressors, and women are on the receiving end as oppressed and silent sufferers of all forms of violence. It is widely assumed and believed that women are always the victims and men are always the perpetrators. The idea that men could be victims of domestic abuse and violence is so unthinkable that many men do not even attempt to report the violence. Acceptance of violence by women on men is generally considered as a threat to men folk, their superiority and masculinity. Therefore, sometimes men do report and allege spousal violence in private, but they hardly report it in public.

Violence against men by women is not a new phenomenon, and the author predicts that it will increase with changing power dynamics, economic independence, and control over economy and resources. This change in power dynamics will also affect relationships between men and women, where men are afraid of losing power and women are excited by their empowered position. In this context, situating ‘‘power’’ within men and women, husband-wife, and family is important in favor of the larger society

HISTORY

For centuries, it has been depicted in various mythologies, literature, and forms of expressions that women are inferior and men are superior. Therefore, men are supposed to be powerful, aggressive, and women on the receiving end as oppressed and silent sufferers of all forms of violence. These notions are mostly guided by gender roles and norms where women cannot be violent, aggressive or oppressive because of their social positions. But, it is a known fact that that the power relations, gender roles, norms, and values are not static, and they change over time. It has always been widely assumed that women are always the victims and men the perpetrators. There are many reasons behind this assumptions. The idea that men could be victims of domestic abuse and violence is so unthinkable that many men do not even attempt to report the violence. Acceptance of violence by women on men is generally considered as a threat to men folk, their superiority and masculinity.

Although there is no systematic study or record on domestic violence against men in India, it is generally estimated that in 100 cases of domestic violence, approximately 40 cases involve violence against men. There is little evidence available about the actual number of violent acts against men and underlying dynamics of violence. There are various reasons for under-reporting, but foremost among them are our social system and values attached to men, which stop them from sharing and reporting domestic violence and abuse. Even when men report domestic abuse and violence, most people do not believe them. When men try to narrate their problems, torture, struggle, and harassment within marriage and family, no one listens to them; instead, they are mocked. Many men are ashamed of talking about and sharing that they are beaten by their wives.

One needs to understand that dynamics of domestic violence and abuse among men and women are different, with different reasons, purposes, and motives . There are various studies on dynamics of violence against women, but there are limited studies on the issue of domestic violence and abuse against men.

The study by Save Family Foundation (Sarkar et al., 2007), which interviewed 1,650 husbands between the ages of 15 and 49 years, selected through random sampling using a schedule adapted from the WHO multicountry study on husband’s health and domestic violence, reports that economical violence (32.8%) is common, followed by emotional violence (22.2%), physical violence (25.2%), and sexual violence (17.7%). The study shows that the probability of violence increased significantly with the duration of marriage, particularly if it was more than 7 years old. It also shows that husbands who experienced some form of violence during their first year of marriage continued to experience the same for the rest of their lives. It is not something that just goes away. The study shows that domestic violence is a public health issue with far-reaching health consequences, such as mental illness and stress disorders, that need to be addressed.

The study also shows that domestic violence is perpetrated across all socioeconomic classes (see Table 1). The study reports that a high proportion of husbands who experienced domestic violence were well educated and earning good money.

Domestic Violence against Men: Types of Violence Reported (All India)

Physical violence Verbal and emotional violence Economic violence Sexual abuse No violence Total 416 (25.21%) 366 (22.18%) 541 (32.79%) 294 (17.82%) 33 (2.00%) 1,650 Profession of people interviewed Marketing/ media Doctors/ engineers Business/ self-employed Govt. job Unemployed Total 326 (19.76%) 635 (38.48%) 399 (24.18%) 262 (15.88%) 28 (1.70%) 1,650

Note. Study duration: 10/04/05–30/03/06; 1,650 husbands (ages 15–49).

Source: Sarkar, S., Dsouza, R., & Dasgupta, A. (2007). Domestic violence against men—a study report by Save family Foundation. Retrieved from www.savefamily.org

Men tolerate and stay in abusive and violent relationship for many reasons. Some of the reasons ‘‘why men tolerate domestic violence and abuse’’ are the belief and hope that things would get better, fear of losing social respect and position, protection, and love toward their children and family. Many abused men feel that they have to make their marriages work. They are afraid that if things fall apart, they will be blamed. Many abused men also believe that it is their fault and feel that they deserve the treatment they receive. Another reason is increasing economic and other dependency on women.

Violence against men is not considered serious because of its different manifestation. In most cases of violence against men, women use more mental, verbal, and emotional violence and abuse and are involved less in physical violence. The impact of violence against men is less apparent and is less likely to come to the attention of others. A significant number of men are over sensitive to emotional and psychological abuse. In some cases, humiliating a man emotionally in front of others can be more devastating than physical abuse. Mental and emotional abuse can be an area where women are often more brutal than men. However, what hurts a man mentally and emotionally can in some cases be very different from what hurts a woman.

For some men, being called a coward, impotent, or a failure can have a very different psychological impact than it would have on a woman. Unkind and cruel words hurt in different ways and linger in different ways. In most cases, men are more deeply affected by emotional abuse than physical abuse.

The Indian men’s rights movement was started in 1988 in Delhi by Supreme Court advocate Ram Prakash Chugh to handle psychological abuse perpetrated by wives and false claims of dowry harassment by wives. The movement began as an organisation called “Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Husbands”.

One primary grievance was the “dowry law”—formally, Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code—which was created in 1983 to protect women from harassment, abuse, and violence in cases where a bride’s family did not provide a sufficient dowry. Under the law, police could automatically arrest husbands and family members accused of committing dowry-related crimes. MRAs saw this as giving women too much power and lobbied to change the law. In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court took their side and removed the automatic arrest provision, purportedly to protect men against “disgruntled wives.”

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, India’s only source for numbers on sexual crimes, 100 instances of rape are reported every day. Just over one-fourth of them lead to a conviction. Skirting some of the reasons why rape cases in India are withdrawn—coercion by family members, victim blaming, and severely backlogged courts—MRAs use this discrepancy to cry foul.

IMPORTANT RELATED LAWS

There are no special laws to protect men from women, and while there should be in relation to domestic violence, sexual harassment, or even criminal laws. Even having a domestic violence law to protect a man from violent wife, is NOT the same as having a law which can stop false DV cases by women..

That belief also assumed that courts are places where innocents get harassed, so the only way to get justice is to harass the opponents and thereby that harassment will force them to come to bargaining table and close the cases.

The only way to stop false cases is to work towards rigorous prosecution of all false cases and false evidences, including wrong investigation by police.

If law can favour women, then there will be no need to conduct any trial or ask parties to submit their evidences, conduct cross-examinations, indulge in useless legal arguments. It will be much simpler to peruse the complaint/FIR and simply pronounce the husband as guilty and punished for 3 years in jail under IPC 498A etc. Or simply take wife’s DV petition at face value and award her the 50K per month and 2 lakh compensation she has asked for. Even those who claim that law favours women haven’t produced a single instance where this has actually happened.

Since court can’t pronounce anyone’s guilt or liability without looking at evidence, then it can be safely said that Indian Evidence Act is the most important law men should be aware of. Everything else, the contradiction filled police complaint, vague allegations, the false jewellery list, the tears in courtroom; might have some sympathy or drama value, but have zero value in terms of evidence.

In court trials, only evidences whether documentary or statements by witnesses are what matter for the final decision, assuming of course that one is making lawyer do the work of cross-examination, filing documents etc at right times. The biggest problem with people is that they don’t have a very vague idea of what is evidence, don’t know what is good versus not-so-good or even bad evidence, and moreover due to over-emotional (lack of) thinking, are unable to apply themselves properly to collect and submit evidence to court at right time. Not managing lawyer and leaving things to lawyer assuming he/she’s the expert are the other major problem. Without good evidence, lawyer becomes more like a glorified clerk whose job becomes only to submit petitions and statements, and do routine cross-examination which is unable to destroy the opponents’ false case convincingly.

Now what is evidence and what is not? E.g. wife’s preposterous allegations and false list of ‘dowry’ in CAW cell are not really any evidences. But many husbands get floored at that first hurdle itself and readily move towards the C-word called Compromise.

Photocopies of documents are not acceptable as evidence. But they can still be used in cross-examination of opponent and based on the situation can elicit useful points in one’s favour. So one need not lose heart if one doesn’t have original documents for everything.

Audio recordings are admissible as evidence. If the opponent lawyer objects, they can go for voice sample and authentication, but by itself audio recording can’t be dismissed away. This is another myth being spread by lawyers that audio recording won’t work in court. Maybe the problem is laziness, lack of application, and lack of enthusiasm for fighting husband’s case, so he can be steered towards the C-word. To some extent, even public is to be blamed who unquestioningly believes lawyers’ words which go against common sense.

Relying on panchayat or neighbours as witnesses who saw what actually happened, is fine in theory. But in courts, documentary evidences stand the best chance, simply because given the long duration of trials, there is no guarantee your witness may not have moved to another place, or will be as keen to give evidence 2 years from now as he/she may be right now.

Technically speaking there are few laws which are gender neutral . For example IPC 323 , IPC 406 , IPC 307 and many more . But if you ask specifically for men there are no laws .

If you are a man and you want to use above laws against your wife , you will find it next to impossible . First of all no police station will register your complaint , if they register they will not take any action for long time . Everyone has that deep rooted misandry inside which stops them from pointing finger towards women . This misandry never allowed law makers to make any law or even discussion on men . There is a dire need of lot of research and literature on men in India .

Well, there are none. India feminists have taken over law making and judiciary completely. As per the feminists:

Domestic violence: Minister of women child decelopment Ms. Maneka gandhi says “all violence is male generated”. Having such a sexist and diacriminatory thought process is self explanatory as to why there are no laws for Men who are facing violence from their partners.

Rape: Indian society laughs on a man of he says he has been raped. India ridicules any complaint of male rape. Indian feminists and society thinks that only Men are preperators of a henious crime like rape and women can rape a man. Owing to such psyche there are no laws for men who are survivors of rape.

Well, there are none. India feminists have taken over law making and judiciary completely. As per the feminists:

Domestic violence: Minister of women child development Ms. Maneka gandhi says “all violence is male generated”. Having such a sexist and discriminatory thought process is self explanatory as to why there are no laws for Men who are facing violence from their partners.

Rape: Indian society laughs on a man of he says he has been raped. India ridicules any complaint of male rape. Indian feminists and society thinks that only Men are perpetrators of a heinous crime like rape and women can rape a man. Owing to such psyche there are no laws for men who are survivors of rape.

But there are certain NGOs which work for the welfare of men. Vaastav is one such NGO. Dombivli-based instrumentation engineer Deshpande states that Vaastav was launched on November 19, 2013, for the different men’s rights groups in Mumbai, the Indian Family Foundation, Borivli; Protect Indian Family Foundation, Mulund; MASHAAL (Mothers And Sisters of Husbands Against Abuse of Law). Though Vaastav has men’s rights groups under its wing, it is also an avenue for certain women’s forums such as the All India Mother-in-law Protection Forum, where women jailed in false dowry harassment cases and in false domestic violence cases have nowhere to go. In an atmosphere charged with anger over the spate of sexual harassment cases towards women, Deshpande put the focus on false rape cases, which he says, “are being filed with impunity by some women. False sexual harassment cases affects the women of the wrongly accused as well. This is not women empowerment, but only empowerment of unscrupulous elements,” says the angry engineer with conviction.

LANDMARK JUDGMENTS

Over the years, Section 498A has acquired the reputation of being the “most abused law in the history of Indian jurisprudence”.

With cases of divorce in India steadily rising, campaigners say that disgruntled women, aided by unscrupulous lawyers, routinely misuse the law to harass their husbands and their relatives.

It has also been questioned by the Supreme Court with one judge describing its misuse as “legal terrorism”, warning that it was “intended to be used as a shield and not as an assassin’s weapon”, and the National Commission for Women expressing concerns over its misuse.

Narendra v K.Meena (Civil appeal no. 3253 of 2008, decided on 2016)

The Supreme Court of India had decided that the coercion or forcing the husband to leave his parents (who are dependent on his income) amounts to cruelty on part of the wife, therefore can be a strong ground for divorce under Hindu Law.

Hiral P. Harsora and ors. Vs kusum narottamdas harsora and ors (Civil appeal no. 10084 of 2016) (arising out of SLP(civil) no. 9132 of 2015)

Allow DV complaints on females in household by removing requirement of “adult male” from definition of respondent – Supreme Court judgment.

Raj Talreja v. Kavita Talreja

In the present case, there were false allegations made by the wife against the husband. The court held that this amounts to mental cruelty and can be a ground for divorce.

INTERNATIONAL CONCEPTS

International Men’s Day, marked on November 19 does not have the visibility or marketing acumen of Women’s Day, “but is growing in significance every year.” In 1946, a UN Commission on Women’s Rights was set up, which has been dealing with the enforcement of women’s rights and interests ever since. A UN Commission on Men’s Rights has not yet been established by the United Nations. One could list at great length the many problems that afflict men today, including the male suicide epidemic, the paucity of resources for male victims of domestic violence and the falling behind of young men and boys in education. However there is one fundamental factor related to all these problems that men encounter: there is a lack of mainstream acceptance of systemic men’s issues which is compounded by the absence of male advocacy groups with a broad remit to make the case at political level and the level of the media.

Also there is no National Men’s Council, State funded or otherwise, to offer a counterbalance to the prevailing narrative about men being the perennially privileged class in society with no serious, systemic issues requiring advocacy.

Historically, men have had no issues organising as trade unionists, or in groups dedicated to protesting against inequalities faced by minorities based on their race or sexuality. This is not the case for men’s advocacy.

Such advocates are typically met with contempt when attempting to add a discussion of men’s issues to the national dialogue on gender equality. Such negative attitudes may well be a factor in why many men are so reluctant to come forward.

CONCLUSION

Society and its power relations, norms, and values are changing. Men have started sharing their agony, torture, and harassment by women/spouses. It is time to recognize their problem as a social and public health issue and develop appropriate strategies and interventions. They are no longer stronger than women. They need help in crisis and family violence: Particularly violence by spouse is a crisis. Male victims of violence can be saved/helped through appropriate intervention such as recognition of violence against men by women as a public health issue; helpline for the male victims of violence; and education, awareness, and legal safeguards.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

The Constitutional Law Of India:- By-Dr. J.N Pandey

Indian Constitutional Law:- By- Prof. MP Jain

The Right To Information Act, 2005: A Handbook:- By- Sudhir Naib

Right To Information Act In India:- Concepts And Problems:- Ritu Banerjee

The Indian Penal Code – K.D. Gaur

Batuk Lal on Evidence

Kelkar’s Notes on CrPC

STATUTES

The Constitution Of India

Right To Information Act, 2005

The Indian Penal Code

The Hindu Marriage Act

The Code of Criminal Procedure

The Indian Evidence Act

REFERENCES

Corry, C. E., Fiebert, M. S., & Pizzey, E. (2002). Controlling domestic violence against men. DeRidder, R. R. & Tripathi, R. C. (1992). Norm violation and intergroup relations. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

Author:

Aparajita Balaji, Fourth year law student of Vivekananda Institute Of Professional Studies affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. She wrote this story during her legal internship with Legal Desire.