Men too can be victims of a bad marriage! Sympathy and the benefit of doubt is not something that’s granted to these men who allege being on the wrong side of Section 498A, which according to them doesn’t give much room for any explanations once they’re slapped with dowry harassment. Could this actually have contributed to the high number of married men who take their own lives? According to the recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, the number of married men committing suicide is actually higher than that of married women. While, women ending their lives due to marital harassment, is well played out in the media, and by several NGO voices, the marginally higher number of married men who have taken their lives is seldom heard. The NCRB report has it that 70.8% of the suicide victims are married males while 66.6% are married females. Hyderabad Times meets with some of these harassed husbands to hear their side of the story ...

Navin*, an engineer, who had been working in the US, was picked up from the Shamshabad airport last year on his return to the city. He was then taken to the Women’s Crime Cell. He got a bail, but the nightmare is far from over. He is charged under Section 498A and has been fighting for the custody of his six-and-a-half-year-old daughter for the past one-and-a-half-year now.

It was in 2007 that Navin got married and took his wife to the US. “We were very happy. Our daughter was born within a year. She completed us. We had a honeymoon period of three years,” says Navin.

Ask him what went wrong then, and he takes a pause before saying, “Recession hit and I my job became my priority, after which came my daughter and then my wife. Gradually, we began having arguments as I wasn’t able to spend much time with her. Then, on impulse, I told her ‘Don’t bother me and go back to India’. I realised the next day that I had made a mistake and told her to forget everything and go back to being like earlier. But she was adamant to leave. So I let her. The day she left with my daughter, I didn’t even have the courage to drop them off to the airport. I knew I was losing my daughter and I was shattered. It’s then that I thought of ending my life… Had it not been for my mother, who flew down immediately to be with me, I wouldn’t have been alive.”

Arguments apart, Navin did not in his wildest nightmare think that his wife would press charges of dowry harassment and domestic violence on him. “She had hit me with a pan once, but I never ran to cops saying my wife beat me. These charges are false. She has been brainwashed and has been explained the power of Section 498A and that’s what she has filed against me. But, what affected me the most is that she also accused my family and they were arrested… I began blaming myself for everything that happened.”

Men are looked upon as the abuser, never as the abused

This ‘blame thyself’ is essentially what triggers suicidal tendencies in men, says Sudhakar*. “The National Crime Record Bureau shows that more and more married men are committing suicide. I can tell you that the numbers will be much higher because there are many who never speak up about the abuse and the trauma they go through in a marriage. Our society does not give men the liberty of being called the ‘abused’. We are always looked upon as the ‘abuser’. And herein lies the problem. When a woman walks into a police station accusing her man of domestic violence, it’s very easy to accept that the woman has been wronged. Nobody would believe if a man said the same,” explains Sudhakar.

I lost my job because of the charges pressed against me

Thirty-year-old Sudhakar was looking for a homely girl when he met Nandita. It was a match arranged by his parents. Before tying the knot in May last year, Sudhakar and Nandita dated each other for seven months and everything looked ‘made in heaven’ till the day of the wedding. “Just when the ceremony was over, I got to know that Nandita was not from my caste or religion, whereas my family and I were made to believe that they were. I kept shut. My dad is a heart patient and I didn’t want to disclose this to him. Later that night, Nandita told me herself that she didn’t belong to my religion. I was still patient. It was okay. But eventually, she walked out of the house with her father, taking away all the jewellery that we had gifted her in marriage. I tried to call her back home, but she didn’t budge. This continued till June. Then, in October, she lodged a complaint with the police saying I am impotent and that my family and I have harassed her. She pressed charges under Section 498A, 420 and 506. It was I who was cheated into marriage, and not the other way round. But my family and I were picked up on a Friday and kept behind bars for two days. I was shattered. She is demanding `1 crore for settlement and a divorce. The trauma didn’t end there. In November, when I went back to work, I was told I am no longer employed since I was embroiled in a ‘498A case’. Since

November last year, I have been jobless. All I do is make innumerable rounds of the police station as they keep calling me. Sometimes, I feel like ending it all… Was marriage a sin I committed? Did I make a mistake?” asks Sudhakar.

Men in age group 24-40 most harassed

It’s not surprising then that the number of married committing suicide is on the rise. And to raise awareness for the same in the city, members of the Save Indian Family Group (Hyderabad Chapter) have been trying to reach out to people.

According to the NCRB report, social and economic causes have led most of the males to commit suicides, whereas emotional and personal causes have mainly driven females to end their lives. “I am not surprised at all,” says a member of the Save Indian Family Group (Hyderabad) that helps in reaching out to married men in distress. “We get at least five calls from men every week telling us how their marriage is not working out and how traumatised they are, owing to which they feel like ending their lives. These are men mostly in the age group of 24-40; sometimes, even 50.”

Among those who came to our office to meet us was Kishan*, who had been married for 13 years before he was thrown out of his house in the year 2007 and accused under Section 498A. He keeps silent while Navin tells us, “He has two grown-up children, but doesn’t know anything about them. And you know what? He would have been the vice president of a company, but in the background check, they found out that he has a harassment case on him, and so they rejected him. He is also jobless.”

It is not a ‘manly’ thing to ask for help

We ask Dr Sona Kakkar, who specializes in marital therapy, if she has seen more married men walking in to her clinic with marriage problems. “Yes, there has been a considerable increase in the number of married men coming in the past year or so. They have similar issues of incompatibility, just like women do. The difference is — women usually speak out and seek help, whereas men keep bottling things up because they think it’s not a ‘manly’ thing to ask for help. And hence, men are more prone to taking drastic steps when they feel nothing in their life is going right. Marriage is a big thing in our society and when that fails, it affects men as much as it affects women. In fact, reports suggest that men try their best to keep their wives happy, because they think that’s the way to a happy life, but when their efforts are met with criticism or no appreciation, they feel rejected. That’s when incompatibility issues arise and they don’t know who to talk to. I have had many married men come to me with such problems. I think married men committing suicides is a neglected area — there is a need to address this!”

(*Names have been changed on request)