Dear Sir/Madam,
We thank the members of Lok Sabha for debate on anti-rape laws and
their serious intent to bring checks and balances into various women
centric laws.
We thank many women parliamentarians for standing up for protecting
rights of their sons, husbands, fathers and ordinary men. We specially
thank Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Satabdi Roy and Sumitra Mahajan for
highlighting the importance to save innocent people from false cases.
Today, men in India have stood up to demand their share of “gender
equality”. They are not alone in the world. Men in more than 70
countries celebrated International Men’s Day (IMD), on November 19th
last year. Interestingly, 19th November is the birthday of Indira
Gandhi, who was often described as the “only man in the cabinet”.
The volume of research on Men’s issues is rapidly growing. The
helplines of men’s support groups in India work much more efficiently
than the Government helplines for women, created by tax payer’s money.
From years 2007 till 2009, the Government of United States of America
wanted to fund 1 billion dollars (Rs.5400 Crores) to fight against
violence against women in India and 9 other specific countries under
bill International Violence against Women Act (I-VAWA), Senate bill
S.2982, House bill HR. 4594. It was introduced by none other than John
Kerry, the current US foreign secretary and a long time senator.
However, Indian Men’s Rights Activists started lobbying at US Congress
at Washington DC, with the help of American Men’s Activists warning
against funding millions of dollars to the women’s groups in India.
They warned about misuse of these funds for promoting civil liberties
violations and abuse and jailing of innocent men, women and children
under section 498a. The American political system was shocked at the
news of arrests of thousands of innocent men and women by police in
the name of protecting women from dowry harassment. The American law
makers were urged to spend their tax payer’s money for American
children rather than funding Indian women’s NGOs. Finally, in
November, 2009, Senator John Kerry withdrew this I-VAWA bill from
Senate. Indian Men’s activists took on US ambassador Timothy Roemer in
his blog for trivializing misuse of dowry laws. He accepted that it is
up to Indian people to decide about fate of highly misused laws like
section 498a.
According to Ministry of Home Affairs, more than 64,000 married men
committed suicide compared to 32,000 women committing suicide in year
2011. Family reasons and illness reasons contribute to 50% of all
suicides in India.
It has been scientifically established that men have 5 times less
in-group favoritism compared to women. In short, women like women 5
times more than men like men. That simply throws the 18th century
stale “patriarchy theory” of Lewis Henry Morgan in a dustbin. It is
men who enact laws favouring women and its men, who have sacrificed
lives for protecting women and children since ages. No man shouted on
decks of Titanic, “Men and Children first”.
The society must take the words of wise leaders like Sharad Yadavji
and Mulayam Singhji that a Gender War will be very costly for India
and the danger of men not recruiting women is real, especially in
small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
We appreciate the way the leaders of SP, RJD and JD-U highlighted the
hypocrisy of the Bollywood industry that objectifies women with item
songs. It is a fact that Indian film industry glorifies violence
sending the message that a non-violent man is not a “Real Man”.
Today’s fathers and uncles of bigwigs in Bollywood made a lot of money
by inserting rape scenes in movies in 70s and 80s. The lesser said of
the hypocrite TV Media the better. They directly promote international
porn actresses like Sunny Leone in TV news and reality shows. Then,
these stupid irresponsible TV news anchors make tall claims of
creating a progressive society, while they make feeble attempts to
take over parliament and attempt to dictate law making from their TV
Studios.
If police keeps filling jails with lakhs of innocent men under various
women centric laws, the day is not far, when many men will simply
refuse to be “unpaid bodyguards” of women and refuse to protect women
in streets (by risking their lives). If cooking food makes a woman a
servant of man, then male protector role makes a man “unpaid
bodyguard”.
The women’s movement of Wester Countries has miserably failed. The
Center for Disease Control of United States of America has found that
1 out of 4 teenage girls in that country have sexually transmitted
diseases (STDs) that can cause cervical cancer. 80% of criminals in
prisons in USA are from broken families, who have not seen their
fathers. In spite of 60 years of Feminist movement, the American
cities of Washington DC and New York are so unsafe for women and men
that women are afraid of going to many localities even in the day
time. The crime against women in these cities is much higher than
crimes against women in Delhi. The murder rate in USA is double that
of India. Feminists have failed to bring any change in crime
statistics in that country.
However, India’s ill-educated journalists have no intellectual
capabilities to look at pathetic crime statistics in western
countries. May be Justice Markandey Katju was right, when he remarked
about media and journalists, “The general rut is very low and I have a
poor opinion of most media people. Frankly, I don’t think they have
much knowledge of economic theory or political science or literature
or philosophy. I don’t think they have studied all this.”
In cities like Delhi, even men are unsafe at night and few men will
have courage to roam freely in many areas at midnight. Two to three
times more men than women get murdered in Delhi every year. Unless,
families are strengthened and value system is maintained in the
society, no amount of laws can reduce crimes in the society.
“The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and
robbers there will be.” wrote Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC –
531 BC). Volumes of draconian Laws, family breaking and miscarriage of
justice can unleash more crime and more criminals on the society than
creating a crime free society for our future generations.
We again thank the members of Parliament for diversifying the debate
on anti-rape laws, instead of just surrendering to fanatic ideologues
in women’s movement.
Best Regards
Rajesh Vakharia
Member
Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF)