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TIME TO WAKE UP & UNITE FOR ALL INDIAN WOMEN AGAINST PROPOSED AMENDMENT IN HINDU MARRIAGE ACT 1955 & SPECIAL MARRIAGE ACT,1954
It is no secret that India is a male dominated society. The recent amendment in Hindu Marriage Act will only increase male dominance. If this amendment makes it easier to get a divorce by mutual consent only then it is a good move but irretrievable breakdown of marriage as an independent ground for divorce will be devastating for the society & a mockery of marriage will be made.
1. Marriage is solemnized when both boy & girl decide to tie the knot so dissolution of marriage should also be by mutual consent only or if one party wants divorce then it should prove the fault of other as in present act.(various grounds for divorce : adultery,cruelty,desertion and mental illness). Irretrievable breakdown changes the terms of divorce from a fault basis to no fault basis.It means any of the two adults in a marriage can unilaterally terminate it for any reason they please.
2. There will be number of wives who would like that their marriage may not end at any cost & they may also not be interested in any kind of so called compensation. For them their self respect & dignity in their own eyes & in the eyes of their children & society may be the fore most thing. But with this amendment the Hindu wives have been painted as money seeking whores. We really condemn the gross demeaning of sisters & mothers.People will work out of commitment of marriage even at the drop of a hat. More than 68% of our population lives in villages. The social stigma attached to unmarried women & divorced women is so strong that most parents would rather see their daughters dead than to have them get a divorce and return permanently to parental home. It will have adverse effect on children who will start hating the Government and the Judicial System on seeing their mothers always cry and leading miserable stigmatic life while looking at their fathers having luxurious life with ever changing new partners.
3. Adding this as a ground means that when ever any wife will try to complaint to police against her harassing husband then her husband will threaten her to file for divorce. The only option for a wife will be to remain quiet & bear every wrong. All acts ie 498A (Dowry Act) , DV, Cv PC 125 will become meaning less if this IrBM is set as an independent ground for divorce.
4. After this amendment-Hindu wive remedy against a husband seeking divorce & who is willing to throw money on her face is only to claim ‘financial hardship’ but what about when the man is 4th class laborer & even if otherwise how many people are disclosing their incomes in a fair manner. Men pretend that their parents are dependent upon them. They suppress their income & transfer their properties in the name of their parents & relatives just to show to the court that they own nothing. The amendment should be brought when women are given adequate share in household assets even if it is in the name of in-laws & not the husband. Are Indian men ready to shed 50% of their income as in west? Can the government devise any formula that can take care of financial needs of whole life of children and wife? Most women get a pittance from the court Our socio- economic scenario is totally different from the west & it will be that for another few decades. Let India be a developed nation first where there are no dowry deaths, no female foeticide, no female infanticide, no gender inequality and after wards this ground may be added. India ranks a poor 114th in gender equality in the WEF the Global Gender Gap Index-2009 ranking. India has the highest number of women dying because of discriminatory treatment in access to healthcare & nutrition, s*x selective abortions & infanticide, in the Asia-Pacific region according to UNDP report. If gender & social relations are not equal, then gender neutral laws would not advance the cause of gender equity. Though some, not majority of, women have started being economically capable but they also suffer from double or triple burden of household management, household related outside work & her income generating work. In a culture where life circumstances are different for both genders, a gender neutral law would do injustice to women who have remained historically disadvantaged which continues till date, though these gender based disadvantages are increasingly being questioned & resisted. IrBM then should be placed in this context & analyzed.
5) A husband living abroad even without any estrangement can file IrBM just by throwing money on his wife and get rid of her. In this case,we can only pity Hindu wives.
6) Why should any working woman marry? What is Moily trying to do, convert a marriage into a prostitution? What if the husband is having an affair & wants to get rid of the wife to get married again. If the wife is a school teacher earning an average salary while the husband is earning lakhs & lakhs, she will be shown not to be in a grave financial hardship if the marriage breaks while the husband goes scot free without responsibility & marries again & the wife suffers not only in the society, but also has to forego the lifestyle she was used to living with the husband & that too for no fault of her own. What an easy exit for men who by nature are polygamous & just need an excuse to go for newer pastures.. IrBM will prove to be a boon in disguise for husbands in such cases because without IrBM even if he keeps his wife away, at least his wife can benefit from the thought that her husband can’t roam freely will another one & punish another women he might marry again. There is more likelihood that a woman suffers from this law. The husbands of working women while marrying will know that they are holding valid legal license of ditching their wives, whenever they like. Either such ladies will stop marrying or girls will stop to be in employment. Have these ladies committed any crime by studying hard and burning mid night oil and by being financially independent?
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Some people support this amendment because they say that
:-1. This amendment will ease agony of parties in the court & will reduce the pendency of cases in court.
But who says the pendency of cases can be reduced in this way only? Govt can set up more family courts, appoint more judges for ensuring speedy trials. It can even fix the number of hearings and a time limit for every case. It is a fundamental rule of law that hundred wrong-doers may be acquitted but not even one innocent should get punished. But here on the pretext of reducing pendency in courts, govt is putting at stake the future of innocent women, children and culture of the country. Applying justice in the shortest possible time is more important than applying this amendment to catch up with pendency. If court is not able to arrive at a decision within a in certain reasonable period, then we need to improve court functioning and not the Law. More over, the number of divorce cases will increase manifold which is not good for society.
2. Women file false cases u/s 498A (Dowry Act) , DV, Cv PC 125 etc and accuse all (most) of the husband’s family members for mentally, physically harassing them for dowry.
But why one forgets that women have a harder time taking rounds of courts for years together, besides facing verbal and emotional abuses from their own family members, lawyers, police officers etc. Only circumstances drive her to the court/police where she is forced when torture she faces becomes unbearable. Also, Sec 24 does treat man & woman equal while seeking compensation but why men always attack this section? Because as they are earning, they are not entitled to any thing under this section. More over amount granted as maintenance is always very meagre which is not even sufficient to meet both ends.
3. This amendment will provide relief to urban women wanting to opt out of relationship.
This is all rubbish. What is the percentage of such women who want to move out of relationship. Sociocultural attitudes are still backward and conservative even in the most educated and affluent bracket. By giving woman another label as ‘educated and working’ the man exploits the woman even further. Stop talking of exceptions and talk about most of the cases. Please get from courts the percentage of men and women who want to opt out of marriage & then compare.
4. The ground of matrimonial fault is not always sufficient for divorce and may cause injustice in disputes where marriage can’t work although none of the parties is at fault, or the fault is of such nature that parties to marriage don’t want to reveal it.
But if both parties don’t want to reveal it, then they will get divorce by mutual consent. And what about 498 people say that conviction rate is only 5%, so 95% cases are false. Why don’t they realize in this case that it is nearly impossible to prove that inlaws had caused mental and physical torture because no one will torture the daughter in law publicly? Any thing happening within closed doors is not easily proven. Even the immediate neighbours don’t indulge in such cases because they have been living in the neighbourhood &continue to live there for years/generations to come so they prefer to be on the quieter side. In the Jessica Lal murder case and the Ruchika Molestation case though every one knew what the reality was, but culprits were let off for lack of evidence in lower courts. If IrBM can be introduced making divorce based on no fault theory why not 498 is amended for immediate punishment to inlaws even without any evidence.
I am not against what the Cabinet Minister Mr. Shinde & what Mr. Moily (as a faithful friend of Mr. Shindey) is trying to do. May be every father will take advantage if possible to have decision being taken in favour of his daughter but if this is taken as a law, then majority of the ladies will not be able to welcome this. Probably with this only injustice will prevail.
If at all Mr.Moily & Mr.Shinde are determined to make this amendment as law they should take care that the following are excluded from the scope of this amendment .
1) The cases of couple who are already involved in judicial process for many years should not be decided on the basis of this amendment. The wives who are in their mid thirties/ forties and who have been tolerating for many years and who are fighting for justice in courts (against divorce petition filed by their husbands) in the hope of getting justice and reunion of their families one day should not be suddenly slapped with this amendment. It will be a mockery of justice if at this stage the amendment is imposed on them & their children. It is not their fault if their cases were pending for years in court. It is the fault of government & our system that failed to set up more family courts & fix time limit for each case. The IrBM as an independent ground should apply to only those marriages that will solemnize after this amendment because then the couples will enter into commitment of marriage only after keeping this law in view. The point is that they will be a hundred times more cautious before any decision is taken regarding their marriage.
2) At least couples with children should be kept away from this amendment
Women with children often dislike to remarry again, most of them do not & hence oppose divorce. Reasons are:-
i) The fear behind this is mainly that lady with children has already experienced bad luck with marriage & she may not be ready to take the similar risk again both for her & her children.
ii) The wife may also fear that her children will not get fair treatment from the new father/paternal family.
Divorce between couples with children should happen only by mutual consent or based on fault theory
I think all women/ women organization/NGOS should unite and show the real picture other wise-in the times to come things are going to be even worse for women and children. The law is really very dangerous. The Govt should shed its short sightedness and immediately withdraw the proposed amendment in Hindu Marriage Act 1955 & Special Marriage Act,1954 that tends to make irretrievable breakdown of marriage as an independent ground for divorce. Any law which touches upon the lives of the people should be made carefully without imitating other cultures, otherwise any enactment would be like a child born with a congenital defect, which will give society the bliss of having a baby but will also cast an onerous burden of cradling it. Mr. Moily Should be cautioned against his ambition of being remembered as a person for bringing revolutionary changes in law because with his so called revolutionary changes only evil will prevail & family culture of our India will collapse.
