Justice S.N.Dhingra's Speech: Save Indian Family's 10th foundation day

Watch Justice(Retired) S.N.Dhingra's well thought of and powerful speech on the occassion of the 10th foundation day of Save Indian Family movement at Delhi on 9th March, 2014

Hounarable Justice Dhingra started his speech in these lines " Sirf wohi aadmi pareshaan nahi hain jinki shadi nahi chali... aur bhi bahut aadmi pareshaan hain jo shadishuda hain ... isse kahi guna zayda vo log hain jo shadi chala rahe hain aur pareshaan hain."

Which roughly translate to "Don't feel alone and think that only those husbands are suffering whose marriage ends, those husbands are also suffering whose marriage is live.. in fact there much more people leading a much more miserable life, who are in a marriage and trying to keep the marriage alive"

He also spoke about what a Judge can do to stop misuse of law...... What we as citizens need to, and can do .... like if we as citizens were really interested in stopping dowry and the troubles due to it, we should have followed the law as prescribed in the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, which clearly says that all gifts exchanged between the groom's side and bride's side should be written down and should have signatures of both sides and should be registered with government.  Instead of enforcing this we and the vested interests are actually letting the system of dowry alive and getting ourselves into trouble.

The trouble(misuse of women-protection laws) we see on the surface is only like an Ice berg, may be less than 5% of troubled marriages precipitate and end up in misuse of laws, the rest 95% of troubled marriages just smoulder below the radar!. And there are a lot troubled marriages in our times, than we normally would imagine, may be more than 50% of marriages are troubled and traumatic in varying degrees and living in such relationships result in multiple negativity in terms of children's development and criminality in spouses themselves and in the children of these dysfunctional/violent families.


Like Justice Dhingra if more and more of our sitting judges show some understanding of this grave problem looming over us as a nation in general and act to sort it out in whichever ways they can manage, boosted by the courage of this conviction that this is a nation wide emergency(and not some silly hubby-wife tussle which deserved a blind eye)... we can hope to see some change from the judiciaries side too. Only if every segment/stake holder of this society pushes for a better tomorrow can we hope to bring about change in good time, else it's going to be very tough for everyone, faster than most of the indifferent/passively good silent people are hoping for!. We do not have to imagine a lot of things or do guesstimates, we just have to look towards the west which had gone this way of mindless 'development', and assess where they are as societies with respect to human welfare.

A must watch for every judge and every citizen across all strata of our society. Justice Dhingra has called a spade a spade in this... don't miss it!. 


(Long and full version)

See a shorter and clearer version here: 

Speech by Mr.Suhaib Ilyasi, director of the film "498a - The wedding gift"

Maha Rally: Calling for volunteers

Please do go through the planning for Maha Rally below, and send me(mail us separately at maharally@gmail.com : maharally (at) gmail (dot) com) your contact details for joining in as a volunteer.

Maha Rally brief plan: 

1) Reaching out to media and hence public: Conduct as many awareness events along the rally route(http://bit.ly/routerally), where ever SIF members can organise a) A public meeting b) Press Meet c) Awareness rally(any vehicle, around the town for some distance), or some similar event which will get reported in the media(getting the media's attention is the important part here, since published news means automatic reach to public, so any event which is designed and executed to get media's involvement is ok).

2) Consolidation of reformist NGOs/groups: To coordinate with other reform oriented groups who work for positive change, ie. any change which will improve the way we all live(eg. Human rights, energy/environmental conservation, local area empowerment, organised youth groups, groups for facilitating good governance, judicial reform groups, political reform groups, senior citizen forums, NRI forums, Pensioner's forums, etc etc). 

This is for creating a database of groups/forums which work towards positive change in India, so that we can later try and organise all these NGOs/Voluntary organisations and collectively bargain for our issues, create and project a formidable vote bank, etc, which is sure to get attention of major political parties and we collectively (rather than fighting for separate rights/demands in different corners of India, with limited 'active'/committed members) will then have a better chance to get our demands met.  

3) Reaching out to the youth: Liaison with educational institutions, making them aware of what awaits them in future, about anti-male laws and attitudes, etc., so that they too start working against threats which will affect them in their near future. 

College's and University's student bodies need to be contacted to make them aware of what the rally is about and how they could contribute and participate, among all the groups we can get in touch with, students will be the most closely knit group, and hence we need to focus our attention very tightly on educational institutions.. since the more organised and united they are, the stronger their bargaining power is!. Another reason why educational institutions should be focused is because we need to reverse the feminazi indoctrination there, since feminasies too know how important it is to catch them young, they have been reinforcing their arguments(which are untrue and made with ill motives) in each and every student who passes through our educational system- it's time that we reverse this negative spin!.

In brief this Rally is an attempt to consolidate strengths of good/suitable groups/individuals, organise and then collectively bargain and ensure that power comes back to the People. 

This rally could be as big as we make it to be, we all have a big example in the Dandi march, which started out as small, we too can expect this Maha Rally to snowball into a huge movement, by the end of its proposed 55 day duration, across 4000 kilometers(the core riders will be on cycles, there are 3 riders including me, who are presently committed to ride the full length. Other short distance rallyists can join in for any distance in any vehicle, along the rally's route).

There are many other things which can happen during this rally, which can be planned out. Do let me know your impressions about this and your suggestions, if any. 

Do reply with your contact details for volunteering for Maha Rally(mail us separately at maharally@gmail.com : maharally (at) gmail (dot) com), and send in your opinion/suggestions about the Maha Rally plans.

PS: For more details see https://www.facebook.com/MahaRallyMensRights/info

NATIONAL FAMILY HARMONY DAY - 12/11/2010, Bangalore

This is to bring to the notice of all about the Celebration of  NATIONAL FAMILY HARMONY DAY on 12th November, 2010, like it was held last year.

This time in Bangalore "Law Minister for State Mr. Suresh Kumar" has consented to attend and witness the Programme along with 

Commissioner of Police, Bangalore City, Mr. Shankara Bidari
Member of Legislative Counsel, Mrs. S.R. Leela
Member of Legislative Assembly, Mr. Ravisubramanya
President of Women Devlopment Corporation, Mrs. Sarojini Bharadwaj
Wife of Member of Parliament Ananthkumar, Mrs. Tejaswini Ananthkumar
Renowned Psychiatrist and Scientist from NIMHANS, Bangalore, Dr. C R Chandrashekar
Folk Arts fame, from Folk Culture University, Mr.Janapada Ramanna.

There will be a  Competitional debate convention on the subject "WOMEN CANNOT WORK?... WOMEN HAS TO BE MAINTAINED BY A MAN ALWAYS?"

Around 300 women are expected to participate in the programme.

18 NGOs are supporting and taking Active participation in the Organization and Press confrence to be held on 09-11-2010, including, Akhil Bharath Hindu Maha-sabha, a political Party State Unit, and local BJP unit.

Please feel free to contact 9743183369 for further details.

with regards

R. Shivashankara

President : SAMSEVA

NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY

NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY

We the members of CRISP have organized a “NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY” on 19th June 2010, to stop the creation of a fatherless society which coincides with fathers day which is celebrated throughout the world to recognize and to honor the fathers for everything they are doing for the children& express gratitude for their love, care and protection to their children.

Details of the function:
Time : 10:00 AM to 1.30 PM
Venue : Mahatma Gandhi Statue, MG Road, Bangalore.

CRISP is an NGO formed in 2008 at Bangalore by people who recognized the serious effects of Parental Alienation of children due to single parenting in divorce/separation. Now we have chapters throughout the country. CRISP speaks up for the Rights of Children to remain connected with and enjoy the love of both the natural parents being divorced or separated. Our aims and objectives are based on research findings. Our members come from all walks of life, like software engineers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, social workers, etc. which includes women and senior citizens. All family roles like grandparents, fathers, mothers, etc., are being represented. CRISP has charted a Pro-Family agenda to promote family harmony in our society.
Parental Alienation: Psychological Effects on the Child

Parental alienation occurs when one parent estranges the children from the other parent for personal vendetta. Children are brainwashed (used as pawns in divorce/ separation) by the dominant parent against the non-custodial parent (usually fathers). This brings a lot of mental distress & trauma to the child and the alienated parent and is particularly damaging to the child’s psychology and is Child Abuse. Extensive psychological studies over decades collectively called “The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome1” describe the detrimental effects on the child. In western countries, mainly U.S and Europe, organizations (including medical, judicial & NGOs) have gone into the depths of this and are trying hard to preserve families and save children. Unfortunately, our own country which once prided possessing “family values” now needs to learn basic lessons from the west. Its a well known fact that neglected children and children from broken families are more prone to take to crime. In India, NOT even a single such study/ research has been done. There is a serious need to commit to research and save children from this situation, which is completely being ignored. As a society, we are largely ignorant of the effects.

Indian legal system and society at large is still based on a patriarchal mindset which considers fathers incapable of nurturing children which is incorrect. Men are as capable as women to be caregivers and bring up children in a normal way. Even if the woman (mother) assumes that the man is not a good husband, it is out of place to say he is not also a good father for the children until there is strong evidence against the father. Thus, women (mothers) need to understand that her animosity for the husband & his family should be kept separate from the child’s need for his/her father and must share the children with their estranged husband in the best interest of their children. After all, the father if far better than strangers, servants, day-care and nannies!

Judicial & Governmental Apathy: Anti-Child, Anti-Father & Anti-Family

Divorce/ Separation is between spouses. Not child and parent. This is common sense. There is no law requiring a normal father to keep away from his child, in divorce/ separation proceedings. On the other hand, U.N’s Child Rights Convention (to which India also acceded about 20 years ago and then did nothing about) requires the state (of which the Judicial systems are a part) to ensure that
the child does not suffer separation! However, the way justice is administered, the child is separated from the father (mostly) for years! One has to “apply” for “visitation” that takes years to “grant” and even then for a paltry time. Innocent children suffer because parents are separating & fight for their egos! Our judicial mechanism has a deplorable understanding of child welfare based on biased and outdated social concepts. The father is a relegated to a mere “visitor”, eliminating involvement in the child’s life and just a “maintenance” paying ATM machine. It virtually condemns the child to an illegitimate. This is neither in the child’s nor the family’s interest and destroys the foundation for the future generation.

It’s a fact that even convicted criminals have better access to their children 2.That is the extent of judicial apathy towards children and good fathers in family courts!
Our Family Laws and Courts are not only functioning insensitively in an anti-child, anti-father and anti-family manner, but are also flouting U.N’s Child Rights Convention (CRC) and even the Constitution of India3. Child’s rights cannot be subordinated to anything!

The Indian judiciary would do well to educate itself, provide training to judges and inculcate good international practices in the family law systems. The judiciary must become more accountable, transparent, improve the quality of justice and urgently implement extensive judicial reforms in right earnest, if it wishes to be a credible and potent justice system.

Why is a Family institution needed in the first place? Family is the most fundamental building block of society. It builds healthy human beings and healthy society. When family system breaks, its leads to serious social consequences4 and surge in crime rates. A main contributor to teenage pregnancies is broken families. It’s well known that children from broken homes are more prone to crime.

In US, it has been found after extensive scientific research that children from broken families without a father are:

14 times more likely to commit rape
5 times more likely to commit suicide
20 times more likely to end up in prison
10 times more likely to take drugs
32 times more likely to run away from home
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
9 times more likely to drop out of school
9 times more likely to end up in a state operated institution

From here it’s a short step to even more serious anti-national crimes like terrorism. Social upheaval/ instability are heavily exploited by anti-nationals and terrorists.

For a country like India, the breaking of the family system will be catastrophic to social well being and economic growth. Even today, the government spends crores on internal security. People are spending years in courts instead of engaging productively.

CRISP’s Achievements

Extensively campaigned to implement SHARED PARENTING. Currently engaging with the government on this. In-fact, National Commission for Protection Of Child Rights (NCPCR), Government of India appreciated CRISP for educating the society and legal fraternity on the significance of Shared Parenting.



1.CRISP has created a national forum and made representations to the Chief Justice of India,
WCD Ministry and Law Commission to make Shared Parenting mandatory.

2.Over 2500 members strong and growing. Now CRISP has 7 chapters across the nation.

3.Mothers who have been deprived of child custody are also members of CRISP.

4.Some reputed women’s organizations are supporting CRISP’s efforts.

5.Engaging with leading medical professionals to provide quality counseling. This is to prevent
suicides of deprived and abused fathers like Syed Makhdoom who committed suicide and whose
child is now fatherless.

6.CRISP has conducted several workshops, seminars and press meets pertaining to children issues
and sensitized the society and successfully spread the message of shared parenting.

7.Many deprived parents have benefited from CRISP counseling and have successfully got orders
for weekends and 50% vacation custody of their children.

8.CRISP provides quality information through its website www.crisp-india.org. Thousands of victims
have made use of this information which is the first of its kind in the country.


CRISP’s Demands:

• Basic right of children to access both biological parents
• Implementation of UN’s Child Rights Convention and Hague’s Convention on Parental Child Abduction.
• Implement SHARED PARENTING / JOINT CUSTODY as a rule in separation and divorce cases.
• Setting up Special Guardian Courts in every major city
• Speedy and quality justice (within 3 months)
• Rational and Gender neutral Family Laws (including DV Act)
• Create a separate Child Welfare Ministry at the National Level and separate from WCD Ministry
• Laws against International Parental Child Abduction and Child Alienation
• Enroll organizations like NIMHANS to carry out research on Child Psychology of separated children. Laws to be framed based on scientific studies.
• Compulsory counseling to parent-litigants on Shared Parenting for child’s welfare.
• Ban child interviews of tender age children, who have not had adequate access with the noncustodial parent.
• Appoint psychologists/ child psychologists as mediators and to encourage shared parenting.
• Ban lawyers as mediators! They are suited for arbitration not mediation!
• Ban lawyers form Family Courts (implement the Family Court Act which discourages engaging lawyers).Encourage party in person after giving adequate counseling.
• Grant visitation rights to grand parents who want to have access to the grandchildren.
• Harsh Punishment for Child Abusers including non-compliance of court orders concerning child visitation.
• Punish people who misuse dowry & domestic violence act as a weapon to cut off the children from the father.
• Make the domestic violence act gender neutral and also to protect the child from domestic violence from even the mother.

We appeal & invite our media friends to kindly grace the occasion since media has a very important role in educating the society on this highly sensitive subject of children who constitute 40% of the population and not vote banks & ensure our children are saved from being fatherless since the divorce rates in the cities are escalating and in Bangalore alone there are over 15000 cases pending.

Speakers for the press conference are:
Kumar V Jahgirdar President CRISP
Anil Kumar President Save Indian Family (NGO)
Roshni Mathan Teacher and Woman’s Rights Activist
Jayanth T.K Legal Counselor

CRISP’s is supported by the following NGOs and organizations:
SAVE INDIAN FAMILY
SUMANGALI SEVA ASHRAMA
FAMILY HARMONY SOCIETY
PURE (Mysore)
AIMPF, AIDPF

SOURCE:
1. The American Bar Association initiated a 12 year study by Dr. Richard Gardner and subsequently
carried forward by many others.
2. Francis Cora lie Mullin vs. The Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, (1981) 2 SCR 516
(Justice P.N Bhagwati) which struck down Rule 559A of the Punjab Prison’s manual and allowed
a detune to see his/her child twice a week.
3. 1978 AIR 597 MANEKA GANDHI vs. Union of India: Article 21 of the Constitution enshrines
the right to life and liberty which includes right to a dignified life, free from social stigma, freedom
of movement. Article 39(e) & (f) protects a child from abuse!
4. U.S Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pubalp2.htm#csus
http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/Search/Abstracts.aspx?id=206316

KUMAR V JAHGIRDAR
President CRISP
Childrens Rights Initiative For Shared Parenting (CRISP)
(Regd. NGO) www.crisp-india.org (email: kvjahgirdar@yahoo.com)
# 78, Osborne Road, (Near Lake Side Hospital), Bangalore - 42, India.
Helpline No: +91 80 25593848, Mobile No: +91 98452 64488.

More at Fathers Day Rally organised in Bangalore paper report  and Press release by Bhavya foundation

Topnews article post International Men's Day, Mumbai, 2009

‘Harassed’ husbands rally for equal laws on International Men’s Day

Courtsey Top News, Submitted by Sarthak Gupta on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 06:50

Over 100 “harassed”husbands sporting stickers on their shirts with one-liners like ‘My wife gifted me a law suit’ and ‘Hen-pecked or hand-cuffed’, raced their cars from Mulund to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to demand gender equality on the occasion of International Men’s Day on Thursday.

The men, who identify themselves as “victims of wife-centric laws”, are members of various non-governmental organisations united under the Save Indian Family Movement. They later held a demonstration at Azad Maidan to highlight that husbands have become a “vulnerable section” due to the misuse of the domestic violenceand dowry harassment laws.

“We want the law to be gender-neutral. Husbands should also be able to file cases if they are harassed,” said Bunty Jain, one of the participants. He pointed out that the laws were being misused by educated and empowered women in cities while the unlettered women living in villages, who were truly victims of domestic violence, did not even know about it.

The men’s demands include the setting up of a ministry and commission for men. “When there can be ministries for women’s welfare and animal welfare, why isn’t there anything for men who pay 82 per cent of India’s taxes,” said Dr Sandeep Padwade.

The men also want people to understand a father’s emotions and allow joint custody of children during marital disputes. Tejender Singh, whose children live with his wife, was carrying a placard that read: ‘Jasleen, Goldie, Papa loves you’. Another father held up a placard saying, “Children need a father, not visitor.”

Manish Katira from non-governmental organization, Child’s Rights and Family Welfare, said that they had come across many cases where women seeking divorce were threatening to slapdomestic violence cases against their husbands if they did not give up the demand for child custody.

The participants also wanted to use the occasion of Men’s Day to shed their typical manly inhibitions and admit that that they experience pain and cry just like women. Each one had a heart- rending story to tell.

Goregaon resident Purshotam Mahajan recounted how his wife used to beat him every time they got into an argument. “She was having an affair. Every time I confronted her she would start hitting me. I was shocked when she slapped a case of domestic violence on me,” he said. Compact discs with a video of Mahajan’s wife thrashing him were distributed to prove that men need support.

DNA article post International Men's Day events, Mumbai, 2009

'Harassed' husbands take up cudgels

Courtsey DNA , by Surekha S / DNA

Mumbai: "Indian male - hapless animal"; "women empowered men unpowered"; "husband not an ATM machine", "options for Indian male - be henpecked or handcuffed"... these are some of the messages flashed on placards by members of various organisations who had gathered at Azad Maidan on the occasion of International Men's Day on Thursday, to raise their voice against the perceived harassment of men at the hands of the Indian judicial system.

Members of the Indian Family Foundation (IFF), Protect Indian Family Foundation, Child’s Right and Family welfare and the Save Indian Family Movement held a dharna to create awareness about the problems faced by men. A bike rally was also held, with many members from Pune participating.

The men particularly targeted section 498A, which they said is often misused by women to get husbands arrested for harassment. They shouted slogans against the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the misuse of the Domestic Violence Act, and demanded a separate ministry for men.

According to Bunty Jain, founder member, IFF, “Most cases where section 498A is invoked turn out to be false. Baseless allegations are made against men to extort money from them, and the law and the police support women, without making complete inquiries. The laws are wife-centric, not even woman-centric, because the husband’s mother or sister is not taken into account,” he said.

Jain, who calls himself a victim, had to pay a large sum of money to his wife as alimony and is now fighting the domestic violence case that his wife filed against him. “The Domestic Violence Act should be made gender-neutral,” he said.

Rakesh Jaiswal, who was also part of the dharna, feels that the time has now come for men to fight for gender parity. His wife, who left him two years ago, slapped a section 498A dowry harassment case against him and demanded a huge sum as alimony.” She earns about Rs2.5 lakh per annum, but I still have to pay her alimony. How is this fair?” he asked.

Another major concern is child custody, as the men feel it is always tougher for the father to be able to get custody of children. Many women were also part of dharna, most of them the mothers of “harassed” husbands. Borivli resident Kamal Kapadia, 59, claimed that her daughter-in-law made 23 allegations against her, all of them false.

(read the original article at http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_harassed-husbands-take-up-cudgels_1313960)

Film- A father's Rights

A film about a father fighting a system that tells him he has no rights -> http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=27395259

A Fathers Rights Trailer

Human rights are not for men-Daily Mail Article

By Melanie Phillips. First published in the Daily Mail, June 19 2003.

The government’s war against men is now plumbing ever more astonishing depths. On Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary David Blunkett could scarcely wait to boast of new proposals to deal with domestic violence.

Such crimes are indeed a serious matter. But the Home Office not only continues to distort them as overwhelmingly caused by male aggression against innocent women and children, against all the evidence that this is not the case. It is now taking a giant step towards fundamental injustice.

Anyone truly concerned with civil liberties could not fail to have been appalled by Mr Blunkett’s comments. The problem was, he enthusiastically explained, that at present ‘you have to get someone through court’ before a domestic violence suspect can be restrained.

So his solution is to restrain them before they even get to court. In other words, he wants action taken against a man on the basis of an unproven allegation by a woman– made under the protection of anonymity, to boot. So much for this Home Secretary’s understanding of the presumption of innocence, the meaning of justice and the necessity for a trial of the facts.

Even worse, despite the fact that he has just given the women’s refuge movement extra millions in public funds, he thinks women should not have to move out when they claim they are being attacked. The men they are accusing should move out instead, pronto. So men will now be evicted from their homes simply on the basis of an accusation.

The way will thus be clear for a woman who has tired of her man to get the police to evict him, without the tedious irrelevance of having to ‘get someone through a court’.

These are proposals which are simply inimical to the rule of law. They also spectacularly miss the point.

True, some 150 people – the majority of whom are women -- are killed at home every year. But if we want to stop the appalling toll of domestic violence, we have to address the unstable relationships which are fuelling the phenomenon.

For unmarried partners present vastly more risks of physical abuse to both adults and children at home than do married couples. Transient relationships lead to more jealousy, insecurity and, in extreme cases, violence. Furthermore, unmarried individuals are far more likely to abuse a child in their care with whom they have no biological connection.

The Home Office itself has previously acknowledged that the dislocation arising from marital breakdown is a ‘key risk factor’ in domestic violence. Yet the government has encouraged the false belief that all relationships are equal in value.

While thus giving its blessing to domestic arrangements which give rise to violence between intimates, the government is choosing to pile the blame on men. For although it claims in passing that one in six men suffers from domestic violence, it says women are mainly their victims.

This is a wicked distortion of the facts. There is overwhelming evidence from dozens of international studies that women are as violent towards men as men are towards women. Women are indeed more likely to initiate violence. Even the Home Office – which persistently ignores this research -- reported some years back that equal numbers of men and women were initiating violence towards each other.

True, women get hurt more badly in such fights because men tend to be stronger. That is presumably why more women than men are killed in these disputes. But there is also much anecdotal evidence that many men are too ashamed to report their injuries.

The Home Office report reheats yet again a number of misleading old chestnuts. It says, for example, that one in four women suffers domestic violence. This is rot. It is a figure extrapolated from studies that don’t stand up to serious scrutiny – illustrating the dismal standards which characterise virtually all domestic violence research in this country, but which the Home Office not only slavishly relies upon but also funds.

Not only does the government distort the facts about violence between adults, but it ignores the role played by women in violence towards children. For all the evidence suggests that while men commit most child sexual abuse, women subject children to more neglect, physical injury and even murder.

An NSPCC study a few years ago revealed that mothers were the most frequent perpetrators of children’s physical injury, emotional abuse and neglect. This is hardly surprising since mothers generally have more contact with their children than anyone else.

In America, where trends are likely to be similar to Britain, the Department of Justice said that in 1999, three out of five maltreated children had been abused by their mothers. And in 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 32.4% of child fatalities were committed by mothers, compared to 14.2% committed by fathers, 14% by non-parents and 25.1% by mothers and fathers acting together.

So the idea that men are responsible for the vast majority of domestic violence is simply untrue. Yet Mr Blunkett is urging women to make more such claims -- on the basis of which men are to be deprived of their homes, their children and their reputations.

These preposterous proposals are based on the extreme feminist belief -- which has captured the Home Office -- that all men are guilty. That’s why rape trials are now to be rigged, too, by weighting the burden of proof against the defendant. Many men are already victims of this egregious prejudice in the divorce courts, where unproven allegations against them are automatically believed and used to deprive them of contact with their children.

Clearly, some men are indeed guilty of violence against the women they live with or their children. But some men are guilty of other crimes, too. Yet this has not caused the government to tear up the elementary rules of justice in those cases. So why is domestic violence so different?

The answer is that men are being demonised as intrinsic rapists, wife beaters and child abusers as part of a broader agenda. It is nothing less than an aim to destroy the married family, cripple ‘male power’ by emasculating men’s role and undermine masculinity itself.

So men are given the impression they can no longer be breadwinners (unless they are separated from their children’s mother, in which case they will be pursued for money the length and breadth of the land).

Meanwhile, women are lured back into the workplace by a government fanatical in its feminist agenda. Only recently there was a report from the Women and Equality Unit which implied that it was wrong for women to stay at home with their children when they could be economically active.

At the same time, men are patronised as emotionally illiterate, and regarded as no more than walking wallets, sperm donors and mothers’ au pairs.

In fact, the biggest protection against domestic violence is marriage, the very institution the government is busy destroying. Domestic violence is far rarer within the stable and loving context that marriage affords than among cohabiting couples who are more prone to insecurity and jealousy.

Since the government’s approach is exposing hundreds of thousands of children to hugely increased risks of violence and abuse, Mr Blunkett’s pious assertion that he was ‘putting children first’ was enough to make one choke on the cornflakes.

By encouraging mass fatherlessness, this government is putting children last. These domestic violence proposals go even further: removing men not just from family life but from the protection of the law itself.

They are being turned into un-persons, excluded from the ambit of human rights (so much for the wretched Human Rights Act). And once again it is a male politician, in the emasculated Home Office, which is putting the boot into men.

Human rights are not for men
By Melanie Phillips. First published in the Daily Mail, June 19 2003.

The government’s war against men is now plumbing ever more astonishing depths. On Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary David Blunkett could scarcely wait to boast of new proposals to deal with domestic violence.

Such crimes are indeed a serious matter. But the Home Office not only continues to distort them as overwhelmingly caused by male aggression against innocent women and children, against all the evidence that this is not the case. It is now taking a giant step towards fundamental injustice.

Anyone truly concerned with civil liberties could not fail to have been appalled by Mr Blunkett’s comments. The problem was, he enthusiastically explained, that at present ‘you have to get someone through court’ before a domestic violence suspect can be restrained.

So his solution is to restrain them before they even get to court. In other words, he wants action taken against a man on the basis of an unproven allegation by a woman– made under the protection of anonymity, to boot. So much for this Home Secretary’s understanding of the presumption of innocence, the meaning of justice and the necessity for a trial of the facts.

Even worse, despite the fact that he has just given the women’s refuge movement extra millions in public funds, he thinks women should not have to move out when they claim they are being attacked. The men they are accusing should move out instead, pronto. So men will now be evicted from their homes simply on the basis of an accusation.

The way will thus be clear for a woman who has tired of her man to get the police to evict him, without the tedious irrelevance of having to ‘get someone through a court’.

These are proposals which are simply inimical to the rule of law. They also spectacularly miss the point.

True, some 150 people – the majority of whom are women -- are killed at home every year. But if we want to stop the appalling toll of domestic violence, we have to address the unstable relationships which are fuelling the phenomenon.

For unmarried partners present vastly more risks of physical abuse to both adults and children at home than do married couples. Transient relationships lead to more jealousy, insecurity and, in extreme cases, violence. Furthermore, unmarried individuals are far more likely to abuse a child in their care with whom they have no biological connection.

The Home Office itself has previously acknowledged that the dislocation arising from marital breakdown is a ‘key risk factor’ in domestic violence. Yet the government has encouraged the false belief that all relationships are equal in value.

While thus giving its blessing to domestic arrangements which give rise to violence between intimates, the government is choosing to pile the blame on men. For although it claims in passing that one in six men suffers from domestic violence, it says women are mainly their victims.

This is a wicked distortion of the facts. There is overwhelming evidence from dozens of international studies that women are as violent towards men as men are towards women. Women are indeed more likely to initiate violence. Even the Home Office – which persistently ignores this research -- reported some years back that equal numbers of men and women were initiating violence towards each other.

True, women get hurt more badly in such fights because men tend to be stronger. That is presumably why more women than men are killed in these disputes. But there is also much anecdotal evidence that many men are too ashamed to report their injuries.

The Home Office report reheats yet again a number of misleading old chestnuts. It says, for example, that one in four women suffers domestic violence. This is rot. It is a figure extrapolated from studies that don’t stand up to serious scrutiny – illustrating the dismal standards which characterise virtually all domestic violence research in this country, but which the Home Office not only slavishly relies upon but also funds.

Not only does the government distort the facts about violence between adults, but it ignores the role played by women in violence towards children. For all the evidence suggests that while men commit most child sexual abuse, women subject children to more neglect, physical injury and even murder.

An NSPCC study a few years ago revealed that mothers were the most frequent perpetrators of children’s physical injury, emotional abuse and neglect. This is hardly surprising since mothers generally have more contact with their children than anyone else.

In America, where trends are likely to be similar to Britain, the Department of Justice said that in 1999, three out of five maltreated children had been abused by their mothers. And in 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 32.4% of child fatalities were committed by mothers, compared to 14.2% committed by fathers, 14% by non-parents and 25.1% by mothers and fathers acting together.

So the idea that men are responsible for the vast majority of domestic violence is simply untrue. Yet Mr Blunkett is urging women to make more such claims -- on the basis of which men are to be deprived of their homes, their children and their reputations.

These preposterous proposals are based on the extreme feminist belief -- which has captured the Home Office -- that all men are guilty. That’s why rape trials are now to be rigged, too, by weighting the burden of proof against the defendant. Many men are already victims of this egregious prejudice in the divorce courts, where unproven allegations against them are automatically believed and used to deprive them of contact with their children.

Clearly, some men are indeed guilty of violence against the women they live with or their children. But some men are guilty of other crimes, too. Yet this has not caused the government to tear up the elementary rules of justice in those cases. So why is domestic violence so different?

The answer is that men are being demonised as intrinsic rapists, wife beaters and child abusers as part of a broader agenda. It is nothing less than an aim to destroy the married family, cripple ‘male power’ by emasculating men’s role and undermine masculinity itself.

So men are given the impression they can no longer be breadwinners (unless they are separated from their children’s mother, in which case they will be pursued for money the length and breadth of the land).

Meanwhile, women are lured back into the workplace by a government fanatical in its feminist agenda. Only recently there was a report from the Women and Equality Unit which implied that it was wrong for women to stay at home with their children when they could be economically active.

At the same time, men are patronised as emotionally illiterate, and regarded as no more than walking wallets, sperm donors and mothers’ au pairs.

In fact, the biggest protection against domestic violence is marriage, the very institution the government is busy destroying. Domestic violence is far rarer within the stable and loving context that marriage affords than among cohabiting couples who are more prone to insecurity and jealousy.

Since the government’s approach is exposing hundreds of thousands of children to hugely increased risks of violence and abuse, Mr Blunkett’s pious assertion that he was ‘putting children first’ was enough to make one choke on the cornflakes.

By encouraging mass fatherlessness, this government is putting children last. These domestic violence proposals go even further: removing men not just from family life but from the protection of the law itself.

They are being turned into un-persons, excluded from the ambit of human rights (so much for the wretched Human Rights Act). And once again it is a male politician, in the emasculated Home Office, which is putting the boot into men.

Relevance of Love, Respect and Patience in modern familial situations- A Men’s day special.

There have been a lot of studies commissioned to ascertain the causes of family breakdowns, divorces, etc., but without going into those results we can summarise that Love, Respect and Patience are the three prime factors which make a family tick. When at least these three prevail in a relationship, issues and conflicts resolve at the earliest and the bond finds new thresholds and heights of synergy. If these factors are eclipsed or are absent, even silly ego clashes and difference of opinions lead to irreparable ruptures in relationships, including litigations and other court matters.

So it is arguable that in these times of super efficiency and high-strung performance anxieties, we need to balance the paucity of time for each other by deliberately taking out time to acknowledge each others role and importance in building up a successfully satisfying family; a family where someone is a father, a mother, daughter, a son, a brother, a sister, etc. While historically many of our societies have acknowledged women’s contributions and importance in sustaining a progressive society, acknowledging men was not considered necessary because of various reasons including chivalry itself. In these modern times this deliberate step of acknowledging a man’s role is also very important, just like acknowledging women on women’s day.

Several countries already have a practice of celebrating men’s day, this year ‘Save Indian Family’ along with ‘Hallmark’, one of the leading greeting card companies in India, have decided to mark November 19th as the first International Men’s day celebration in India.

Here are some images which could bring out the necessity of International Men’s day: Men toiling under the wrath of the hot sun, inhaling noxious exhaust all through the day only for returning home to be with his beloveds, and to ensure that all the members have enough supplies to survive on, to be happy even if he has to scorch himself this way for a lifetime. Men selflessly putting themselves in the line of duty and fire to defend their country and hence thousands of its citizens, who do not even acknowledge his contributions and sacrifice. Men making a living amongst inhospitable conditions like furnaces, oil rigs, deserts, hazardous waste management, toxic sewage, nuclear plants, and other high risk occupations, doing these only following certain values of ‘providing’, ‘sacrificing’, selflessly toiling and silently bearing the brunt.

I asked some close associates in the opposite sex about why there should at all be a men’s day these were the reactions. From the infant stage the stress of getting into diapers and restricting themselves into the damp contours till the time of relief, to the crammed school commute in rickshaws or buses, it seems that boys are more susceptible to the stress factors. This observation is well backed by the lowering of the age for heart attacks among males, which now a days is not uncommon at the age of even thirty five!. Another observation was simply that they deserve a men’s day just because they are the ones who get entangled in the cross fire between a mother in law and a daughter in law, but I thought aloud why cannot these ladies cease to have a cross-fire at all! . Anyway it was a majority of approvers after the initial cynicism faded away into realisation that indeed men need a day to relax and to feel good that the world has finally decided to acknowledge his efforts and existence.

Centuries of social conditioning aid in sustaining this seemingly obscure behaviour of self-destruction; and this has been one of the most important traits of man throughout the history of mankind. Roles of men and women has evolved with the need of the times, and its still evolving in the modern era of ‘Knowledge’ where most of the jobs are knowledge based and not based on physical strength. Nevertheless the jobs which still has to be done manually, which has an element of risk and physical strength to it, gets done by men by and large- the responsibilities which they discharge without even batting an eyelid, owing to the same social-conditioning and inherent traits of putting oneself in the line of fire.

It is natural that nothing but spectacular or nail-biting gets noticed in this world, the same limitations of public perception paves way to the discounting and almost discrediting of the efforts by men. When a man does his duties, as per the social situation he is in, it is just that he is fulfilling the bare necessities of his existence. All said and done he neither gets appreciation nor acknowledgement for what he does in his lifetime, and since a man is not supposed to cry in desperation he is short-changed in that department too!

Earlier when men were supposed to defend kingdoms, farms, hamlets, households, dignity of his womenfolk, etc., may be expressions of love were in the form of social status, reverence and fear offered by the rest of the society. But this we are talking about millennia back in time, but in these times of ‘knowledge’ how do people acknowledge and appreciate each other, what other than ‘expressions of love’, an almost equivalent to a hug, a day earmarked for somebody who needs a hug. But again it is universally wondered why man needs a day to acknowledge him, its almost like on one day you have women’s day and all other days in an year are for men. This is as fallacious as saying; all the unsold toffees are there for the shop owner to enjoy! . Unless one is hugged, the person remains un-hugged; there is no shortcut to this road.

Connecting all these impressions to the familial situation that is prevailing in our society these days is also important. The way young men and women have dearth of respect and patience, if not love, in their relationship as a couple, it is almost imminent that more single parenting situations arise, a rise of a father-less society to be specific, given the inclination of our judiciary and society- denying fathers the rights of the children and thereby actually denying children their fathers. Again there have been numerous studies, the result of which is not oblivious to common wisdom too, that single parenting leads to behavioural aberrations in children and which in turn leads them to be adults with major personality disorders. Do we owe this to our children, a reality worse than ours?

An even daunting extension of the above scenario is the specter of fragmented families not in touch with each other, leading to even marriages among biological brothers and sisters. This is not at all figment of anyone’s imagination since these scenarios have already manifested themselves, almost extensively, in the western world, who are unfortunately the fore-runners of this scenario too. The moot question before us, as a nation proud of its families as strong building blocks, is that whether we would want to ape the west even in the way their societies have disintegrated into total anarchy. If not, why don’t we sit up and take lessons from the way they have disintegrated, and what to be beware of, what the west has painfully realised and is taking up as first-aid, moreover revisiting our morals and values for its time-tested efficacy and clairvoyance, in sustaining families as units of excellence and satisfaction.

What can we do as individuals? , a lot, is the answer. We can lead by example for one, and that’s the only way our children will imbibe values for a lifetime, we could start by respecting each other, we can salute the completeness attained when a man and woman join together. A complete entity, with so much diversity in life-skills and traits, could not be attained in a single organism and hence we had to be split (for fans of evolution- we had to evolve) into man and woman. Since we rightly have a women’s day let us complete the circle of goodness by having a men’s day, where we acknowledge the men in our life, be it a father, brother, son, uncle, nephew, friend, grand father, cousin, doctor, boss, anyone who you have thought favourably of, let them know your appreciation, lets keep a day in honour of them too- NOVEMBER 19th – is International Men’s Day.