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Unjust Humanity
Virag
Redefining death due to dowry 12 July, 2008
National Commission of Women has proposed another baseless recommendation to remove the seven year ceiling from dowry death cases. Their suggestion is to include all unnatural causes of death of a married woman as a dowry death.

AFTER THE horrendous proposition to include alimony for live-in partners and removal of the adultery clause as a ground to deny maintenance to wives, the National Commission of Women (NCW) has taken another potshot at the social fabric. This time it is related to the issue of dowry deaths. Their suggestion is to include all unnatural causes of death of a married woman, within any time frame of the married life, to be viewed and investigated as a case of dowry.

This is a totally uncalled proposition. A logical rationale fails to understand how a biased assumption can bring down a social evil. Unnatural death is, "A category used by coroners and vital statistics specialists for classifying all human deaths not properly describable as death by natural causes. Hence it would include events such as accidents, execution, misadventure (being attacked by insects, reptiles, fishes, lions, tigers, bears, stingrays, or other wild animals), adverse outcome of surgery, suicide, terrorism, war...."

Classifying all these deaths as dowry deaths within seven years of marriage is in itself absurd. Now to top it, a totally mindless amendment to remove the seven years ceiling, is not becoming of the NCW, a body claiming to be the champion of women’s cause. Such propositions only lead to unnecessary bloating of statistics related to crime against women and create aggravated panic in the society for women. No one will want to have a daughter fearing that she might be killed for dowry and this false fear is giving rise to female foeticide and infanticide in the society.

Moreover, the Indian Penal Code (IPC) already has sections to deal with murder (IPC 302), abetment of suicide (IPC 306). There is no need to provide a special section for married women when the same is not available to men. Every year 56, 000 married men are committing suicide, but those 56, 000 husband killers are roaming freely in the society. IPC 304B, related to dowry deaths, cannot be entrusted to be generating the correct and dependable statistics of the menace called dowry because the law itself is biased and based on assumption. It assumes all deaths of a married woman, within seven years of marriage as ’dowry death’. Classifying all deaths as dowry deaths is nothing but an attempt by radical organisations like NCW to create fear in the society by blowing out of proportions the statistics related to crime against women as these aggravated statistics fetch them money from national and international organisations.

It will be a grave injustice to the husband and his family to book them under dowry harassment charges and put them under legal prosecution when he has just lost his life partner to an accident. Most of the suicides by married women for various reasons are just linked to a single cause of dowry and a bloated picture is presented to the society by the money hungry radical organisations like the NCW, who fail to recognise the mothers and sisters of men as women.

Is the pain of a mother / sister less when her son / brother dies than when her daughter / sister dies? NCW needs to answer this question. Who is going to give justice to those 56, 000 aggrieved mothers / sisters, who lost their son / brother to a torturous wife? Yet the wife is roaming freely in the society. Why no punishment is meted to the wife when on the death of the wife (due to any reason) the husband and his whole family put behind bars on a mere assumption that the death is dowry related.

Why this injustice to men? Do they not have basic human rights? 82 per cent of taxes are paid by men and yet there is no welfare ministry for them. And to add to that, men are subjected to heavy misuse of stringent legal provisions targeted against them like IPC 304B, which deprives them of basic right of being proclaimed innocent until proven guilty as prescribed by Amnesty International, the International human rights organisation.

There have been instances of men and their relatives being prosecuted under 304B (dowry death) and the girl has been found living with some other man. Who will account for the harassment that the innocent husband and his relatives went through because of a biased legal provision and a defunct legal system? And the girl is not even punished!!!

It’s high time that radical and gender obsessed women’s organisations stop spreading lies in the society in the name of crime against women and stop breaking families in the name of women empowerment.

Save Indian Family Foundation, an organisation dedicated to the cause of spreading family harmony and awareness about the misuse of dowry related and other marital laws severely condemn the recent amendments proposed by NCW and make the following recommendations to the government:

  • All cases of abetment of suicide, including those allegedly done for dowry, should be dealt with under IPC Section 306.
  • If IPC Section 304(B) is not removed from the Indian law, then it should be amended and made applicable to men and women equally. Specifically, the word ’husband/wife’ should be replaced by the word spouse.
  • Section 304(B) treats the accused as guilty until proven innocent, thus, violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims, "Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty." The law needs to be amended so that no arrests of any of the accused (man, woman or child) are made without proper investigation and written approval of police officials of the rank of deputy commissioner of police or above.
  • Those, who misuse the section for settling personal scores should be heavily penalised because false allegations and prosecution can cause irreparable damage to the accused parties even if they are later declared not guilty.
All cases of murder, including murder for dowry, should be dealt with under IPC Section 302. Section 304(B) should not be retained in the law; IPC Section 302 already covers murder and IPC Section 306 covers abetment of suicide, and therefore Section 304(B) is only a duplication of law, which is gender-biased.

About The Author
Virag R Dhulia, a software professional, has been a prominent men's rights activist. He has been engaged in creating awareness about the abuse of men and their families through anti-male and gender biased laws like Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act etc. He has been instrumental in networking with fellow men's rights activist both across India and abroad and has played key roles in organizing events to create awareness about abuse of men by the society.
Commenting System
COMMENTS (7)
.Its better you go and study law first rather than debating unnecessarily. Section 498A and Section 304B are against cardinal principles of natural justice because they are based on presumptions.
.Get your facts straight. Section 304B does not say that ALL deaths within seven years of marriage are dowry deaths. It says that "when the death of a woman is caused by any burns or bodily injury or occurs under other than normal circumstances within seven year of her marriage, and when it is shown that shortly before her death she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any relative of her husband for or in connection with any demand for dowry, such death shall be called ������dowry death������ and the husband or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death". It's quite different, see? But I do agree that the "guilty until proven innocent" of the section should be changed. It is completely biased and unprecedented.
.THIS LAW IS KILLING 95 PERCENT FAMILY . MAXIMAM THIS TYPE CASH IS FOLS . I REQUEST PL. CHANGE THIS RULE OTHERWISE ..........
.why the people r like this???
.Thanks Virag, I hv allready contacted them & send them an e-mail in this regards.pls let me ur mail id. also tell me about yourself I dont know why I feel I know u. I am From RAIPUR (C.G.)
1 Replies
You can contact me at virag.v@gmail.com
.its realy kill my family, my father 64y & my younger brother both are in jail from last five days.Session court also refused his bail on medical background. this law is killing indian families. There is no way out from it, only we can pray god. My brothers wife cummited suicide on 28/07/2008. before marriage my brother received a call from a unknow person who tell him not to marry with her b'cause she has an afaire with his friend from last 10years.my brother did not tell this to anyone & call her & asked weather it is correct or not & she refused. after marriage my father received four letter from unknown person telling about her past.my father & mother did not tell anyone about the letters. they dont want to break there relations. when she went to her home after 20days.my father called her brothers & told them about letters.he also gave a letter to them to launch FIR. Police has all these evidence. after a week of her death her family lance a complaint against our family of dowry death. police is only following them not investigating the truth they just took our family to jail. its realy horrible & shamless. We are helpless...............we can just pray to god to save us........ there is nobody who can help us its realy pity.
1 Replies
Gopendra, where are you based, pl contact the following websites. www.savefamily.org, www.saveindianfamily.org
.This is nothing but a shameless act of Govt to divert the people attention. The Govt, which could not provide even a glass of safe, drinkable water to common people, a hassle free commute to work-place to its work-force, a basic mandatory health facilities to masses in 61 years, is trying to be champion of women cause. And that too, it is not doing in a sincere way, but just by passing a series of ridiculous, unconstitutional and inhuman laws which is an attempt to criminalize the whole India. In spite of numerous evidences, several recommendations and many guidelines telling the fact that much more women have been harassed and tortured by these laws, they are hell bent to divide the Indian Society on the gender boundary. And only beneficiaries are the unscrupulous women and their relatives, corrupt police, spineless lawyers. Of course, the biggest gainers are commissions, research centers, self-styled leaders and mushroomed NGOs in the name of women. They just try to justify their existence for eating fat pie of national and international funding. They have nothing to do with women empowerments. There are hundreds of other problems other than dowry for which crores of women fight day in and day out. Every year, dozens of them die over a bucket of water. Hundreds of them take last breath in their home as they do not have access to medical facility. Every year thosands die in every season whether its winter or summer or rainy. Every year, thousands of them loose every thing - house, property, kith and kins in floods. These so-called women leaders (read directionless feminists) talk about maintenance to live-in-partners sitting in five-star hotels. And at the same time hundreds of women (whom they claim to be representative and savour), un-aware of even term of live-in-partner, keep themselve busy in searching of edible roots to survive another day. It looks like that it is Govt strategy to blame the husband for every thing and shy away from its own responsibility and cover its failure. But it will happen no more. The public is awakening. People has started understanding the statistics of self style study of the feminists. Their myths and false propaganda are un-folding. Indians will not let their culture and society to be sacrificed over a handful of sadists.
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