Domestic violence against men

Mohit Sharma
Domestic Violence has been recognized across the world as a form of violence that affects a person’s life in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically – and is a violation of basic human rights. Various countries have identified it as a serious threat to a person’s overall well-being thus providing relief in various forms. India has also identified domestic violence as a crime and provides relief and protection from it – albeit to only Women!
Indian men facing domestic violence at the hands of wife or female partner is a harsh reality. However, no one including our government has taken any stand on addressing it. Domestic Violence is a serious social issue, but men who face domestic violence in India have nowhere to go since the law doesn’t treat them as victims.
In most countries in the world, the laws against domestic violence provide protection to both men and women. Men can also seek restraining orders from courts, which restrain the abusive partner or wife from perpetrating abuse and even contacting the victim. Whereas in India, family violence against men is almost legal as there is no provision in any law to protect a man, who faces violence from wife or other female family members. There are several cases where a husband has been battered, abused, tortured by wife in connivance with her own family. Many a time  the violence is so brutal that the husband suffers extreme injuries, in some cases he is killed as well.
IAS officer D K Ravi who committed suicide in Bangalore on 16 March 2015, Karnataka, is also believed to have been a victim of 498A as reports are emerging that he was threatened with a false dowry case. This had allegedly happened when he confronted his wife after it was revealed that his wife had eloped with her classmate in her college days and had married him secretly. This fact was kept hidden from Ravi and he came to know about it after marriage.
These are just some examples which throw light on the dark and gory side of Section 498A – the Dowry Law of India as it gets misused highly.
Misuse of dowry laws is not a recent phenomenon and the judiciary of India is totally responsible for the growing misuse of dowry law and the resultant abuse of innocent men in the process.The Government and courts should worry more about men avoiding women altogether than being worried about saving marriages by amending laws. Because, when it comes to protecting innocent men from abusive women in marriages and the resultant frivolous and vexatious litigation, the Govt. and the Judiciary score negative.
This situation is mainly due to patriarchal thinking in the society, that men are stronger than women and they can defend themselves with physical force. In our society, every man is treated as guilty unless proven innocent and every woman is treated as innocent proven guilty. This thinking should be changed. Its high time India keeps pace with the rest of the world and makes the laws against domestic violence gender neutral.
Save Indian Family Foundation, an organization working on men’s rights, has now approached MPs to submit a Private Member Bill in the Parliament to start the steps towards enacting a law for protection of men from domestic violence. It is long overdue. Domestic violence is also recognised in most countries as spousal violence and not man on woman violence. To keep pace with these developments, there has to be a policy to prevent family violence against men, believes SIFF.
Most abused men do not run away from their abusers and apply for divorce, because they are either afraid of losing access to their children or they are afraid of getting implicated in false cases of dowry harassment. They also dread huge financial losses and long drawn litigations in the process, given the insensitive and lackadaisical attitude of the Indian Judiciary, especially towards men.
In 2004, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) has found that about 1.8% or an estimated 60 lakh women have perpetrated physical violence against husbands without any provocation. However, men are more likely to be threatened and attacked by male relatives of the wife than the wife herself. The strange aspect however is, men are not asked if they are victims of domestic violence in these surveys.
When physical violence and threats against men by wife’s relatives are taken into account, an estimated 3 crore men are facing domestic violence in India.
As there is a lot of social stigma towards men abused by women, most of the male victims do not come out in open and do not share their ordeal with family, friends or colleagues. Male victims of domestic violence are ridiculed and considered as unmanly. Such thinking is chauvinistic and it is harmful.
Violence on men can range from anything like – physical violence including slapping, pushing, hitting by wife, her parents or relatives; emotional violence with wife threatening suicide to intimidate and control the husband; verbal abuse if husband remains in contact with his parents or comes home late from work; throwing objects like utensils, cell phones and crockery at the husband; sexual abuse if husband denies sex to mental abuse by constant threats of implicating the husband and his family under false case of dowry and domestic violence.
Today, many women have serious anger management issues. They also seem to bring the stress of the workplace to the home. This is one of the main reasons of domestic violence against men. The other reasons include intolerance and anger at non-fulfillment of expectations. Sometimes, inability of husband to meet monetary demands of wife also leads to abuse and violence
Times are changing and there are many men whose wives are more educated than their husbands and earn more. However, the burden of running the house still rests on the man owing to 16th century patriarchal beliefs and this paves the path for abuse of men. Such a law could allow such husbands to seek maintenance from an abusive wife and lead a dignified life free from abuse.
Male victims of family violence go through low self-esteem and their performance at workplace suffers. Thousands of such men are approaching psychiatrists, who are not of much help, when a law to provide protection to men and restrain the women does not exist.
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

Follow our WhatsApp channel