Humanists, feminists included, ought to side against injustices of any kind, ones that deal with men as well
Narayan Bhardwaj's documentary, Martyrs Of Marriage, patiently chronicles abuse of IPC 498A, the draconian anti-dowry law
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As fiery family-friend aunties go, Mrs Sharma (name changed) can be quite a handful. Her husband — a rather timid bloke (now a retired bureaucrat), although ever ready with the usual desi jokes about henpecked men of the house — literally lives under Mrs Sharma's thumb.
And, yet, even by Mrs Sharma's standards, it seemed a bit much as she held me by my hand once, sat me in the corner of my parent's living room to lecture non-stop for an hour, on the merits of marriage, after I'd opened the house-door, with her husband, only son, and his newly wedded wife, quietly walking in a file right behind her.
Now, I don't hold strong opinions on marriage as an institution per se. Which is probably why I don't go around asking married people to explain their life's decision. Much as I expect the same courtesy from those who may wonder why I'm single. But, that's not the point of this story.
Only a few months later, in a repeat telecast of the same episode, the gregarious Mrs Sharma walked into my parents' home yet again, through the same door, held my hand, took me to the same corner, this time congratulating me relentlessly on how I was the wise one after all.
Her husband and son had marched in right behind her as well. The newly wedded daughter-in-law was missing. The girl had left their son. They possibly had compatibility issues. Which is fair. Divorce is an option. Nobody should go through hell. Except this middle-class family was sh*tting bricks, having been threatened with an FIR over a draconian anti-dowry law if they didn't shell out ransom money, running into tens of lakhs, to get out of the situation.
They paid. They're okay now. The boy is simply lovelorn, which is still a whole lot better than a series of suicides — along with notes blaming the wife and her family for extortion, harassment, time spent in prison, over phoney cases under the dangerously lopsided IPC 498A — that Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj's documentary, Martyrs Of Marriage, that just dropped on Netflix, patiently chronicles.
I'm no legal expert. To give you a gist, the law essentially stipulates that an FIR filed with the police for harassment over dowry, automatically leads to the state fighting the case on behalf of the complainant. The accused gets immediately arrested; this being a non-bailable offence.
Besides, any number of family members — whether they live with the couple or not; with no need for furnishing proof (the accuser being the only evidence that counts) — are also instantly put behind bars. There is, in fact, a case of a two-month-old baby who had an FIR against her under the same law (at Nehru Nagar in Mumbai).
Furthermore, while, according to the law, you can't be punished twice for the same offence, there are at least six to seven related charges — domestic violence, attempt to rape, etc — that you can instantly slap on the accused, leading to multiple litigations, in various courts. There is a gentleman in Bhardwaj's film who has 14 cases, two for 498A in Bengaluru and Chennai, running in various courts that, given the decades it'd take, he hopes, his son would eventually see them through.
The film reports around 2,00,000 arrests are made each year under this law, most of which, at the time of judgment, end up siding with the accused — the majority of them don't go that far. They get settled over lump-sum payouts with a network of judges, lawyers, and the police who're in on the obvious extortion racket.
As the interviewees point out, the basic lacunae start with the law assuming only women can be harassed. Two, it makes no distinction between breaking a limb as physical torture, and calling someone an idiot as mental torment — both being equal.
It's not that the law comes from nowhere. It was a genuine, well-meaning response to a spate of dowry deaths in the early '80s. Legislation is a tricky thing in a complex society that resides in several centuries simultaneously. I'd like to believe several muted women, especially in the dark, rural corners, have probably benefited from this law. I'm assuming the police act with the same alacrity that they do defending women, chiefly from the upper classes, in big cities, who're in fact socially/economically more privileged than most men they're being protected against.
But, that's precisely the rabbit hole one ought to avoid. This is really not about men and women. And, no, one doesn't redress male domination over millennia by being unfair to the ones at present. That's like indicting my Muslim neighbour for the excesses of Nadir Shah, Ahmed Shah Abdali (how're they even related?).
The feminist argument is based on equality. As is the humanist's. If you see it from that prism, you'd side with men who've lost their lives, besides reputation, and peace of mind, in Martyrs Of Marriage. Mrs Sharma's son, meanwhile, wants to get married again, in what's an eternal tale of the "triumph of hope over experience." Good to know.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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