Recently, several mainstream media outlets, including Lallantop, India Today and New Indian Express carried stories about Jay Dave and Alpika Pandey, both staunch Modi supporters who had married after Pandey liked one of Dave’s comments on a social media post and the two started dating each other. It was Jay Dave’s comment in support of PM Modi on one of Rahul Gandhi’s Facebook posts that brought the man from Jamnagar and Pandey from Bangalore together.
The two started dating, and six months later they got married. Jay (29) also wrote a Twitter post thanking PM Modi and the couple could be seen sporting a ‘NaMo again’ t-shirt in their post-wedding picture. The photo had gone viral and the couple had become quite popular.
https://twitter.com/TheJayDave/status/1090203788760285185
Things however took a downturn and Alpika recently took to Twitter making serious allegations against her husband. She claimed that the husband had tortured her physically and mentally. She has even accused him of posting her photo without her consent for gaining publicity on social media. In a tweet, she wrote, “My loyalty for him was doubted to the extent that he clarified many times what was I doing even when I was in the bathroom.”
Now, several media outlets, including Indiatimes, New Indian Express, Lallantop and India Today have run stories about the couple. All of them describing how the marriage out of a social media post didn’t turn out to be a fairy tale after all.
However, Jay Dave, the man in question, has a completely different story. While his side of the story has been blanked out by some media, he has this to say about the entire controversy:
“Dear India,
I am Jay Dave. And I am #her_victim.
On 28-01-2019, I was in news for my viral tweet in #NamoAgain tshirt to PM Modi about how he played a role in my marriage.
On 2-02-2019, my wife Alpika Pandey tweeted in #metoo style and accused me of torturing her. It was widely covered by media.
This is my first public response to the accusations levelled against me by my wife Alpika Pandey.
I am forced to publish my version after a year of depressing silence and failed talks with her for a joint statement.
Alpika has lived with me from 30-12-2018 evening to 01-02-2019 noon. 33 days.
I am ready for death punishment and to burn myself alive, if I ever caused intentional physical harm to her! I am tired of asking her what physical torture I did to her, but I am not given an answer till today. Because there wasn’t any!
Yes, I have photos with Amit Shah ji and Smriti Irani ji. And I have not done anything that will let down them, or Modi ji or any Modi bhakt. In fact, when I posted my photos with these two without asking them, neither of them did what my wife did.
Alpika has accused me of mental torture and using her photo for publicity.
No, I didn’t make my marriage public for publicity, it was for her safety. I tweeted to PM Modi about our marriage, to safeguard her from death threat we had been facing since 2018. She had insisted on never informing the police about it and I did exactly that. She wanted to travel to her home to see her unwell mother. I chose to make it public without asking her thinking that, once she is in news she would be safer than any unknown girl would be.
But it didn’t go well with my wife Alpika who wanted to keep the marriage private. She warned me that she would make my family cry with tears of blood and ruin us for making the marriage public. Her behavior radically changed and started screaming if I approach to talk to her. I tried to calm her and thought she will come back to her senses.
But once she reached her place on 1-02-2019 , she told me on phone, she was about to give me a surprise. I believe, she was under the influence of some vested interests and opposition.
And the next day, she made claims of being tortured. That was a shock for me. I had thought about this when she made threats, but believed that she can never harm me.
On 05.02.2019, she genuinely apologized to me for her tweet and the wrongdoing.
But she never apologized in public, and left my life tainted. She asked me if I hated her for what she did to me, I replied ‘I wish I could.’ To be honest, I hated what she did to me, but not her.
Even after the separation there has been instances of exchange of love, smiles, jokes and bitterness.
Even though most of the people I know have supported me, Lakhs of Indians had read the media reports that accused me of the torturing my wife. This was her intention. She wanted revenge to my tweet and an excuse to exit the relationship.
People including her asked me to just forget everything and move on. But The person who has spent 30 days at my home, the person I chose to spend my life with, her words matter to me.
In October 2019, My sweet wife asked me to simply delete the hate messages I was sent by people, as a result of my character assassination she did, and to move on as she doesn’t care or remember about what she did. And that she would do nothing about the allegations. I refuse to live with these allegations then.
On the other hand, I remained silent and spent each day of year in mental pain, because I gave chance to our love, I gave my entire year to save our marriage and make peace between us, but I can’t live with this depressing silence anymore since she has ignored my several requests about withdrawal of the false accusations.
Each day, I have thought of how she told me I was the only reason she was alive and she wanted to either kill herself or escape the circumstances she was in. She had accused others of physical and verbal attacks. Was I wrong in thinking that I was rescuing her, because now, even I live under the same charges!
Today, I am finally choosing the truth after losing both love and peace.
Not for just myself but those thousands of families who are in much worse condition because their daughter in laws chose to file false cases against them.
A Jawan of Indian army cut his head under a train because her mother in law threatened to file cases against him. Don’t we need a surgical strike on abuse of our judiciary? A Muslim man burnt himself alive after he was accused of domestic violence by his wife. Where are the secular Human Rights activists?
A Sikh with hemophilia (a divyang) is accused by his wife of beating her which is scientifically not possible. But he didn’t remain silent. He spoke up for himself and he didn’t have to die, I want all such men to speak up officially and seek personal support from NGOs for men, they have helped me too.
If this post reaches such men and if it saves life of even one such innocent victim, I would be happy. Please look for them in your circle, give them social warmth. It can prevent suicides.
Like my wife suggested to me, I publicly thank her for not abusing the law system till now, like she abused the social media perception after my tweet went viral. My silence was for love and peace.
But if we see bigger picture, it encourages the bribe and blackmail in our society. Stay silent and do what the woman commands and you get no legal trouble in return, or else you wil be thrown in a trap that will suck the life out of you.
While she remains silent on what physical torture I did, her claims about mental torture actually shows that she used small differences which every new couple have as an excuse and as an exit.
All I am told is, I never gave her azaadi, freedom. Maybe that’s why I handed over the key to two wheeler and put confidence in her that she can ride it when she wasn’t confident enough.
Or told her about the college in my city she can study in or tried encouraging her to work in the fields I knew.
I am accused of questioning her loyaltness because her phone remained under layers of a strong password, flip cover, and her palm. on the other hand she had fingerprint access to my phone, password to my Instagram, Paytm, Facebook, Debit card. I was simply told things like ‘Shadi ki hai to khareed nahi liya’ if I asked her what’s she doing on her phone. Claim of she shown me her phone whenever I asked, and I could snatch it if she didn’t is false.
According to her, telling me that I stare at other women, and I should completely stop talking to my ex love interests (because I was transparent enough to tell her the names) was totally ok. And me removing her insecurities about how I would never choose women of my age with a job over her wasn’t worth remembering.
She accused of not letting her leave my home alone. There is a difference between not letting someone leave the house and not being happy with someone leaving the house without telling where they are going, especially when they are new in the city.
If I wanted to restrict her, I would have restricted her from leaving my city, instead of printing out her flight ticket and arranging her connecting boarding pass from my city airport itself.
If I respond to each distorted alligations I would be violating our privacy as a couple. it would be disfraceful to talk about the reality of the bathroom claim she made in her tweets, the truth be both intimate and invading privacy.
Unless I am forced to, I will never reveal the actual terrible things she has said and done to me, or want a movie like ‘Thappad’ on them. I was the one who always stayed, no matter what.
I repeat, that if I ever caused any intentional physical harm to my wife when she lived with me, I am ready for death punishment, I am ready to burn myself to death.
Dear Media,
I thank the people from media who actually approached me to know my version and respected my privacy when I preferred to resolve the issue on personal level with my wife. Some never tried to know my version and crossed the line by making claims of sexual molestation which even Alpika never made, happy earning on lies.
The Wire wrote an article about me and Alpika and compared with women with ISIS. 12 days after her tweets, she joined forces with me to counter pulwama terror sympathizers on social media. This is how relevant your article was.
Co founder of Alt news, Mohammed slipped into her DM to exploit personal details about me, and managed to know from the name of the Facebook page we both ran, (I had made her an editor of the same until she gave threats to me), when I told her about his reality, she regretted talking to him. But the damage was already done.
If I actually wanted publicity from this, I would have spoken on the very same day when media channels apraoched me, not after waiting for a year for a trending hot topic to be an outdated forgotten news, but still pains me every day.
‘Dear’ Opposition,
Entire opposition went after exploiting our tweets to target Modi ji, forgetting themselves that Rahul Gandhi has spent years as an accused of a fake rape case. Shehla Rasheed who accused Indian army of torturing civilians, praised my wife to instigate people against me. Even, relatives of Wadra family who filed petition in Supreme court to restore internet in Kashmir (so that people can be instigated and lives of our jawans can be put at risk) joined my character assassination.
Dear Modi ji,
I apologize to you for staying silent when people trolled and attacked you by using me as a medium. I have always responded instantly with facts in your favor, but I prioritised saving my troubled family life then. I have kept doing whatever I can do for the nation. And I still follow it.
Dear father in law/UPwale Papa,
Whatever it was before the marriage, you have behaved like a gentleman with me and actually been sensible in dealing with this. I know, tomorrow it can change if your daughter demands more revenge. For now, thank you for handling this in a very mature way. Your advice on how I should divert my mind from this situation and restart my career not only touched me but I also felt bad about going public once again. But you have witnessed how my efforts for peace failed the whole year. I had no option left.
Dear Alpika,
All said and done, even though you have abused me in more ways than one, I refuse to demonize a human and pretend to be an angel myself. I too am as stubborn as you are. What went in your favor was my emotions and your gender, which you were provoked to misuse. I hate the people and the elements in the society that corrupted you, the person who told me, her sasural is awesome.
Everyone has a bright side. You travelled 85 km towards the Bangalore airport alone to meet me. We stood firmly on each other’s side when a mob of 10 people tried to intimidate us in a verbal argument in my city. The spontaneous action you took was the reason we could end the escalation. I can never forget this and those unique telepathic sparks between us.
It remains a fact that we have shared some beautiful and memorable moments which have now become past. Eating and laughing with you was fun. You became the youngest member of my family. You tried to give us tears of blood but once the news became old, tears were of memories we all made together.
I am sure whatever we have taught each other and lived together will remain a part of us, no matter how bitter equation we share today.
However, if you abuse the system, I would fight till my last breathe, like Chandrashekhar Azad did. Like Padmawati did. I can forgiven you but I can’t discard charges against me untill they are withdrawn. Because they are not from a roadside troll, it’s from someone I trusted and made my life partner.
You know that I don’t bow down, very few husbands dare to speak up. If you see how their families suffer, you would have not done this perhaps. Most of them remain silent, the only difference is their silence is driven by fear and mine was by love for you. I request you to support such victims the day you come back to senses, I have decided to dedicate a part of my life to them because I have gone through the same.
However, if anyone in any corner of the world thinks that they can use this scenario against me, you or my family or yours, I want them to know that the last time you felt threatened, I had rescued you without physically being there. That was a year ago and I have certainly upgraded. I won’t let that happen. Technically, we still are a family, a broken one though. You got rid of me, I want to get rid of what you did to me.
I don’t know about happiness, but I doubt if people abusing me ever gave you any peace, even though revenge was your choice. A big reason behind my silence was this. I had to read Gita to do this after facing Arjun’s dillema. It was like saving my one injured hand by sacrificing the other. But I had to do this as my silence had become too suffocating and you didn’t accept my request for a joint statement.
I would never get peace if people curse you like they did to me because of you. Anyone who sympathizes with me should refrain from doing it.
You have seen me responding to rivals in minutes, I took a year for this. I hope now you know, if my feelings for you were real or not.
You questioned my feelings in public, but I loved you till I become lifeless in silence. Not reuniting after what you did to us was your choice.
Khush raho Alp.
Bharat ye rehna chahiye.
Jay Shri Ram.”
Disclaimer: This does not represent the opinions of TFI Media or any of its employees. This is copied as it is from Jay Dave’s Facebook wall because we thought he deserves a wider audience.