Introduction
“Can the lost honour and dignity of the poor old accused be restored? Can he spend the Sanyas Ashram of his life as peacefully as he would have, had he not been arraigned as accused in this case. Most women misuses the law in their favour.
Certainly the memories of this false case, horrible days spent in jail and presence in court during hearings would hound him like a ghost for the remaining part of his life. He would not command that much respect and reverence in his family, which he used to before the present case. In the recent times, there has been plethora of cases where it is alleged that women misuse the laws in their favor and turn it against the innocent men. From Anti-dowry laws to rape laws, fake cases have been filed by women at a large number.
Something really strange is happening in this country where the true rape cases are not even reported and women are accusing men of false rape cases, one where either they had consensual sex in a relationship or whether they had some personal anguish with the man.
India is a nation where gender equality and gender issues are considered to be genuine offences but when it comes to men, suddenly all of this falls and becomes meaningless. India has become ignorant towards gender based crimes against men that include physical abuse, harassment, torture, false cases etc.
Where a wife has an option of proving matrimonial cruelty as an offence, husband has no option to do so, instead often becomes the victim of false allegations in such cases.
Need of National Commission
“There are no laws to protect you” is what is told to men who are facing such issues. Till when, are we going to ignore the need to address this issue. Men need equal protection from crime and it is their equal rights as well. National commission will be the first step in recognizing the importance of laws for men. The commission will be an active statutory body that will work in welfare of such men.
It is a fact that crime knows no gender. There have been many stories of child abuse including boy as a victim, but, because of absence of proper laws, the child failed to report the crime. Similar is the condition with these innocent men, who at the facet face difficulties in getting justice because of their gender.
In January 2013, a news article was published claiming a false story of gang rape and abduction of a woman by men. A woman from moga framed the whole sequence to save herself from her ex- boyfriend’s wife. The woman was put on bail when she made up such story to protect herself from the allegation of murder by the wife of the man.
National Commission for men should be established in India so that it could advice the government to form policies that could prevent the misuse of laws against men.
National commission for men will be a body that would recognize the rights of men and could voice their issues and concerns in front of public.
Such allegations of rape destroy the life of the man as well as his family. Family’s reputation is ridiculed forever. Family and men have faith in law but the absence of any law makes it difficult to protect them from such false cases and there comes the demand of National Commission for men.
The demand of commission has been growing ever since, the false cases have risen especially by the institutions and individuals fighting for rights of such people. One such organization is All India Men’s Welfare Association and the Samaj Suraksha Manch. They firmly support that the laws which are being for the protection of women are misused by the women and are not being used by the needy women in who need these laws in true manner.
Concerns from such false cases have been addressed by Supreme Court where, establishment of welfare committee to examine the authentic cases have been set up.
Men and women are both victim and both need equal protection from the predators. Many menhave lost their lives in such a process and to address such concerns there is no body for men.
Men’s interests also need to be protected and that can be done when they have a voice in front of government where someone could defend themselves.
It is true that national commission does not promise the abolition of crimes against men but it for sure would give them a stage to voice their concerns.
Conclusion
A statutory body never guarantees the end of crime against a gender. National commission for women has not guaranteed that yet at least. In my opinion, rather than focusing on gender based commissions, what is really required is to have one commission including bodies for men, women and transgender that raises the victims concerns. A commission who would work at ground level to find out a reality behind the case and then would advise the authorities to act upon that.
To end I would like to quote Frieda pinto “Gender equality is a human fight and not a FEMALE fight”.
