The ‘shraadh’ ceremony in Varanasi was organised by an outfit called Save India Family Foundation

VARANASI: Most Lok Sabha MPs laughed off BJP member Harinarayan Rajbhar ’s plea in Parliament on August 3 seeking a men’s commission for harassed husbands. But the idea has some keen backers, 160 of whom recently performed the last rites of their divorced wives — all alive — and also conducted an apparently tantric ceremony to tackle “the evil of feminism”.The men, from across the country and associated with NGO Save India Family Foundation (SIFF), performed ‘pind daan’ and ‘shraadh’ of their ex-wives on Ganga’s banks “to get rid of their failed marriage’s bad memories”. A ‘pishachini mukti’ puja, usually considered a tantric ritual was also conducted; ‘pishachini’ in everyday language is a female evil spirit.Mumbai-based Amit Deshpande, president of Vastav Foundation and SIFF, told TOI the puja was “for emotional detachment from bad memories”.“It is said India has a patriarchal society, but there is no law to protect husbands’ rights,” SIFF founder Rajesh Vakharia told TOI over phone from Nagpur. Abuse of the anti-dowry law is their primary grievance.“Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (anti-dowry law) is one of the primary grievances of harassed husbands given its misuse,” he said.A two-judge bench of Supreme Court had in 2017 ordered several safeguards to prevent misuse of the anti-dowry law, finding that “many of such complaints (under Section 498A) are not bona fide”. However, a threejudge bench headed by the CJI later expressed disagreement with that ruling and appointed an amicus curiae to assist it in revisiting that judgment.According to Vakharia, the National Crime Records Bureau has put out data that “one husband is pushed to suicide every 6.5 minutes in India due to mental torture by his wife”.To put the record straight, NCRB reports no data about “suicides from mental torture by wife”. NCRB data simply categorises suicide cases of men and women by marital status: unmarried/ married. Married people — men and women — form the largest group taking their own lives.Inspired further by the Ghosi MP’s question in Lok Sabha, Deshpande says they have “also sent a memorandum to PM Narendra Modi urging the demand for a men’s commission (purush aayog), raised by BJP MP Harinarayan Rajbhar, be considered sympathetically.”