Shri Salman Khurshid

The Honorable Minister for Law and Justice

Sub: – Paying (multiple) maintenance to qualified and empowered women for short marriage must be stopped with immediate effect.

Honorable Minister,

Ordering maintenance to a qualified woman voluntarily, incapacitating herself after a short marriage, just to extract money from her husband is nothing but a judicially imposed system of involuntary servitude wherein one human being is placed within the bondage to another one as long as the maintenance term is ordered. I feel that it is every parent’s responsibility to provide for child support however paying maintenance to qualified women in childless marriages who voluntarily incapacitate themselves must be stopped outright.

Accepting multiple maintenance petitions from wife clearly amounts to “Double Jeopardy”. In Constitution of India and various Acts there is a bar on “Double Jeopardy”.

a) Even our Constitution of India has given protection to every citizen not to be prosecuted twice for the same offence. Article 20(2) of the constitution provides a bar on this.

b) Indian Penal Code (section 71) provides immunity from double jeopardy.

c) General Clauses Act, 1897 section 26 provides immunity from double jeopardy.

d) Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 section 300 provides immunity from double jeopardy.

The current condition of Indian Women

No matter how much the women’s organizations and women’s ministry want to fictionalize to the world, the sorry state of Indian women (especially wives), the reality is however quite the opposite. India has undergone a sea change as far as the empowerment and earning potential of women are concerned. Women now dominate many fields like Call Centers, BPO’s, Advertising and Media. Women get equal opportunities at workplace and are better educated than men because the cost of educating girls in India is far less than cost of educating boys. Women get free education and also pay lesser taxes for the same amount of salary earned as compared to a man.

Delhi recently registered more female births than male births effectively killing the India female foeticide agenda that was drummed around so far and used as a negotiating bait to draw social concessions for women albeit at the cost of men. Women have special trains and buses for them to make commuting to and from their workplaces easy. They also enjoy reservations at various levels of the government including the now historical recommendation of reserving 33% of all seats in the parliament for women.

The percentage of reservation for women has now been increased to as high as 50% in some cases. While women contribute only 18% of the country’s taxes the Indian government spends over Rs 6800 crores on them annually under the various different heads. Women have a fully functional cabinet ministry and a National Commission for women working just for their needs. Women have over 15 marital laws to protect themselves including about 5 different laws to get maintenance from their husbands. The misuse statistics of some unconstitutional laws Anti Dowry law (IPC 498A) and the Domestic Violence Act of 2005 has been widely known now the world over and is not presented in this letter.

Indian Maintenance laws for women:

Divorce and Maintenance laws in India were created when the majority of women in India were illiterate and no means to earn a living and were totally dependent on their fathers, brothers or husbands for their livelihood. Maintenance laws had the noble intention of ordering the husband to provide separate livelihood expenses for his wife of many years, his children whom he had fathered so that the wife who had never worked before or was uneducated could provide for herself and her children and elk out a decent living.

The current reality in Indian family courts however, is shocking. Extracting maintenance is becoming a cause and motivation for marriage for many women and not an outcome of an unfortunate divorce as the popular perception goes. Women marry so that they can extract money through the various maintenance laws; many times filing simultaneous maintenance cases under various sections. Indian women have access to as many as 5 different laws to get maintenance from their husbands.

• Section 125 of the CrPC: Meant to provide no-fault maintenance to wife from husband.
• Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA): Though gender neutral, is largely used by women to extract maintenance from their husbands in pendency of a divorce. It will not be off the record to mention here that even the judiciary is unpleasantly reluctant to provide maintenance to a man who knocks the doors of courts; having lost employment due to any misfortune, from his wife who can support him.
• Section 25 of the HMA: Meant to provide alimony to women from divorce.
• Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act: Another provision for maintenance to wives.
• Domestic Violence Act: This Act also is used to extort money from the husband under the cute name of maintenance and exhort their properties under the cute name of “Right to Residence”.

Out of these 5 laws only one law is gender neutral, al least on paper; the rest of them can only be used by women against their husbands.

Qualified women extracting maintenance – A modern Menace

A visit to a family court in any of the metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore will reveal a shocking reality that in almost all divorce cases high maintenance is demanded by women in even marriages as which are short as 2 months or 6 months. The educated and empowered women in these cases are all very qualified, the minimum qualification being a graduate degree.

A large number of women are highly qualified engineers, doctors or IT professionals. These qualified women still demand maintenance stating the fact that it is the responsibility of the husband to provide for the lifestyle maintenance of these women as they were maintained during their very short marriage. These women at first voluntarily incapacitate themselves, and most of the times extract astronomical amounts in the form of maintenance even if they are gainfully employed by lying to courts and hiding their professional status.

The various different ways that money is extracted is highlighted below.

• Section 498A is used in many cases to arrest the husband and then force him for a ‘compromise’ which is nothing but a huge lump sum amount that is to be paid to the wife by the husband. This is not a normal maintenance case but nevertheless is still a great extortion tool.
• CrPC 125 is used along with Domestic violence act and maintenance is demanded simultaneously in both cases.
• Women with marriages less 1 year voluntarily incapacitate themselves at their parents’ home and then demand maintenance so that they can now live life to the same standards in their parents place as they have enjoyed during the marriage.
• DV act is abused to get access to home and residences apart from ex-parte maintenance orders in marriages shorter than even 1 year.
• Once interim maintenance in granted the women drag the cases, being patronized by our inefficient and complacent judiciary, so that the interim maintenance is continued to be paid for a longer time.
• Qualifications and previous work experience is deliberately hidden by women to get the sympathy of the court. Women are not penalized for coming to the court with unclean hands or committing perjury openly.

In the HMA 24 case of Smt. Mamta Jaiswal vs. Rajesh Jaiswal where the wife was qualified, had voluntary incapacitated was demanding maintenance from her husband, Honorable Madhya Pradesh High court stated the below.

“In view of this, the question arises as to in what way Section 24 of the Act has to be interpreted. Whether a spouse who has capacity of earning but chooses to remain idle, should be permitted to saddle other spouse with his or her expenditure? Whether such spouse should be permitted to get pendent life alimony at higher rate from other spouse in such condition?

According to me, Section 24 has been enacted for the purpose of providing a monetary assistance to such spouse who is incapable of supporting himself or herself in spite of sincere efforts made by him or herself. A spouse who is well qualified to get the service immediately with less effort is not expected to remain idle to squeeze out, to milk out the other spouse by relieving him of his or her own purse by a cut in the nature of pendent life alimony. The law does not expect the increasing number of such idle persons who by remaining in the arena of legal battles, try to squeeze out the adversary by implementing the provisions of law suitable to their purpose.”

“In fact, well qualified spouses desirous of remaining idle, not making efforts for the purpose of finding out a source of livelihood, have to be discouraged, if the society wants to progress. The spouses who are quarreling and coming to the Court in respect of matrimonial disputes, have to be guided for the purpose of amicable settlement as early as possible and, therefore, grant of luxurious, excessive facilities by way of pendent lite alimony and extra expenditure has to be discouraged.”

Inspite of having such sensible judgments, the courts in India regularly grant maintenance to qualified women who prefer to incapacitate themselves at their parents home and demand that their husbands keep them in the same standard as during the marriage .The courts never question the motive of these women not earn a living for themselves and still rely on the centuries old tradition that the husband must maintain the wife come what may. A woman no matter qualified, no matter how short her marriage and no matter how much her contribution to the marriage is more or less guaranteed to get maintenance in India if she petitions for it.

Recommendations

1)    Alimony for graduates ,doctors, lawyers, professionals, engineers, MBAs, CAs and the likes should be rejected prima facie and concept of lifetime parasitism be replaced by a better concept to provide interest free sustenance loans returnable in 3-5 years upon obtaining gainful employment. Voluntary incapacitation by capable spouses asking for maintenance to be made a punishable offense to discourage it. Moreover interim maintenance should not be allowed to be used as a dole leading to treatment of husbands as FREE ATM MACHINES.

2)    The quantum of maintenance must be strictly based on the duration of the marriage. For example, in most states of the United States, the wife can qualify for maintenance only if she has lived with the husband for a minimum period of time and the quantum of the maintenance is dependent on that.In the state of Texas a wife can claim maintenance from her husband if she has stayed with her husband for a minimum of 10 years.

3)    Women with children must be provided with sustenance loans from their husbands so that they can train themselves in order to enter the workforce again. These loans must be returnable to the husbands once the women start earning. This is apart from the child support payments that the husband must contribute.

4)    Multiple provisions for maintenance viz. Domestic Violence Act, Section 125 CrPC, Section 18 – HMA, Section 24 – HAMA etc. should be simplified and normalized to one single provision as people are entangled in multiple litigations for the same alleged cause of action leading to infringement of Constitutional Rights vide Article 20,21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution.

5)    Husbands also must be provided with maintenance when they need it. Maintenance must not be made the exclusive right of a woman in a marriage. Men are today increasing taking over roles of a mother and a father and husbands are liable to maintained by qualified wife if the need arises.

6)    The upper ceiling of a maintenance amount must always be fixed by law and based on the country’s living standard so that unscrupulous women do not use the marriage as a way to riches.

7)    Provisions be made for gender-sensivity trainings for judges of lower courts and sessions courts from a husband’s perspective, to be conducted by reputed firms having expertise in men’s rights awareness and an understanding of the needs and problems of the male gender.

A marriage must not be made a way for qualified unscrupulous women to profit. Breaking a marriage must never be made monetarily lucrative, as it has been made in India today. Today qualified Indian women stand to gain a lot my marrying and then by quickly breaking the marriages and thereafter immediately demanding huge maintenance and alimonies. Maintenance must be based on genuine need and not greed of a woman. Today, however the practice and the urge to get maintenance through multiple maintenance laws has become the cause of breaking marriages and extracting money. The government must make the maintenance laws such reasonable so that while parties (either husband or wife) who are truly needy can take relief under this section, the unscrupulous ones who sole intention to extract maintenance from the husband can be punished.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Name:

PS: Readers are free to download a copy of the letter by clicking here and send it to the Ministry of Law and Justice.

There wasn’t any concept of feminism at the time of Titanic sinking but still it is said, when it sank, “The richest man on board had fewer chances of survival compared to the poorest woman on board.”

Why was it so? Because men, as a system, have always been hated, despised with, while women as a system have always been sympathized with and looked at with compassion; feminists decoded this social phenomena, amplified it and created a huge and real gender bias in the society for men under the cover of imaginary bias against women.

That’s the principal reason why discriminations against men have never been challenged – the motivating factor for the unbridled feminist utopia and constant negative ranting against men – be it in the media or social circles. In fact, media has been the primary amplifier of male hatred with repeated anti-male conversations on a large, wide, repetitive and imperative scale.

And the media channel, Star Plus is no exception to the rule From 29^th January 2011, the channel is coming up with a show called – “Wife Bina Life, Saza ya Maza” Show details can be found on the link. Relevant excerpts from the link about the show are reproduced here,

“10 husbands brave it out to cope up with housework, homework, wailing children and much much more. We offer you a glimpse into the lives of such 10 men.

The women disappear for a period of 2 weeks, on a much-deserved holiday, leaving the men to fend for themselves, their house and their families. While the women are away, the men must juggle all the cooking, cleaning, child rearing and work duties alone (in some cases) while the women enjoy 2 weeks of pampering at a luxury resort. But they are watching every move their husbands make! Any incorrect action & the Game is over for the husbands! ”

Problems with the above format:

1. 1. It creates a false perception that men always have it good and when they are not doing housework, they are holidaying!
2. 2. It creates a false perception that managing households is a very difficult belittling bread-winning which is a far more risky, dangerous and difficult task.
3. 3. It creates a false perception that men do not need “well deserved breaks”.
4. 4. It creates a false perception that men cannot raise children.
5. It creates a false perception that somehow it is OK to abuse husbands.

The overall format of the program is anti-male in nature and is legally/socially allowing wives to dominate over their husbands, which is nothing but promotion of Domestic Violence against husbands.

Domestic Violence is a very serious social issue and is the numero uno reason due to which married men commit suicide. The suicide figures for the years 2005 – 2009 for married men vis-à-vis married women are as follows:

2005: 52583 vs. 28188

2006: 55425 vs. 29869

2007: 57593 vs. 30064

2008: 57693 vs. 30224

2009: 58192 vs. 31300

Hence, we see that every year it’s the husbands and not the wives who are committing suicides in large numbers. Also an analysis of suicide data from 1996 – 2009 shows that, “Married Men are twice as vulnerable in committing suicides compared to married women”.

Even the life expectancy of men has reduced drastically over the last century. Compared to 1901, the life expectancy for men has dropped 6.5 times vis-à-vis women, in today’s stressful times. Life expectancy data can be obtained from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

All the above figures clearly indicate that the stress is definitely and substantially more on men and added to that, the fact, that men have no available socially acceptable channels of communication; the torpedo effect is taking a huge toll on men’s lives.

Shows like “Wife bina Life – Saza ya Maza” only add to the stress factor for men wherein they are not only expected to be breadwinners for the family but also look after house and children. There is one key difference between a working man and a working woman. The onus of the financial responsibility always lies on the husband, it’s the CHOICE for a working woman whether she wants to contribute to household expenses or spend it for herself. Somehow, this key difference is always ignored.

These double standards against men are never highlighted and the misandrist media conceptualizes programs like above which further plug the communication channel for men. This, in turn, leads to additional stress for men and opens new channels of inflicting domestic violence upon men.

As a men’s rights activist, I strongly object to such shows being aired and as a result, I have sent this complaint to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, asking them to stop the airing of the show till the format is changed to something acceptable.

The letter can be viewed here.

If you also feel that such a show is anti-male, please feel free to download the above letter and send it to the address mentioned in the letter, marking a copy to the Prime Minister of India.

Hon’ble MP,
Rajya Sabha.

Ref: AIMRAW/032010/01

Respected Sir/Madam,

Sub: 90% of common citizens say NO to “Women Reservation Bill’ in NDTV Poll as it is undemocratic and unconstitutional.

We, Association for International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare, are an international men’s rioghts organization dedicated and committed to the cause and welfare of men.

90% of common citizens also say NO to “Women Reservation Bill’ in the NDTV poll as it is undemocratic and unconstitutional. The link of the poll can be found at

NDTV Poll Result

As you are very much aware, the bill for reservation for Women in Parliament and State Legislatures, called, ”The Constitution (One Hundred And Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008” will deal a death blow to the health of Indian democracy and will permanently change the nature and character of Indian polity. Besides, it can signal the end for most male MPs who will be restricted to contest from 67% of the seats in Lok Sabha and State Legislatures.

The Indian Affiliate Chapter of Association for International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare (AIMRAW) had also written to 200 Members of Parliament and the open letter was published on their website as well. The letter is available at,

Open Letter to MPs in India against Women Reservation Bill

And it also contains comments from users.

This bill is short-sighted, undemocratic, and discriminatory. The following points are worth considering:

1. This Bill takes away the democratic right of 33% of the electorate (22 crore people) to elect their representatives.  It restricts the choice of both men and women in those constituencies. The state has no right to limit the pool of representatives available to the public to choose from. This is against all democratic principles of free choice.
2. This takes away the democratic right of about 11 crore men to contest in elections, thus imparting a severe blow to the health of democracy in India. This is against the fundamental rights of 11 crore men. It violates the right to equality guaranteed under the constitution.
3. It will lead to significant upheavals and instability in Indian polity, with MPs being forced to shuffle constituencies in almost every election. This would lead to an inability to nurture their constituency and further reduce accountability.
4. There are no measures to make sure that the benefits are received by the socially backward and underprivileged women, who really need them. There are no objective criteria to prevent the elite class or “creamy layer” of women from taking undue and unfair advantage of this legislation.
5. The number 33 % is totally arbitrary and no justification has been provided. Even in advanced democracies like US and UK, where most women are already empowered, the number of women in legislature is less than 20%.

1. This bill suggests a rotation system which would be determined by draw of lots, in such a manner that a seat would be reserved only once in a block of three general elections. This is a serious flaw, insofar as it mechanically provides for entry of women members to fill one-third of vacancies in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas. This subverts the democratic process which is all about free choice vis-à-vis a mechanical action/ process.
2. India is a vast country and is multi-cultural, multi-ethic, multi-lingual and with several groups, castes, sub-castes etc. The implementation of this bill would lead to more demands from various groups and sections of society for similar representation and it would be an open invitation for politicization of the representative form of Indian democracy. It will be a death blow to representation through constituencies.
3. The concept of reservation is an insult to women and their capability. It is an admission on her part of her inferiority. It gives the impression that women are incapable of competing with men and hence need protection and a support structure to enter public offices of parliament and state legislatures. In India, women have always been side-by-side with men in council as well as in battles. This law perpetuates gender discrimination. To seek any form of preferential treatment would be to violate the Integrity of the universal demand of Indian women for absolute equality of political status.

Rather than taking a judicious and considered approach towards the issue, which normally expected during the legislative process, the current Bill builds on gender stereotypes and makes several deeply flawed assumptions such as:

1. Women only vote for other women – More than 50% of the women exercised their franchise in the General Election of 2004 and elected their representatives, both men and women.
2. Men cannot represent women’s interests – Men have always been more sympathetic to women and this has been proved beyond doubt in the last 60 years with women being empowered with legislations and policies of special significance. Female literacy rate, employment and political empowerment have happened without any reservations.
3. Forcing more women on the electorate is women empowerment – Forcing more women in the parliament through undemocratic means will only serve to undermine the legitimacy and efficacy of the elected women representatives.
4. All women are under-privileged – A gross generalization is made that all women are under-privileged, deprived and discriminated. That women are a homogenous group and there are no differences in terms of social status, education, etc. and hence, an across the board reservation system is needed. This major flaw would be misused by upper caste and upper class women to dominate lower class/ caste women. Thus, the really needy women would continue to be oppressed while the creamy layer among women would become richer and powerful.
5. All men are privileged – Similarly, a gross generalization is made that men are a homogenous group and are all privileged and have a natural advantage over women.
6. Women are disadvantaged – Assumption is made that women have no natural advantages over men. That, the society discriminates only women and not men. It does not recognize the natural and societal advantages that women have got in terms of moral superiority, greater faith and sympathy.
7. Reservation is indispensable – The bill does not recognize the fact that there have been many women who made it to high public offices and there have been many women Chief Ministers and a Prime Minister. Right now, we have a Woman President and a Woman Speaker. They all assumed office through their own efforts and without any reservation. The bill is based on the false assumption that women need reservation to enter high public offices.

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours Sincerely,
Public Relation Officer
Indian Affiliate Chapter
Association for International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare

<Address of Member of Parliament>

Ref: AIMRAW/012010/01

Sub:  Protest against attempts to deny men the choice to contest in elections in the name of “women’s reservation”.

Respected Sir/Madam,

Association for International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare (AIMRAW) protests against the plans to deny men the choice to contest in elections in the name of “women’s reservation”. AIMRAW is in touch with men’s rights activists from 60 countries all over the world, including India.

The Indian Affiliate Chapter of AIMRAW opposes the plans for reservation of seats for women in Indian parliament and State Assemblies.

Choice to contest and right vote in elections are fundamental in a democracy.

1. No one has a right to deny a citizen the choice to contest in an election on the basis of Gender, Religion, Language or Caste. Reservation of Constituencies for women means men will be denied the choice to contest in election.

1. Anyone who tries to amend the Constitution in order to deny the citizens the choice to contest in elections will be considered as an enemy of democracy.

1. Any amendment to constitution towards denying democratic rights to citizens is same as “mutilation of constitution and subversion of democracy”.

Any discussion in parliament by people’s representatives on snatching away the citizen’s right to contest in elections is totally unacceptable. Such discussion will be considered as a subversion of democracy.

We did not elect the representations (MPs) for curtailing citizens the choice to contest in elections.

Women are not stopped from contesting in elections. Then, why should a man is stopped in contesting in elections just for the fault of being born as “male”?

In fact, the citizens have not discriminated women in elections. They have elected 1 woman out of 12 women candidates, while 1 man out of 15 male candidates won election.

If major political parties like Congress Party or BJP had fielded 100 or more female candidates each in election in 2009, then there would have been more women MPs. If major political parties have failed to give more seats to women in Rajya Sabha, then its only political parties who can correct that with a change in attitude.

Why a Constitution has to be mutilated and democracy be threatened, when the problem lies with attitude of leaders of political parties?

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, out of the 443 candidates declared by the Congress, the party pitched only 40 women candidates (less than 10%). Opposition BJP fielded only 43 women candidates out of the total 427 seats. Left parties, shouting at the top of its lungs about the cause of women reservation, had the worst record of women representation in their list of candidates with only 5% of the tickets being given to women candidates for the 15th Lok Sabha elections. While, the CPM only fielded 4 women candidates out of the 80 declared seats, the CPI gave only 3 women candidates out of the 45 seats it was contesting. While Samajwadi Party fielded a mere 6 candidates out of its 75 candidates in UP, Lalu Yadav-led RJD gave a mere 2 seats to women in its quota of 28 seats in Bihar.(Source: www.indian-elections.com)

If the Congress Party can’t take risks of fielding 100 female candidates in elections in 2009, then why should the citizens take a risk of having a mutilated constitution?

It is like:

“The Patient has got Piles and the Doctor is getting ready to do Open Heart Surgery”

AIMRAW urges all political leaders and Members of Parliament to stop any discussion toward denying any citizen the right to contest in elections on the basis of Gender (male or female), Language, Caste or Religion.

AIMRAW is not against political parties filling Rajya Sabha with 125 women MPs, out of total 250 seats.

We respect the choices of our elected representatives and we expect the elected representatives to respect our democratic choices.

In India, Women have higher life expectancy compared to men and 3 times more men compared to women die every year due to suicides, murders and accidents. So there is no need for further upliftment of women and trampling of men.

So far as higher representation of women in parliament is concerned, the onus is on political parties to give more seats to women in Rajya Sabha and field more women candidates in Lok Sabha elections.

Any attempt to deny men the choice to contest in elections, will be met with serious opposition via media, internet and on ground though mass agitation.

Jai Hind