According to a DNA India report, last week, 150 men from different parts of the country took a dip in holy river Ganga in order to get “rid of toxic feminism.” The men were celebrating the 10th anniversary of an organization called Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF).
According to SIFF website, it is a prominent Men’s Rights Organization in India. It fights for men’s human rights and seeks to protect men and their families from Government sponsored undemocratic social experiments. Its mission is to expose and create awareness about large scale violations of Civil Liberties and Human Rights in the name of women’s empowerment in India. SIFF wants the laws in India to be made gender neutral. SIFF provides guidance and support to men and their families, who face domestic violence and false cases of dowry harassment and section 498a.
The organization has also developed an app in order to protect men’s rights. It also has a dedicated helpline number “08882498498”.
SIFF believes that laws such as section 498a, 497, section 18–23 are extremely biased against the men. If one goes through these laws s/he would definitely notice that men have been projected as some sort of monsters. While making laws our lawmakers strongly believed that women can never commit crime and possibility of misuse of such gender biased laws didn’t even occur to their mind. There have been various cases where these laws have been grossly misused in a vindictive manner.
The organization alleges that Indian laws are more favorable to women. Section 498A has been grossly misused by Indian women. The courts have themselves admitted it. Contrary to the spirit of Justice which assumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, IPC 498A assumes exactly the opposite as it was originally framed. The onus effectively fell on the accused to prove his innocence rather than on the accuser of proving the guilt. In a judgment in 2005, the Supreme Court of India had to say the following on IPC 498A, “As noted above the object is to strike at the roots of dowry menace. But by misuse of the provision a new LEGAL TERRORISM can be unleashed. The provision is intended to be used as a shield and not an assassin’s weapon.” Another bench of the Court observed in 2014 with regards to the same section of the IPC, “the fact that Section 498A is a cognisable and non-bailable offence has lent it a dubious place of pride amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives”.
However, now the Supreme Court has taken the bull by its horn and ordered that no automatic arrests were to be made with such complaints and also ordered the setting up of Family Welfare Committees in every district to look into the complaints filed under sec 498A of the Indian Penal Code. The Court made it clear that no arrests were to be made before the Committee filed its brief report about the factual aspects and opinions in the matter. Additionally, such complaints are to be investigated only by a designated Investigating Officer of the area.