Author: Atul Ratna, Research scholar from T.N.B Law college Bhgalpur
Co-author: Sumit Kumar Mishra, Research scholar from T.N.B Law college Bhgalpur
Co-author: Dr. Dhiraj Kumar Mishra, Asst. professor (LAW) from T.N.B Law college Bhgalpur
“The more that we choose not to talk about domestic violence, the more we shy away from the issue, the more we lose.”
-Russell Wilson
No one can deny the fact that domestic violence is a grave issue in India as well world-wide. It can be defined as the violence by one spouse to another in the household. In our Indian society, we generally believe that certain sex is dominant over the passive one. The general thought of the patriarchal culture is that male members are much more dominant over the female and are positioned superior to the others.
But in the today’s scenario, the circumstances is quite different than the previous one. Not only the females but male are also subject to the domestic violence. They are also being physically, mentally, emotionally as well as sexually abused by the females in various cases.
In simple words, domestic violence against man can be demarcated as a kind of hateful violence done against the man by the woman. And the pity reality is that the victim feels so embarrassed to reveal it out before the public. In India, there is no any law to protect the violence and the abuse committed against the man. We are far much behind in that step. Here, usually it is believed that the women are fragile and recurrent subject to the violence committed by man which are most of the time true. However, there are also infrequent but true situation is that man are also subject to the domestic violence by the women. The recent flow of feminism as well as the women empowerment in the name of fight against the patriarchal society, anenormous group of victims are being unnoticed.
The lack of awareness among the people regarding this issue is a matter of great concern. People as well as the patriarchal society makes fun of those men who come out of the box with their glitches. It is the general notion of the society that the man who comes out and grumble regarding the issue have lost their “masculinity”. They are being mocked and these matters are hardly believed by anybody in the society. There are overabundance of cases where the women have falsely alleged her husband of mental and physical abuse to harass and make huge amount of money. In the leading case of Mr Markapuram Siva Rao and others vs. state of Andhra Pradesh[i], the honourable court found that the case was totally untrue and was made to harass the husband and their family to make a huge amount of money. The court quashed the proceeding and held it as abuse of the process of the court. Furthermore, in the case of Binod kumar singh vs. state of Jharkhand and others[ii], it was found that the women filed false case against the husband under section 498(a) of the IPC to mentally harass and to have huge amount of money from the latter.
From all over India, 98% of the respondents had suffered domestic violence more than once in their lives. The study enclosed Indian husbands from various socioeconomic strata, but the bulk of the respondents, according to the researchers, came from the upper middle class and the middle class[iii].
The first and foremost pace to resolve these kind of matters is to make the laws to shield the rights of the man and tackle the cases of false allegations against the victim. The laws must be made in such a way that help the victims to get freedom from their abusers and also reinstate the physical, mental and emotional health of the victims. The legislative makers must also enshrine the concept of economic compensation in cases of false and fake domestic violence cases. The rehabilitation homes must also be established so that the victim can come out of trauma of violence. The gender prejudiced law sometimes gives major loopholes to the women and they catch such loopholes to file fake cases against the man to harass them mentally. So, these kind of issues must also be seen so that action can be taken properly.
The state as well as the centre shall have to work together to acknowledge and recognise the problem and get to the solution. The basic natural right of victim i.e. right to be heard must be respected and they must be allow to present their grievances before the other. The media which is the fourthpillar shall also have to play vital roles in these issues. They shall have to make aware to the general people regarding the contemporaneousproblems of the society which is being occurred.
Apart from them the law schools must also conduct seminar and workshop to make the people aware since the law schools are the factory of budding lawyers and law makers.
Despite of modern laws and principles of equity and justice, the victims are unable to stand up against their grievances and to claim relief against such kind of abuse. The society need to understand the elementary thing that domestic violence is a heinouscrime in the society by one spouse to other and one thing must be kept clear in the mind that it is gender neutral. The victim can be any gender be it male or female. It is the silence of the society that is sprinkling the current problem and harnessing the victim to come out and fight for their rights.