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As a member of growing Indian Diaspora in Western countries, you may have heard ****ut or known young professionally qualified men, who after arriving from India have quickly ascended into secure and well paid jobs to establish themselves into acceptable standards in foreign lands. Such Indian men are popularly referred to as FOB (Fresh off the Boat). They are pride of India and pride of the land that have chosen to reside in.
You may have also come across few young Indian men who were born and brought up in foreign lands, in a land that was adopted by their forefathers. This group of young men is popularly referred to as ABCD (American/Australian Born Con****sed Desi).
Irrespective of whether a guy is FOB or ABCD, at some stages in his life, he starts (or is persuaded to) searching for his life partner, a perfect quintessential woman!
Directly or indirectly his attention is drawn to large number of educated and qualified brides from India. Perhaps, you have actively participated in conversations that discuss relative merits of matrimonial websites that specialise in servicing young brides and grooms of Indian Origin.
Whether the guy is still a NRI with significant roots still back in India or he is citizen (Permanently Resident) of the land that he is now living in, he will usually browse through matrimonial advertisements appearing in Indian and local papers and increasingly on the internet sites.
But, does he know of the dangers that are lurking just beneath the surface for getting married to girls from India?
If he is naïve and gullible (like I once was), he will foresee no problems whatsoever. After all, he is well established in a foreign land and has some strength to support the woman that he is hoping to bring into his life. Moreover, his prospective bride is also going to have s****f standards. She will also be a professional and when given a chance, she will also carve out her own success story. So, what is the problem?
In one phrase, the answer is “IPC 498A”. Yep, read it again, “IPC 498A”. That one phrase can become a problem that is big enough to drive many a success****l men of Indian origin to commit suicide. This is the price that these unfortunate men pay for their overseas success.
To those of you who have never heard of this phrase, it stands for “Indian Penal Code 498A”. As you may have surmised by now, “IPC 498A” is some s****f Indian law. It is a ****ll family nightmare for those who do get trapped.
Very few men come out of IPC 498A unscathed. Most come out after having lost major portion of what they had been working for. Few come out with virtually nothing but the clothes that they were wearing. Few become angry and stay that way for rest of their lives. Few become insane or suffer from life long diseases. Few get branded and are levelled with worst terrorists of the world. Those who are not prepared to face any of this, suc****b to the comf****f committing suicide.
“What the heck is IPC 498A?” Is that what I heard you ask?
Well, my fellow married or unmarried Men, watch out for this one!!!
Another name for IPC 498A is “CRUELTY BY HUSBAND AND RELATIVES”.
From what is haphazardly do****ented, IPC 498A was drafted by esteemed Government of India to counter the growing problem in India wherein young brides and married women that were being harassed and tortured. Purportedly, the reason for this cruelty towards women was to extort money from her parents or her relatives. And the obvious perpetrators were husband and his family members. The IPC 498A was drafted to combat any and all such cruel husbands and serve them with a swift Justice.
AHA! So you say, they deserve i**** is a mira****us that Indian government came up with a law that could provide swift justice.
But what does a torturing Indian husband have to do with a man who is not living in India? After all, the latter is a professional, who is generally well educated and surely he would not stoop down to level that may be perceived as cruelty.
Answer as it turns out is “EVERYTHING!!”
As a child, I used to hear of phrases such as “Beauty is in the eye of beholder”; “Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”.
From the lens of IPC 498A, “Cruelty is in the eye of beholder too”.
IPC 498A allows any married woman (Marriage has to be considered as legitimate in India) to approach the police in India and make a complaint that her husband and/or his family is being cruel towards her. In lot of cases, she does not even have to give a written complaint. Her oral testimony is considered true. After all, there have been no women in India, who can lie. The oral statement provided by the grieving woman is noted down by an obliging police officer. Once this formality is completed, her testimony is considered to be a part of “State Witness”. Depending upon the relative shrewdness of the complaining woman or the police officer taking her complaint, the focus quickly shifts towards the assets that are owned by the husband and his family. The po****rtured woman is en****led to complain of being harassed by more than one individual from her husband’s family irrespective of that person’s age, gender or health.
After the complaining process is finished, the woman is free to go wherever she chooses. She is a “STATE WITNESS”. She does not have to make herself available again.
Thus, you may have gathered that Indian Government has made it is extremely easy for any married woman to make a complaint. Alas! Perhaps you have had more experience than Government of India that some women can speak lie too.
Judging from the statistics of past few years of IPC 498A (shown in a table that will be shortly attached), it seems that 98% of women in India who have made complaints under IPC 498A have resorted to various degrees of lie. Perhaps, the magnitude and intensity of lie uttered by a woman depends upon the upbringing and family values that she was taught as a ****.
Remember, I said that “IPC 498A” was designed to serve swift justice. In a policy that is akin to “Shoot first, Verif****en****y later (if at all)” philosophy, IPC 498A allows Indian Police to promptly prepare arrest warrants for everyone that is named in the woman’s complaint.
The most startling aspect of the IPC 498A arrest warrants is that the Indian bureaucratic machinery responsible for preparing them somehow manages to conclude bulk of their task on Friday afternoon! So, everyone who is named in the complaint under IPC 498A gets arrested on Friday evening. Since the courts are not ****lly operational on Saturday and Sunday, most of the people who are arrested spend their weekend inside a police lockup. Most usually get bails by Monday or Tuesday to be released from custody of Police, but bail is after all a bail. It is essentially a virtual arrest wherein you have freedom to move ****ut instead of being locked up one place.
Constant presence of young and success****l NRI men eagerly browsing the matrimonial websites to search for their life partners in India completes the picture. While the Indian law in itself does not seem to discriminate against NRI, the prospective brides, her family and the Police certainly seem to have a formula that is well suited to a NRI.
A NRI man may find that shortly after his marriage, his newly wed wife from India is behaving very differently from what she used to. She has generally become more demanding and gets too angry too fast. He may try to reason with her or perhaps consider sending her back to India.
Maybe, she is too depressed by having seen overseas life with all its gloss removed, or she had ****y-friend back in India that her parents did not approve of. Each woman had unique set of reasons and the sentiments towards her marriage. It becomes a problem if a woman was unscrupulous to start with or she can be talked into making an IPC 498A complaint. If she is born and bred in Urban India, she may be bold enough to do it herself.
There are police stations in India that specialise in providing ready made typed IPC 498A complaint do****ents that only need to be read out by the woman, since many still do not know on how and what to complain ****ut. She is encouraged to add the relatives of husband who are living locally.
What if she is not prepared to read, “No problems, Ma’am!” There will usually be some member of police force, who, on behalf of the woman will be eager to read out her complaints/ self experiences from an already typed do****ent.
It was extremely puzzling to read that almost all the NRI from Northern India were accused of holding and dragging their estranged wife by her hair while brethren from South were accused of beating her with his footwear. The repe****ive violence stories were as puzzling as they were unsettling. Surely the Indian men had to have some variations on how they had abused their ex-wives. You could predict what was going to be in paragraph 5 of the complaint solely based upon the men’s name in paragraph 1. This enigma was solved after the discovery of ready made 498A complaint sheets. The BEST example of Indian supportiveness and “Indian Ingenuity, Global Impact”!
The woman is advised by police to not contact her husband or his family until all the paperwork is ready. After the paperwork is ready, she is advised to contact them and to make her specific demands known giving them extremely short time to comply. If they do not agree, the police swings into action and makes few arrests. The hell breaks lose.
If a husband is overseas when he comes to know of this, he has two options. First is to immediately suc****b to his wife’s demands. It is a price that he has to pay to free members of his family who are in jail. He may attempt to fly to India to s****ut the mess. He usually has no idea that he is headed directly into jail. Once, in India, he may be arrested on bail and cannot go back to his normal country of residence. His passport is taken away to ensure this. He has to stay until his trial is heard. In that case, he loses his job, his car, his house, etc…
The easiest way out of this predicament is to settle with his wife, which usually means that he has to pay her (or her family) large sum of money. The fact that he’d also be signing a divorce papers is a certainty. After he has been fleeced, he is free to go back to his foreign country so as to nurse his wounds or earn money to pay off the loan that he had to take to buy his freedom.
These men are perhaps the luckiest (sorry!!! least unfortunate) in terms of actual injuries. Unless you consider the fact that he will now be carrying his silent and unspoken wounds and emotional scars of being scammed for rest of his life.
It progressively gets worse for the rest. Those who are smart enough to stay overseas and choose to fight with the complaint of wife have to put up with extremely slow court machinery of India. The actual case of 498A is likely to see trial after 7 years in waiting. In all those 7 years, he, his parents and his relatives are under bail (arrest without being in jail).
Perhaps, those who do not have any family in India, or those whose wife did not name anyone other than the husband are less unfortunate. You might be inclined to think that, but you are wrong.
For a woman with some clout and police who are determined to get him, they have an option of Interpol. Police can issue an Interpol “Red Corner Notice” for such people. Interpol alert as you may already know is usually reserved for hardened criminals such as serial murderers, terrorists and drug dealers.
I have heard ****ut a brilliant and success****l software programmer (only child of his parents) who initially tried to hide somewhere in USA after his beloved wife put him on Interpol red corner notice for him. She had gone to India for her sister’s wedding and never came back to him. She went to Police to claim that her husband had asked for Rs. 1,00,000/- from her parents! The husband used to work in a large multinational before he got listed on Interpol, from which he was sacked as soon as his American manager came to know of his Interpol status. No sane company will want to hire a person who is branded akin to a terroris**** took him over 6 months to realize what he had been dealt with only to be shot by a vigilant US police officer ****cognized him. His father suc****bed to heart attack shortly after his son’s death. His mother is not so lucky. She is still alive and locked up in a mental hospital chanting either “My husband did not ask for Rs. 1,00,000!!!” or “Give me Rs. 1,00,000, I need to send that to USA to bring my son back to life”. Her Doctors think that her son was a terrorist who was killed by US Police and he probably was involved in September 2001 attacks.
What happened to his former wife? She was never called to any court or police station again. After maintaining silence for ****ut 5 years, she finally confessed that no one had asked her for any money, but she was upset with her husband who had re****sed to buy her a Lexus and was only prepared to spend for Honda. She cried openly. Was it for the turmoil that she had caused or was it for the car that she never got to drive?
Watch out my fellow unmarried brothers, after few meaningless affairs, this beauti****l and charming young woman is back on internet marriage market. She has now grown wiser and is currently looking for “well educated, smart, success****l and down to earth NRI Dulha”.
Marriage - the most controversial social ins****ution - has always been at the center-stage of debates. However, of late, since the last decade, a new trend of criminalizing marital disputes has begun. This trend has started victimizing the "Indian Husband" and his family in a big way and has resulted in,
Skyrocketing expectations from men and nose-diving acceptance levels.
Ever-increasing suicides by husbands - 6 times the rate they are born.
Family-breaking.
Child and elder abuse.
Erosion of faith over the ins****ution of marriage leading to promulgation of ****sexual relationships, pre-marital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, etc.
Increased juvenile crime.
Drug abuse.
Teenage pregnancies (the trend is catching up and no sooner would be a social reality in India).
Resentment amongst affected, victimized and unheard men and their families towards the police, judiciary, the law and order system, the criminal justice system and the Govt. at large.
Splurging divorce rates.
All in all, it has created newer, unforeseen and unanticipated problems in the society. However, religious conservatives and social contractors are still not opening their eyes to the problem. Thanks to their stubborn behavior they are compromising human lives and human happiness in their over-zealous efforts to "save" the ins****ution of marriage.
However, quintessentially, all they do is to pressurize the man in the marriage to accept unreasonable demands from the woman and/or the society. For e.g. the recent drama that unfolded in Shoaib Malik's case. Till the time news of marriage of Shoaib-Sania were not reported no one (including Ayesha and her family) were really bothered ****ut the alleged marriage of Shoaib and Ayesha. But as soon as the news came up, suddenly everyone was interested.
Merely because Shoaib signed on the divorce papers does not validate the marriage because Shoaib had been subjected to "Extortion Patronized by State (EPS)" and was forced to sign the divorce papers. Marriage had been forced unto Shoaib.
A false case under sections 498A, 420 and 506 was lodged against Shoaib and he was publically exhumed by the media. The Imam of Kolkata threatened to issue "Fatwa" against Shoaib if he did not accede to Ayesha's demands. The police grilled Shoaib for 2 hours and retained his passport as well.
Now my question here is, "Who is Ayesha Siddiqui?" Has anyone bothered to know that? She is just a woman claiming to have married Shoaib some 8 years back! So where was she for 8 years?
No one - the police, the judiciary, the media, the society, the religious conservatives, the social contractors - is really bothered to ask these questions to Ayesha. Why? Merely because she is a woman and Shoaib is a man? So the net result is - when a woman complains against a man in the nature of a marital relationship, the woman is ALWAYS RIGHT, no matter how illogical, after-thought the complaint is and how extortionary are her demands?
When out-rightly Ayesha and her family were denying involvement of any money in the settlement, than why media reports of "150 million of settlement" made rounds? And why now, after allegedly receiving the amount, Ayesha no longer wants to pursue the case?
Is it not a clear case of "Extortion Patronized by State (EPS)?"
The reason I am posing these questions here is because no one else did.
But everyone was either a party or a silent witness to Shoaib's turmoil of going through a 498A case. It was only SIFF that supported Shoaib which was an unexpected welcome move even by Pakistan.
A woman makes an unsupported claim (of marriage) against a man, does not even come out in open and based on that complaint, the civil liberties of a man is violated, his re****tion is strangulated in broad daylight, he is extorted and made to cough out a fortune and no questions are raised against the irrational and unreasonable behavior of the woman, no support is extended to the man and any such support is marked off as "unexpected"!!!
Merely because the allegations pertain to a marital dispute, anything and everything under the sun - starting from violation of civil liberties to broad daylight murder of social re****tion to state sponsored extortion (EPS) - goes unchallenged?
Is marriage a crime for men in India?
Because Shoaib was a celebrity, he still faced very little harassment and even his harassment got widespread publicity. Had it been some common man, he would have been thrown behind the bars and no one would have bothered ****ut him and his family even.
As per National Crime Records Bureau in the year 2008 alone, 37369 women and 127492 men lost their civil liberties as they were arrested under Section 498A without trial or investigation. Taking into account 5 years from 2004 - 2008, a total of 160416 women and 550804 men have undergone a similar ordeal.
All this goes on because not only marriage is a crime for Indian men; the Indian Govt. is not taking any steps to contain the abuse of humanity perpetrated by the notorious Section 498A. Indian Govt. is directly responsible for such inhuman treatment of men in India. The Supreme Court of India had warned against Section 498A terming it as "Legal Terrorism" way bac****he 20th of July 2005. Close to five years have passed and the Indian Govt. is sleeping over it.
With the Shoaib Malik episode the "Extortion Patronized by State (EPS)" came out in open completely.
While the dispute between Malik and Siddiqui was completely civil, a wrong law and wronger implementation of the law allowed the Siddiquis to extort the Maliks and a civil dispute was criminalized endangering the civil liberties of an otherwise law abiding citizen. Such criminalization of civil disputes is a very dangerous trend. If the Indian Govt. does not react to this scenario and take a corrective step by scrapping Section 498A, then it will be directly responsible for the civil liberties of citizens being violated, their ****ndamental right to fair justice bein****eached and lives and years of life of innocent people being tanned in this ****rnace of social injustice.
It is now very clear that the very concept of marriage is crime in India and any woman can extort any man in the name of marria****hether they met, got married, cohabited together, led a family life et. al. are all pointless debates. What matters is that there is a complaint from a woman against a man and that is basis enough for all kinds of injustices on the accused man - social, legal, financial, emotional, humanitarian - and this is what I object to vehemently.
Even the society does not seem to have any problem with such high dose of inhumanity being practiced widespread. When I started a discussion ****ut this on the Facebook, I got some replies like, "498A is much justified on Shoaib because he ditched Ayesha to marry another woman".
So there is a pre-judged notion in the society that merely because Ayesha is complaining, Shoaib must have ditched her and that pre-judged notion becomes the basis of all injustices henceforth. If Ayesha was so truth****l, why she did not pursue the case? Why accept money? Why not come out in open? But no one will ask these questions as somewhere silently everyone wants criminalization of marriage because it fits the "Male-Disposability Syndrome".
However, the fact remains - Marriage is a crime for men in India.
Either stop criminalizing marriages or stop marriages!
Wife demands 1 crore as dowry; kills hubby
Bangalore: In a shocking revelation, Bangalore based techie Ashish Goel committed suicide after his wife allegedly threatened him with a false dowry harassment case if he does not pay 1 crore to her.
Fearing that the dowry laws are heavily loathed against a man, Ashish killed himself by hanging at his BTM Layout residence leaving behind a suicide note which clearly implicated his wife in his death.
Ashish, a resident of Aligarh got married to Ruchi who hailed from Meeru**** is learnt that Ruchi came to know ****ut Ashish’s pre-marital affair and that became a constant source of torture for Ashish as Ruchi left his home three months after marriage. Later, Ashish brought her to Bangalore, but was being pressurized from Ru**** family to take up a job in Meerut.
Ashish got a call from Ruchi on June 20 in which she apparently demanded Rs. 1 crore from him failing which she would file a dowry harassment case against him and his family. This th****cted as the trigger for Ashish committing suicide.
Interestingly, the Mico Layout Police inspector re****sed to register a suo motu case against Ruchi despite the suicide note clearly holding her responsible for the suicide. He said he would book even a dog if a woman files a complaint agains****.
It is pertinent to mention here that when a married woman commits suicide within 7 years of her marriage, due to any reason, immediately the husband and his family is thrown behind bars without any investigation under Section 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code.
This bias exists against men despite the fact that every year almost double the number of married men commit suicide compared to married women as per official suicide statistics from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB records say that from 2005 – 2008, 223, 167 married men have committed suicide vis-à-vis 1,18,345 married women.
Recently the Law Commission was once again tasked with the job of reviewing 498a , and once again recommending if this needed to be changed. However the interesting thing is the stand that the media has taken on this whole issue. From the type of media reports of the media a few salient points are amply clear.
Media was thoroughly enjoying the gender war:- Innocent men going to jail, Mothers and sisters bein****risoned, Men coming out with a sense of vengeance. Some men creating ingenious methods like filing cases for giving dowry or thousands of dharnas and press conferences taking place on 498a all made for excellent masala news which the media seemed to enjoy. There is a sense of dissatisfaction in the media that these will cease of 498a becomes billable and people stop suffering. Let us ****rther analyze this paragraph ****rther.
Media’s agenda of family breaking may fail:- Lets face it, media loves to see breaking families. Not only does breaking families leads to more ****y news like increasing crime, breaking families brings immense financial gain to the media and its advertisers. How ? Here is how ….
Lets say a united family of husband, wife, grandparents and grandchildren share one house, one newspaper, one fridge, one TV and one microwave. The moment the wife is separated from the husband she will need a while new set of duplicate articles for herself essentially doubling the sales of all these articles. So the more number of times a family divides the more the consumerism increases. Consequently we rarely ever see an article in the Indian newspapers and the television preaching family harmony. Infact the press seems to almost hail broken marriages and divided families and single parenthood for women is made to look as the cool thing. Women who choose to remain single are projected as role models for women to follow and emulate. 498a is a major fascinator in family breaking since once this case is filed the chances of reconciliation are virtually reduced to zero. The media is not too much in favor of 498a changing and families remaining united.
The way the issue is being projected :- The way the articles on 498a amendment are projected all are very uncannily similar.
1. The media knows that the majority of Indians would have this law changed , however the media still always manages to find and interview on those people who they know have a vested interest in keeping this law alive. The faces against amendment of Section 498a are all familiar faces and consist of mostly female lawyers and some feminist NGO’s naming whom in this blog will surely attract a defamation case against me. However it is common knowledge that 498a is the most major source of revenue for the lawyers. Over 30% of all bail cases arise out of illegal arrests and detentions under section 498a and if this is removed it will be a big blow to the income of the lawyers, a majority of whose income arises out of bail cases.
2. Media always “questions” the fact if 498a needs to be changed. The articles always have a headline question the fact if a change is needed. If after countless court judgments, overwhelming misuse data, millions of extreme civil rights violations and Thousands of husbands suicides later the media still questions the fact if 498a really need to the changed, it shows a inherent bias and exposes the fact that the media is not happy that the law is changing.
3. Suicides of Husbands and arrests of women almost find no coverage. The Media almost never fails to print the fear mongering and the lies that the feminist lawyers and some radical feminist NGO’s plant ****ut Indian women becoming more inflammable than gasoline after they married and spontaneously catching fire anytime they are in their husbands home, however it always conveniently ignores the fact that twice the number of husbands are driven t0 suicide as compared to wives, whi**** coming from the Ministry of Home affairs. The Husband data is conveniently brushed as e****mical reasons and the wives suicides are even more conveniently brushed put under the dowry death header. If the husband can commit suicide due to e****mical reasons why can't the wife also commit suicide due to e****mical reason. Does not the wife have an equal responsibility as the husband to improve the e****mical status of the family failing which she can choose to kill herself , a logic frequently used to justify the suicides of husbands?However one never finds such arguments questioning the absurdity of the data collection and the suicide statistics in the media.
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