Why are you opposing women’s reservation bill?
The problem is with the stubborn old alpha male politicians, not with the Constitution. The bill is likely to do no good to women who are powerless; even a reservation such as the one currently being debated will not assure them of political representation. Until there is greater recognition of their rights and better education of women, this kind of law will make no change. The reservation of seats will enable women from more dominant sections of society to enter Parliament, and they are likely to represent their own groups, rather than women in general.
If the bill becomes a law, it will sabotage the political careers of some able men, who are just as capable of representing women as women themselves. Also, the seats that are reserved are likely to change, so continuous political attachment to one constituency will be marred, whether the candidate is male or female.
Tell us a little about the legal changes you would recommend so that the law is fair to mothers-in-law.
Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code, which defines matrimonial cruelty, is cognisable on the basis of a complaint made to a police officer. Offenders could be fined as well as imprisoned, and the offence is non-bailable. There are innumerable complaints that people have been falsely implicated under this section. We get about five cases of abuse of 498A each week. In my opinion, it should be made bailable. Domestic violence should be treated as a gender-neutral issue, which is what it is. A criminal or adulterous wife should not be granted huge maintenance or alimony. In this country, when we try to make the law women-centric, we end up making it only just wife-centric. What that sometimes means is that the rest of the family could be held to ransom.

How do you deal with aggrieved mothers-in-law?
We offer them whatever support we can, and we assist with legal support whenever necessary. In the end, these domestic battles are for them to handle. We can only offer support and tell them of the options available to them. Our forum was inaugurated on September 6, 2009. We have 50 members at present.

So how did you observe International Women’s Day?
We distributed pamphlets. We want the government to see that there are at least 12 laws protecting daughters-in-law, but not one for mothers-in-law. o_dsouza@dnaindia.net

Bangalore: Odd voices of resentment struck a discordant note during the euphoric eve of International Women’s Day celebrations here on Sunday. Aggrieved mothers-in-law and husbands staged a candlelight vigil in protest against the violence allegedly perpetrated by daughters-in-law.

The protestors, belonging to the All India Mother-In-Law Protection Forum, Save Indian Family Foundation and Family Harmony Society, shouted slogans during the protest that lasted for an hour and a half in front of the Gandhi statue on MG Road.

“We will not celebrate Women’s Day. There are days associated with fathers, mothers and daughters, but nothing for mothers-in-law. Hence, we are celebrating the Mothers-In-Law Day today (Sunday). We are drawing the government’s attention to the fact that there are as many as 12 laws for daughters-in-law but not one for mothers-in-law. We are also protesting against the Women’s Reservation Bill,” Neena Dhulia, president, All India Mother-In-Law Protection Forum, said.

Men from the Save Indian Family Foundation claimed that their protest was against the maintenance claims from their divorced wives. The Family Harmony Society members said that they were protesting against the harassment meted out by daughters-in-law to other family members.

Sharadamma (67), an inmate of Sumangali Seva Ashram, said she was in the vigil to protest against the Domestic Violence Act.

It was a routine trial for the lawyers,but for the mother-in-law charged of abuse and harassment,the acquittal was a vindication of sorts.The 62-year-old woman felt she had come out of a nightmare.She is not alone,many others feel hurt and at the mercy of the legal process once their daughters-in-law or sisters-in-law initiate a criminal case against them under section 498-A.

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says that between 2004 and 2007,1.2 lakh women were arrested for an offence under section 498-A,the section many men find draconian,but which aims at preventing torture of helpless wives over dowry.

This Womens Day,a group of women and men have come together as Mothers and Sisters of Husbands against Abuse of Law (MASHAAL) to protest the misuse of section 498-A.The group is part of a local NGO,Indian Family Foundation,which aims tackle the abuse of law.

Are only wives women What about the mothers and sisters of the husband This is only a wife-centric law, said Lata Mishra,an alleged victim.Her weekly dialysis treatment did not prevent her arrest when estranged daughter-in-law Arti charged her son Narayan and the rest of her family,including a mentally challenged daughter for cruelty and ill-treatment.

Although Lata and her daughter received bail the same day on medical grounds,her husband spent over 48 hours in jail and was suspended from work.He is the sole bread winner.My daughter is paralysed and we thought of suicide often, she said.But timely intervention from MASHAAL prevented the extreme step.We realised that there are many like us and we kept fighting, said Narayan,who began studying law.

The group has been meeting every Sunday for the last eight months and addressing grievances.The women allege that often,the law is abused by women seeking to extort money.While many admit that the law is a step in the right direction,its misuse is leading to legal terrorism,said the group.

In many cases,complaints are made on Friday to prevent bail, said Minal Verma,whose daughter-inlaw filed charges against the family four years ago.

Often,498-A complaints are filed by the affluent and educated.But after a flurry of complaints about its misuse,the law is being applied with caution for the last few years,say police officers.

(Names changed to protect identity)

Sub: Announcing candle light protest by AIMPF on eve of International Women’s Day.

All India Mother-in-Law Protection Forum (AIMPF) is the first ever social forum created to protect the rights and interests of the mother-in-law. It is a non-funded non-profit organization which is creating awareness about the problems faced by mothers-in-law and also fights against their de-facto villainous projection in the socio-legal arena. It can be reached at http://www.aimpf.org. This forum was created on 6^th September 2009 in Bangalore and very soon grew into Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Nagpur, Lucknow, Chhattisgarh, Guwahati, etc. with more than 1000 members.

On March 7^th 2010, on the eve of International Women’s Day 2010, AIMPF, is conducting a candle light protest from 6 PM to 7: 30 PM on M G Road in front of Gandhi Statue. This protest is being held to create awareness about the plight of mothers-in-law who are abused by not only their daughters-in-law and their parents but also by the society, judiciary, and the laws. AIMPF also opposes the enactment of iVAWA – International Violence against Women Act – in India. It will further spread male hatred and pamper family breaking women at the expense of devout and sincere women who take a pride in taking care of their family members rather than dragging them to court for vexatious and baseless litigations.

Why on the eve of International Women’s Day?

1. Feminists and women organizations have campaigned so much negatively against the image of mothers and sisters of men that they are feeling completely alienated as women and do not feel enthusiastic to celebrate International Women’s Day and hence this protest against unwarranted alienation on the eve of International Women’s Day.
2. On International Women’s Day, feminists mostly talk about “young wives” and completely ignore “old mothers” but because a mother comes before a wife, hence this protest is also being done on the eve of International Women’s Day.

Background of the protest

The mothers-in-law could not bear the harassment any further and said, “Enough is enough“. They have formed this forum to campaign against:

1. The stereotyping of mothers-in-law as evil and blood thirsty by media and popular culture. This violates the civil liberties and the constitutional provisions of right to liberty and right to life.
2. It has been scientifically and also statistically established fact that mothers-in-law are unnecessarily maligned and subjected to judgmental attitudes by society.
3. National Family Health Survey (NFHS) (http://www.nfhsindia.org Vol-1 Page 500) has conclusively established that a woman in the age group of 15-49 years of age faces 8 times more violence from her own mother compared to mother-in-law. 13.7% women have faced violence from their own mother as compared to 1.7% women who have faced from their mothers-in-law.
4. Recent Research has shown that “daughters-in-law are programmed to hate mothers-in-law”. This is one of the most important causes of the stereotyping of mothers-in-law in society.
5. In the four years period (2004-2007) 123,000 innocent women have been arrested under Section 498A without trial or investigation on complaint by their son’s/brother’s wife.

Unaddressed Problems faced by mothers-in-law

In this over-zealous activity of tarnishing the social image of the Mother-In-Law; the society conveniently forgot their issues and contributions. The mothers-in-law in India face severe abuse and yet these women do not get social support they deserve in conditions like:

1. Severe physical and mental harassment at the hands of their daughters-in-law.
   1. Physical harassment can be in form of physical kicking or throwing objects or beating with a belt.
   2. Mental harassment includes taunts, comments and not allowing husband to have any relation with mother-in-law.
   3. Name calling and usage of vulgar language on her.
   4. Throwing her out of her own house and forcibly occupying the house.
   5. Daughter-in-law refusing to allow mother-in-law to meet or even speak to her son.
   6. Insults, abuses and threats by police to mothers-in-law.
   7. Kicking mother-in-law out of house feigning torture and maligning her reputation.
   8. Driving mothers-in-law to death.

Rather than the mother of the woman, it’s the mother-in-law who gives her son to her daughter-in-law and her property as well and at the end of the day, it is the mother-in-law facing the brunt of the fallacy. She is the one who is held responsible in case the marriage does not work and the blame is conveniently passed on to the mum-in-law.

National Family Health Survey’s third report (available at http://www.nfhsindia.org) has some interesting statistics to share. It was a survey done on 30000 women from different parts of India and social strata. It says that in the age range of 15-49, it is the mother of the woman who does more violence on her rather than her mother-in-law.

Typically in the age range of 15-49 the woman will mostly stay with her mother-in-law and at least away from her mother most of the time, even then the mother does more violence on the woman compared to the mother-in-law and yet it is the mother-in-law who is projected as a villain. One can only imagine the plight of those women who bear sons and get them married.

Today the young women have got a lot of privileges like more and more women attending schools and colleges, more women graduating with degrees and diplomas, and more women entering varied professions and earning their livelihood. Women are competing with men in academic, corporate, service, bureaucratic, political and other careers. Women now own property and wealth of their own. But at the same time, the price of this “Over-pamperment of young women” is being paid by old women who are continuously being neglected and harassed due to adverse attitude towards them. Today on the eve of International Women’s Day, AIMPF, on behalf of the old women urges the society and the Govt. to listen to their woes.

AIMPF had also sent an official letter containing request of appointment to the Women and Child Development Ministry. The ministry confirmed receiving the request by giving a call to the Coordinator of AIMPF in Bangalore, however, neither did he give the appointment nor called after that. When the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development – enacted to look into the problems faced by women, is not ready to listen to them, what more can be said about the plight of these old women who are now forced to come to streets and voice their concerns in their dusky days.

Demands of AIMPF

Today, on the eve of International Women’s Day, by way of this candle light protest, AIMPF also puts forth its demands to the Government:-

1. Stop stereotyping mothers-in-law.
2. A change of attitude in the judiciary, the National Commission for Women, etc. to accept complaints from Mothers-in-law with the same spirit with which they accept complaints from daughters-in-law.
3. Stop the de-facto defamation of mothers-in-law and give them their due rights of a dignified and peaceful old age.
4. Stop abuse of old women in by police and by judiciary.
5. Protect the rights and interest of the Mother-in-law especially when it comes to property matters. Property belonging to mother-in-law should not be given to daughter-in-law under any kind of force, coercion or unwillingness of the mother-in-law.
6. Immediately stop misuse of Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act and punish people who file false cases.
7. Make Section 498A bailable and non-cognizable.
8. Make the Domestic Violence Act Gender Neutral and allow women to be Respondents as well.
9. Stop granting luxurious maintenances and alimonies prima-facie to earning and capable women.

10.  Allow grandparents to spend time with their grandchildren irrespective of spousal differences between the parents of the child.

Thanks and Regards

Coordinator
All India Mother-in-Law Protection Forum, Bangalore

Each individual coming together make a family and a home. Many homes taken together make a society, a village, a town, a city and a country. But in India gradually the society is breaking up due to the domestic violence happening in each and every home. Why is it that in every family problems start only after a daughter in-law enters the home?

The Government is spending enormously in combating terrorism on the borders of the country but when will the issue of domestic terrorists in the guise of daughter- in- law who Misuses the laws and creates havoc in the families be properly tackled.

Thousands of daughters-in-law have filed criminal cases on their in-laws on flimsy grounds only with the intention to harass and humiliate them and to extort money. Many such victimized mothers-in-law have founded the AIMPF (All INDIA MOTHERS-IN-LAW PROTECTION FORUM) in Bangalore on the 6th of Sept. 2009 followed by similar launch of local chapters in Delhi, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Chennai, Chhattisgarh and Lucknow. More local chapters are yet to open shortly.

The famous women rights activist, Madhu Kishwar has acknowledged the fact that the IPC Section 498A and the Domestic Violence Act are Misused and a significant number of individuals who approached Manushi these days are mothers-in-law and husbands falsely accused of marital cruelty and dowry harassment. She further said that AIMPF would strive towards the protection and welfare of such mothers-in-law in distress by creating awareness, giving them moral support and counseling them.

In the last four years 1, 23,497 women who are mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law (husband’s relatives) were arrested under 498A and also accused of domestic violence for not committing any crime under the law but because they were related to a man.

The Government should reform the present Wife-centric domestic violence law giving equal protection to the mothers-in-law and even to the husbands and children thus including every member in the society who deserve protection irrespective of gender.

Mothers-in-law are being discriminated against in-spite of their generosity just for the sin of giving birth to sons and getting them married. They are being forced to part with their earnings, savings and inherited wealth. They are also being thrown out of their own property at the behest of disgruntled daughter-in-law.

Save Family Foundation and My Nation Foundation had conducted an online survey between  April 2005 and March 2006 and found that out of 1,00,000 men surveyed 98% of men faced severe domestic violence at the hands of their wives and in-laws in the form of verbal, physical,  mental, emotional and financial abuse

1.         Economic violence was the commonest faced by 32.8%.

2.         Physical violence was the closest second at 25.2%

3.         Emotional violence followed suit at 22.2%

4.         Sexual violence contended fourth with 17.7%

5.         Verbal abuse was a problem faced by all men in the above categories.

The gruesome reality is that men suffer in silence for the fear of being discredited or ridiculed in the society. This has resulted in a lot of psychological imbalance, sometimes irreparable damage to the abused male and his family. Even the society believes that men who face domestic violence are somehow responsible for it and should be made to pay the price. This is the reason why the society does not accept/support weak men or men who are victims of domestic violence

The Protector and the Provider of the Family (Male) suffers domestic violence from boyhood to manhood in many ways. Domestic violence can inflicted on employees and servants too can be victims of it, then why only the Wife is taken into consideration under this Act?

Although this Act is propagated by the lawyers and supported by the NCW even the Judiciary is equally responsible for the present condition of the society. From times immemorial the judges avoid listening to a man and without any verification or checking the evidences blindly support the woman. The Disgruntled Wife is thus successful in having orders passed in her favor.

The day is not far when men will refuse to Marry, where will the young, greedy women go then and what will be the future generation?

International studies the world over, including those done by Murray Strauss have proved beyond reasonable doubts that both men and women are equally likely to face domestic violence from their Partners and immediate family including a woman in her natal home by her own parents.

Thus Domestic violence is NOT A ONE GENDER ISSUE as vouched by the Feminists, advocated by the Lawyers, presented by the Media envisaged by the Government, and justified by the Judiciary.

It is rather a SOCIAL ISSUE and needs to be addressed as a social problem only where in there are no ubiquitous and stereotypic assumptions, no double standards and punishment should be CRIME-BASED and not Gender based.

The whole Government system inspite of being aware of the MISUSE of this section is allowing it to continue because each one has a share in the money extorted from the husbands’ families. The ordinary citizens being unaware of this LEGAL-TERRORISM remain entangled in their problems and nobody questions the inadequacies of the Government, the Politicians, the NCW, the Bureaucrats the Law-makers, and the Judiciary. The common man is totally ignorant of these real facts. The real truth behind the Government allowing the anti-MALE, GENDER-BIASED AND ONE-SIDED laws to continue without any AMENDMENTS for years shows that the Government has no intentions to curb the menace of Section 498A MISUSE. The shop of the police, the lawyers and judiciary will stop once the law is made BAILLABLE, so the whole system wants the society to be always kept in fear of this law and there will be no one to check their supremacy.

More often than not, Section 498A is mistaken as the dowry law. This section is clubbed merely to facilitate the “Arrest on Demand” of the husband and his relatives on complaint by the married woman. But DOWRY itself is a ROWDY myth. The DOWRY PROHIBITION ACT (DPA1961) states that GIVING, TAKING, AND ABETTING THE EXCHANGE OF DOWRY is a crime. When a complaint is made why only the TAKER is made a CRIMINAL before being proven to be guilty, only on a verbal complaint without any investigation or evidence; whereas the GIVER and the ABETTER who admit the crime of giving dowry at the time of complaint are allowed to go scot-free? They are the ones who should be booked first under the section of DP 3 Act before accusing the taker.

The NCW is given huge grants from foreign funds in the name of Eliminating Dowry System by showing the statistics of the cases being registered, but never an effort has been directed towards finding the genuineness of each case being registered as 98% of the cases are found to be false after years of trial. This law is totally unnecessary.

In India there is a big HUE AND CRY only on the assumption of the word DOWRY which is not a reality but only a perception.

Extravagant and lavish marriages should be abandoned to stop the menace of the Draconian law of 498A, as the root cause lies here. The transactions of the GIFT ITEMS made in the marriages should be in presence of a Dowry Prohibition Officer. It should be mandatory for each and every marriage to be registered under the DOWRY PROHIBITION ACT (DPA1961) so as to stop the exchange of dowry and also put an end to the MISUSE of it.

Why should the so called DOWRY GIVERS and ABETTERS have a lighter punishment of one year instead of 5 years like the TAKERS? They are the real perpetrators so they should face a severe punishment.

Why do the BRIDES’ parents aspire for HIGH QUALIFIED MATCH for their ORDINARY daughters and their EXCUSE is to give dowry to fulfill the desire of the in-laws they gave dowry of which there is no proof? Is it not greed on their part? Is it not DOWRY which they expect from their future SON-IN LAW? The Bride’s parents are equally responsible as they are encouraging the giving of dowry

In some communities like the GUJRATI JAINS there is no exchange of dowry yet FALSE CASES of 498A are filed. It is quite obvious that the main reason behind is to threaten the GROOM’S family either to gain personal scores, for vengeance, to harass and humiliate the in-laws and above all to EXTORT a hefty amount in the form of MAINTENANCE AND ALIMONY. The greed of the prospective bride and her parents leads to filing of false cases with FABRICATED stories and CROCODILE TEARS. Ironically the police and the judges also believe them without making any effort to investigate or look into the evidences available. The husband and his family are considered guilty and criminals before being proven while the real culprits (bride and her family) not only go scot-free but are even successful in carrying away a lofty amount, as the whole system is sympathetic to them and ANTI-HUSBAND in attitude . This mindset of the system should change.

The NCW is blindly supporting these unjustified laws as they want to run their shop of getting foreign funds by presenting false figures of women being harassed by the in-laws. Never has the ministry spoken about the mothers and sisters (of husband) being harassed by the bride.

Why can’t a case of 498A be filed on such Brides? Not a single member of NCW has ever visited or tried to peep into the life of the brides who misuse such laws. Such wives are denied the basic rights not only in their parental homes but also face humiliation in the society. Is this the type of EMPOWERMENT that the NCW aims at giving the women of today?

For every single crime there is a separate law, then why the necessity of a special law of Section 498A which has the same provisions as mentioned in other laws; the only reason is to break marriages and create a MARRIAGE-LESS society.

This law should be abolished with immediate effect. Why give a TOOL OR WEAPON in the hands of greedy women to spread LEGAL-TERRORISM in the society, which should be dealt first before fighting the terrorists on the borders. The choice is with the citizens and the leaders to decide what they want.