(full article)Editor of Women Magazine Manushi Speaks up......Sadly, there are also any number of cases coming to light where these new laws are used as an instrument of blackmail. They lend themselves easily this way as a tool for wreaking vengeance on entire families, since it makes it possible to have police arrest anyone a married woman names as a tormentor in her complaint. All she has to do is state that there is "cruelty" in marriage, and someone goes to jail without the possibility of bail. Many allege that such a drastic paradigm-shift attracts gross abuse, since arresting and putting a person in jail, even before the trial has begun, amounts to prejudging and punishing the accused without due process. For example, there are any number of cases where the problem is a mutual maladjustment of a couple, rather than abuse by the entire joint family. In such cases, a host of relatives, including elderly parents who are not the cause of maladjustment and may not even be involved in any way, are arrested and put in jail for varying lengths of time before the trial begins. Further complicating matters, lawyers have cited several cases where judges have refused bail unless the accused family deposits a certain sum of money in the complainant's name as a precondition to the grant of bail. The law was recast, heavily weighted in the woman's favor, on the assumption that only genuinely aggrieved women would come forward to lodge complaints. But this has most often not been the case. Because of this alarming and surprising abuse of the system by the very people it was supposed to help, the whole concept of due process of law has been deeply upset in these legal provisions dealing with domestic violence. There are many registered cases of police using the threat of arrest to extort a lot of money from the husband's family. Likewise, it is alleged that the police threaten to oppose or delay granting of bail unless the accused family coughs up fairly hefty amounts of bribe money. In the case of dowries, there are allegations that many lawyers encourage complainants to exaggerate the amounts they paid, assuring them that they will procure for them hefty settlements from the husbands, provided they get a certain percentage as commission for their services in coercing the husband's family. Several women's organizations, with long years of experience intervening in such cases, find to their dismay that their help is being sought in patently bogus cases. Several police officers also admit that a good number of cases are of dubious standing. The question to ask is: Are these stray examples, or do they represent a growing trend? Opinions differ. Some lawyers will tell you that more than 90 percent of the abuse cases brought before the court are false or based on questionable grounds. A lawyer, who handles the cases of Sabla Sangh, told me that in Punjab, on any random day, 75 percent of the cases listed for hearing in criminal courts are invoking these new amendments, and of these more than 90 percent are mala fide. Sumitra Kant of Punjab Istri Sabha confirms that the proportion of such cases is growing fast in Punjab and cited several cases personally known to her.
Q. How do you cope with such sordid domestic melodramas?
We provide help out of our conviction that there is a genuine need for such help. Otherwise the police, the lawyers and the courts will harass and extract money under the pretext of securing them justice. The failure of the existing machinery for redressal is too apparent to us to ignore the plight of victims of domestic violence. There are also cases where women are the offenders such as in a situation where a woman tries to steal or lure another woman�s husband. Our aim is to be free of any kind of gender bias. Otherwise, some women will have the impression that just because they are women they can use our organisation to further harass their victims. We have to work objectively to get the facts of the case.
Q. For instance?
Say, a man is having an extramarital affair and his wife tells us to file a false case of dowry harassment against the husband to get even with him. Such cases are common among middle and upper middle class people. They make pathetic spectacles of themselves. Of course, there is a large number of cases of spouses cheating on each other even among the poorer sections of society, but somehow, they don�t turn as vindictive towards each other and display better sense by being more willing to reconcile and to tolerate each other�s indiscretions if they don�t get completely out of hand. As they live on the margins of survival, their bonds are strengthened by their daily struggle. Even if they cannot provide adequate care for each other they remain concerned. It�s quite the opposite for the moneyed class. In the upper-middle class, money becomes the bone of contention in a troubled marriage. Most shocking is the behaviour of couples concerning their children who they think will be content to ignore parental lack of love and concern provided they are given all the comforts money can buy. We have seen mothers refuse responsibility to look after their children unless they are adequately compensated. We tell such people to go and hire legal aid to settle accounts with each other, instead of wasting our time.
Q You mean mothers too neglect children and use them as a tool for bargaining?
Yes. There are couples with plum jobs in multinational companies earning hefty salaries who, on separation, will treat responsibility for their children as a liability. These are very fickle human relationships which have been sustained until then under the veneer of superficiality and with an eye on each other�s bank balances.
Q. Have you encountered marriages with just a single problem�maladjustment, where there is no abuse of the sort you described earlier? Especially maladjustment on the woman�s part, where she can�t stand her in-laws, or desires a different lifestyle, for example. Do they resort to the misuse of anti-cruelty or anti-dowry laws as we have experienced in Delhi?
Yes, there have been cases of that sort as well. For example, we had a case where this woman knew her husband was seeing other women but she kept quiet to protect the family�s reputation. When she could not bear it any longer, she went to the police who told her to press dowry harassment charges against him. Her lawyer also advised her to do this and put it in her petition. When we get such cases, our investigations often reveal that there is no evidence for such charges. Many a time the situation is actually the reverse, for example, cases where the woman has all the control over the family finances and the man has been forced to obey her dictates. Such cases don�t stand up during the evidence stage.
Q. But the police sometimes arrest the husband even in a false case, make threats of arresting other members of the family in the hope of getting bribes.
We know the police encourage such cases as they are looking for ways to extract bribes. So we try to avoid the police and the courts as far as possible. Only when we need an injunction order or maintenance, a visit to the police station or the courts is a must. Otherwise, we tell the couples coming to us to sort out their problems between themselves, that we will assist and advise only if their aim is to act honestly. We tell them resolve the issues and avoid needless mudslinging.
Q. Whereas lawyers will insist on telling lies...
They will even traumatise the children by making them witnesses. So we have to assure the couples of our commitment to help them out of their trouble and emphasise our availability when-ever they need to discuss their problems. It�s in the lawyer�s interest to let the case drag on in court as it increases his opportunities to charge higher fees. So, people cooperate with us except when they are blinded by their egos and cannot look beyond their craving for revenge, the attitude that, _I want to teach her a lesson.�
Q. Isn�t it the other way round too with "I want to teach him a lesson"?
Oh, women can be equally vicious. When the estranged couple has the money and resources, they don�t mind using it to play a power game, or more egotistically, to prove who can last longer in a dispute. However, when the woman is clear in her mind that she does not want to live with the man and files for divorce, she tries to take away all her belongings. Otherwise, the man may report the matter to the police who in turn will immediately confiscate the woman�s belongings for as long as the case lasts in the court. A woman on a salaried job does not have the financial resources to start an independent life from scratch.
Q. What are the other types of cases where women were the offending party and tried to misuse Vimochana?
There was a case where a young Brahmin girl complained to us about a young Muslim man who she said was troubling her. According to her, every time a marriage proposal came her way, this Muslim boy would arrive at her place to harass the family. She said that after cheating her into pregnancy, the least this fellow could do was to leave her alone. Her family had this man arrested and also tried to give the case a communal overtone by publicly projecting the situation as one in which a Muslim boy was trying to harass a Hindu girl. Eventually, we got to the bottom of the case and it turned out to be very different. The Muslim boy was already engaged when he met the Hindu girl. Their mutual attraction led to a love affair, and the girl became pregnant. The boy cancelled his engagement, earned the wrath of his family and had to start living separately from them. The most amazing aspect was how the girl was able to hide her pregnancy and deliver her baby without the knowledge of her parents. When she had labour pains, she simply went with her boyfriend to the hospital and telephoned her parents to say that she was staying at a friend�s place and returned home after the delivery. The parents never got wind of it. In the meantime, the boy�s sister helped with the care of the child. In spite of her promise to return to him, the girl did a complete turnaround and refused to have anything to do with the Muslim boy or their child. While she fancied him, it was all hunky-dory. The moment it became inconvenient, she backed out of the relationship and dumped the man. To top it all, she had the audacity to portray herself as the victim and seek our help. What we regret most is the misuse of the strict anti-dowry laws. Ironically, as a women�s organisation, we were in the forefront in demanding such legislation. One visit to the Bangalore Central Jail and its gross misuse becomes evident. We found that out of 30 cases, eight pertained to dowry deaths and in each such dowry case, at least six or more members of a family have been jailed. There are too many trumped-up charges. There are cases where the girl has died at her parent�s house and it was made out to be a dowry suicide case.
Q. What precautions do you take to prevent such misuse?
We never initiate legal action on the basis of one person�s story. We make sure that we get the other person or party to share their version with us. Even in cases of death where we get the alleged offender arrested, we make it a point to meet the person in jail and know all the details.
Q. How have you sustained yourself? What�s your motivation?
All of us in the group know each other well and there is a very strong bonding among us. Even if I am not well, I cannot stay at home, I get a craving to reach here. However, all the women working with us must be sincere about the work and actually believe in it. We took on some people who had been through traumatic experiences in their lives, thinking they would make good counsellors, but it is not that simple. These people had preconceived notions, which they would apply in all cases, when in reality each case is different and has its own complexities. Therefore, now we assign individuals to counsellors based on specific abilities and knowledge, be it in child custody, alcoholism, drug abuse, marriage counselling, or other aras.
