Beginning Saturday, 4 October 2014, the death of Raghavendra Guruprasad and his two boys has been discussed in newspapers, on TV channels, and in the social media.
For those who have not heard about him, Guruprasad was an ordinary Indian male, with above average intelligence, who worked hard to get a good education, married for love ten years ago, had two boys with the woman he loved, and worked as an assistant professor at a University for a living. He was filled with thoughts of a long life of togetherness with his wife and children. Guruprasad wanted to ensure that his family, his most precious possession, remained intact, even if it meant that he had to face humiliation in private and public due to his wife, even if it meant he had to suffer physical abuse in the hands of his in-laws.
What Guruprasad was gifted in return was a package of lies, in the form of a divorce petition and a false criminal case under Section 498A of IPC. Despite being arrested, imprisoned and put through legal turmoil, and despite being physically separated from his wife and children, Guruprasad never gave up his efforts to reunite with them because he felt that his sons needed a father. He also desperately reached out to his wife only to be shunned and rejected over and over, which eventually led him to end his misery by taking his own life. Incidentally, Guruprasad had also written letters to various authorities that he could think of, pleading them to help him, before he gave up hope.
His last phone conversation with his wife, which is available online, was his last cry for help. He hinted at ending his life, and when his wife asked him (very coldly) as to what use it would be, he said, "I am not sure of what use it would be, but I am unable to endure this." When his wife asked him why he called and disturbed her, he replied saying, "You say that my phone calls disturb you, but I have been disturbed every moment that I have had to spend away from you, my family." His 7-page suicide note describes his attachment to his wife and children, and the pain he was going through because of being forced to be away from them, and because of the social pressure and rejection he faced as a result.
If this was all there was to it, the print and electronic media would not have paid much attention. We would have seen a passing reference to "a faculty member of a University ending his life over marital woes." The feminists would not have jumped up and down in live news rooms bashing him up, and along with him, the entire male gender, and using it as one more opportunity to highlight victimhood of women.
Guruprasad had written one last letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs about the sufferings of Indian men due to the draconian law, IPC Section 498A, and begged that it be scrapped so that more men do not have to suffer like him. For TV channels that love airing high-pitched verbal battles between feminists and men's rights activists, this was definitely a topic they could milk to increase their TRPs during primetime news.
However, the main reason Guruprasad's story grabbed so much attention was because he allegedly killed his sons before ending his own life. The feminists, the self-professed psychologists and psychoanalysts, and certain sections of the media isolated this specific detail, and made it a topic of discussion, to label Guruprasad "a psycho", "a maniac", "an inhuman, barbaric creature", "a disgrace to mankind", and more. They asserted that the filing of criminal sections and the divorce case against Guruprasad were justified, because he eventually turned out to be a violent savage, a pervert, a deliberate criminal, and a cold-blooded murderer. While IPC Section 498A has been facing sharp criticism from various quarters in the recent past, the feminists, in a desperate bid to defend the poisonous fruit of their labor, spared no effort to malign Guruprasad's character and life as a whole.
The fact that Guruprasad fought and won rights to visit his children for a few hours, two days in a month, speaks about his fatherly love. The fact that the children were always excited and happy to meet with their father says a lot about how much the children loved him. Guruprasad's suicide note reveals how much he cared about his boys, and in one part of his note he even mentions his worry about the fact that his wife treated his sons badly. It is hard to imagine how badly Guruprasad's heart and spirit were broken that he chose to take his boys along with him. It is not hard to imagine that he may have worried about the fate of his boys growing up and surviving in an increasingly anti-male society before taking the drastic step.
During a conversation about Guruprasad's tragedy, a friend said, "You know, it's not two murders and a suicide, it's three murders." I was speechless for a moment. "Indeed!", I thought, "it's three murders". The anti-male society, the feminists, the police, the legal system and judiciary, had together mutilated Guruprasad's spirit beyond recognition and killed him, and, are thereby guilty of killing his children too. The same feminists who are berating Guruprasad for "murdering children", would show no mercy towards the boys once they grow up into adults, and end up being emotionally castrated and slowly killed because of social misandry and brutal anti-male laws.
It is quite easy to pass moral judgments against Guruprasad, but it would be good to resist that temptation and understand that it is extremely difficult for a common man to endure the trauma caused by false allegations, fabricated criminal cases (especially those filed by an intimate partner) and long drawn trials to prove his innocence. Thousands of ordinary men may have had the thought of committing murder or suicide, under similar circumstances, but a very small proportion of men actually act on it. Most men, who are otherwise bright, energetic, and capable of contributing their unique talents, knowledge and physical labor to the country, live miserable lives and die a little everyday, thanks to laws like IPC 498A.
I recall Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Madison Square Speech in which he vowed to get rid of all the archaic, inane and useless laws, which make life difficult for the common citizen, and prevent him from functioning effectively in the society. He should have pinned socially dangerous laws like IPC 498A and the Domestic Violence Act and useless laws like the Dowry Prohibition Act to the top of the list.
The English rulers had gifted us with a self-serving legal system to destroy the social fabric of India and create a host of problems for the common man. During the next 66 years, the Congress Party and its Leftist allies enacted more and more laws only to create more and more problems, without ever resolving the existing ones. These past Governments, the law makers, the feminists, the police, and the judiciary are the actual reason why common law-abiding citizens like Guruprasad are driven to commit unimaginable crimes.
Guruprasad's incident is not the first of its kind, but if we don't want more such incidents to occur in the future, we need to say "NO" to State intervention in and criminalization of personal and family relationships. We don't want a lawless society, but we will definitely benefit from becoming a society with less laws and the first law that should be trashed is IPC Section 498A, YES, but that would require the present Government to exhibit the same courage and determination in tackling rabid feminism as they would to tackle terrorism.
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