You have heard about dowry death of women. Today I will show you different kind of dowry death –

Yes, there are many such cases like this and we don’t have any statistics of this kind of cases. Nor does anyone bother to keep a tab on the same. Even the Hon. SC has recently spoken against the legal terrorism unleashed by the misuse of women-centric laws.

In another incident in Jaipur, a husband was burnt alive in Jaipur by his wife. But there is hardly any media news on the same. One local Jaipur newspaper published it and I could not find any online news link. This is how media suppresses this kind of news and make us think of only bride burning.

The problem lies deep in the creation of these laws. While drafting the laws it has always been the case that only feminist organizations play a major role in drafting these laws. They are the ones who decide what kind of processes will be laid out. Most of these “Women Empowering” laws are drafted by the WCD ministry with the help of different feminist legal groups. This is the reason why in India crime is always looked at from one perspective. It is always considered that a woman is a victim and a man is the perpetrator of a crime. But the definition of woman is also purposefully kept weird in these laws. The women who are connected to a man are denied justice under these laws.

Or consider the above case where the father of the girl killed her and filed a false dowry death case on her in-laws. Shameful media as always covered the first dowry death case in big and bold but published this report in a very small way so that it does not catch our eyes. Since the case was filed under dowry act it remains the same and we still have the argument that every act is misused and so is dowry act. Only we do not understand that promoting such one-sided crime we are only shaming our own nation.

For example in 2012 when some elderly women wrote to West Bengal Women’s Commission against their Daughters – in – law their plea to justice was denied by the commission when some elderly mothers in Bangalore wanted to meet Bangalore Women’s commission chief they have failed to even secure an appointment. If you don’t believe me, try sending letters to your state women’s commission complaining against your daughter – in –law and see the response or action from them.

After the Supreme Court order, it is our hope that the related suicide will come down. In fact, Hardik didn’t need to commit suicide at all. If only he had contacted national helpline for men he would have got necessary support free of cost. We were just a phone call away.

Here are some immediate actions that you as a victim of such a crime need to do –

1. Don’t panic. Even if you are panicked don’t show it to the other person. A calm head will empower you with correct decision-making power. So be calm, just to think properly. Hardik has shown panic in the name of jail so his extortion continued. Even if he was panicked he should have kept his calm to think logically.

2. Search the net – No matter what your problem is there are people who have already faced the problem. Your problem is not unique and there are solutions available to it. Search for it. The whole world is in a fist now. Utilize the power of the internet. Hardik has definitely tried to find the answer from the net. A simple search with keywords like 498a, dowry, dowry harassment etc would have led him to one of our multiple websites. Help was just a click away from him. He didn’t get it still.

3. Keep your eyes and ears open – Don’t keep your eyes and ears closed. Well, that means to keep an eye on social changes. Be open to new ideas, don’t shut your mind. Only then you will be receptive to a solution. He was definitely not receptive to the social changes. At a time when everyone knows about the misuse of dowry laws only, he seems to be unaware. Simple awareness would have given him more strength and willpower to search for a solution. His family wanted to settle the matter with money. This shows even if they knew the girl was at fault they wanted to pay money for easy settlement. They wanted to pay to legal terrorists…and they paid a huge price for that. Only if they kept their mind open and believed that the terrorists needed to be sent to jail and after suicide, his wife is still eligible for his property and money probably he wouldn’t have committed suicide.

4. Be bold – Be bold enough to try out different new solutions. If you have tried but did not receive the necessary results that only means your solution was not good enough. So be brave enough to try new things. If only he was bold he could have discussed his problem with others, gone to counsellors for help or collected evidence to punish the culprits. He needed to react boldly in the first instance and file a police complaint against the culprits. But this situation is a bit tricky. I have seen many in MRAs doing great things to punish the culprits that even many MRAs can’t do.

5. Stop supporting gender-biased laws – It is important to note the misuse of such laws and protest against these biased laws. Crime against women can also be stopped if the laws are gender-neutral. If a crime is punished based on evidence and merits of a case then no one will die like him. He probably didn’t know this or would have supported such laws. Anyone who got such a case probably was a criminal in his mind. Hence when he himself got such threats he would have thought that no one would listen to him or pay attention to his sufferings. Remember, if only you protest this legal terrorism only then you will be able to take stern action against these terrorists.

6. Demand punishment for legal terrorists – Whenever you come across such a false case or threat of a false case protest vigorously in all possible forums. Try sending the culprits to jail. Well, that is only possible when you believe that crime has no gender and gender-biased laws are for nobody’s benefit, these only benefits the terrorists. If he believed in the punishment of his wife and in-laws he would have been alive by now.

Remember, your future is in YOUR

hands.

**Image – Facebook