Men, Mulayam and misuse of women-centric laws

He didn't know me but he cried over the phone like a 10-year-old when he spoke to me. He said, "Didi my only mistake was being in a relationship with her for a year. My friends told me she has several other partners and I started distancing myself. Thus began the trauma of my life that hasn't ended till today. She threatened me to get married to her else she would file a rape case against me. She did that. She said that I raped her on the 'pretext of marriage.'

Though I had not even met her for a year, her medical tests showed she was sexually active. How do I prove that it was not me? My family has been thrown out of the place we had been living in for 20 years. My parents are on the verge of collapse. I have lost my job. I have lost my life. Will I be saved?" I convinced him that the truth will be heard and he will win.

He ended, saying, "She still says if I marry her, she would take back the cases. I will never marry her. Today she has filed a false rape case against me, tomorrow she will file a false dowry case against my entire family."

I wished him luck for his cases, with moist eyes. He is just 22. He is Salman (name changed) and he is not the only one.

India saw a watershed movement against the crime of rape in December 2012. The only story that seemed to be on air, in print, in our minds and hearts was story of the paramedic student who died after a brutal gangrape.

The momentum is still ripe with thousands of seminars, debates and discussions happening day by day, week by week on how to prevent crime against women. Women empowerment and safety of women has become a political issue, with each party making these a prime agenda in their manifesto.

Last few days have been difficult for the Samajwadi Party and Mulayam Singh Yadav, in particular, as he dared to bring the often unspoken, factually correct but politically incorrect, 'other' side of the rape story.

An RTI response filed with the Delhi Police reveals that from 2008-2013, out of 27 complaints of rape registered at 6 Police Stations under the New Delhi District, 11 cases were that of 'rape with promise of marriage' and two were where accused and complainant were in a live-in relationship.

Pune Police in 2010 released a report that stated 74 per cent of reported cases of rape were rape on 'promise of marriage.'

According to a report published by a leading Daily in February 2014, "While in 2012 (before rape law was amended) the acquittal rate in rape cases was 46 per cent, in first eight months of 2013, it shot up to 75 per cent predominantly due to false cases."

Justice Virender Bhat while acquitting four people in a gangrape case in Delhi made an observation that it was becoming "difficult to distinguish fake cases from genuine cases". However, he had to bear the brunt of stating the truth as feminist organizations went on record saying he needed gender sensitization training.

'Gender' has boiled down to only 'Women' by feminists and Mulayam Singh Yadav is a victim of the same tirade.

News channels are happily playing only parts of his speech to generate a public outcry against the party that has for the first time ever expressed concern over misuse of the anti-dowry and the anti-rape law and the SC/ST Act. His speech begins where he categorically mentions about relationship going wrong between boy and girl, leading to filing of rape charges. He is questioning if boys should be sent to gallows for making the mistake of breaking a relationship. But the media doesn't want to show that. The country seems to be indulging and enjoying in any hue and cry made over issues concerned to women. I fail to understand how his statements would back rapists when he mentioned that strict action should be taken against both - the perpetrator of the crime and the one who misuses the law.

Let me give a background to this story. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, often known as the anti-dowry act has been quite infamous for being one of the most widely abused sections under the IPC. The Supreme Court of India termed it as 'Legal Terrorism', various Law Commission reports have sought amendments to the Act, parliamentarians have debated on the issue and now it is a fact widely accepted that the act has been grossly abused by women with means, only with an intention to harass their husbands and families and extort money. Today, the courts are full of such cases with settlement negotiations happening in every corner, ranging anywhere from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 10 crore. Women organizations have accepted the misuse, but opposed any amendments in the law.

I have been documenting lives of the people shattered by the misuse of dowry law for the past two years through my documentary film. As per NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data, in the last 15 years, 21 lakh people have been arrested under section 498A of IPC including 5 lakh women (mothers, sisters, aunts) merely on basis of allegations.

2.4 lakh people have been found guilty and rest 18.6 lakh people have been acquitted. This amounts to nothing but legal rape of people who were first arrested for a crime they did not commit and then spent 8-10 years of their life proving their innocence. An acquittal after so many years mean nothing as lives are already destroyed. One can imagine the excruciating pain of a family wrongly accused of a crime.

The statements and inclusion of action against misuse of these laws in a party manifesto is a backlash to extreme apathy towards victims of misuse of the women centric laws. These people are scarred for life just as a genuine victim of such crime is, snatched of their dignity and publicly ridiculed and humiliated for no mistake of theirs. While a rape victim's name is kept confidential, name of accused in these cases are splashed over media without understanding whether it's a genuine case or a false case. A person isn't given a chance to present himself as he is already declared guilty by the media trial. Acquittals are rarely reported, leaving a man criminal in the eyes of society forever. Khurshid Anwar, a front runner in Nirbhaya protests, committed suicide after being put on media trial as a rape accused.

I come across cases of suicide almost every day where old parents, young men, women are ending lives after being falsely implicated by a woman in case of dowry and huge demand of money in order to settle that case. Are these lives not important to us?

64,000 married men committed suicide in 2012. There is no law under which these suicides can be segmented and there is never a debate as to why so many men are dying. No one realizes that there is little option left. A false dowry case leads to arrest of not only the man but his entire family - his old parents, married/unmarried sisters, brothers, distant relatives - long years of trial and dates after dates leave little in his profession - and then demands of money/property drain him of whatever is left.

Even if a man is physically tortured and abused by his wife, as soon as he files for divorce, he is slapped with a dowry case.

Sex before marriage is not a crime. But let that be true for both men and women. If sex after marriage is not a crime - let that be true for both too. Today, section 497 of IPC does not hold a married woman guilty of adultery. So what happens if a husband catches his adulterous wife and objects to it? He is slapped with a dowry case. What happens if the man is adulterous? He is again slapped with a dowry case. We have penalized wrong behaviour of a man. Have we penalized wrong behaviour of a woman? The answer is no.

If breaking the marriage or promise of a marriage is a crime, why are women not punished for that crime? Why parents, who force their daughters into arranged marriage against her wishes, are not punished? Is it okay if a woman uses a man and then dumps him for a richer guy? Is it okay if a woman develops a physical relationship for personal gains of job, money, promotion and then later terms it as rape? Where do we draw the line as to what is right and what is wrong?

It is very ironic that the government wants to add the Misuse clause in the Jan Lokpal Bill but cares a zilch about these laws.

There is no provision/clause either in the dowry law or in the rape law to punish its misuser. There is no way a man can prove his innocence as - in the dowry law, it is presumed that the man must have demanded dowry if a woman says so and in the rape law, it is presumed that she did not consent if she says so.

I am reminded of an incident last year where an old man implicated in a false rape case by his tenant committed suicide after staying in jail for months. The woman got only four years of Jail - that too after the intervention of the judge who thought it was prudent to punish her. Perhaps death of a falsely accused is the only means to punish a wrongdoer. Though I have been fighting with many parents whose sons have committed suicide implicated in false dowry case and justice is a distant dream.

Misuse of dowry and rape laws by women is too serious a concern to be trivialized as a political statement.

It is a harsh truth that our society needs to accept and eradicate. Many people argue with me that many laws are misused, why raise a voice against this. I say, those laws don't destroy a family. These do! Moreover two wrongs can never make a right. Justice cannot be based on gender. A false case is a bigger travesty of justice as not only it ruins the life of an innocent man but also leads to distrust towards genuine victims of these crimes.

Weeding out false cases would relieve judicial system already backlogged with three crore cases. It would lead to faster and quicker justice to genuine victims. I have a question - Are we as a society ready to see broken relationships turned into rape, property disputes turned into rape, financial transactions turned into rape, extra marital affairs turned into rape and rape law becoming a tool for extortion, blackmail and settling scores?

If yes, then let's continue ridiculing Mulayam Singh Yadav for his comments and ignore the larger issue he and his party have dared to bring to public light - Misuse of Women Centric Laws!

If no, let's raise a voice.

(Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj is a Journalist and a documentary filmmaker. She is currently documenting misuse of section 498A of IPC through her documentary film 'Martyrs of Marriage.' She can be reached at [email protected])