We are sincerely thankful to the Hon’ble MP Shri. Anshul Verma (Hardoi) and Hon’ble MP Shri. Harinarayan Rajbhar (Ghosi) for raising the issue of ‘Men's Commission’ or ‘Purush Aayog’ in the parliament.
This is the first time that demand for Men’s Commission was voiced by someone in the parliament where both BJP MPs have demanded that a commission be set up to look into the complaints of men "suffering at the hands of their wives" due to "misuse" of laws.
But, is the 'misuse of law' only problem that Men in India face?
Daaman, as a part of Save Indian Family Movement, a movement fighting for Men’s Rights representing the people of masculine gender of all ages in India, have been demanding the formation of Men’s Commission and Men’s Ministry for a long time now and demanding Men’s Commission to look into the complaints of men ‘suffering at the hands of their wives’ due to ‘misuse of law’, though is not sufficient, but it indeed is the beginning of the more and more reasons and grounds to be added in support of our demands.
Law misuse no doubt is a strong reason for demanding Men’s Commission, but at the same time, it is just a very small part of the issues Men in India face! That is the reason why Men needs a constitutional body for representation of Men and Hon’ble MPs were kind enough to voice our demand that if women have an Aayog for them, why not men.
Daaman and other brother NGOs have been repeatedly giving memorandums to MPs and other authorities in regard to our demands. We enumerate below a few more strong reasons as to why this demand for Men’s Commission is not only valid but urgent. We demand of having a Purush Aayog or Commission for Men, since
Constitution of India, under Article 15, provide equal treatment, irrespective of Gender but Men don’t have equal representation of Constitutional bodies where women have a Commission, a dedicated Ministry and a dedicated Cabinet Minister, men have none of these. This is a clear violation of the Constitutional Rights of Male Gender.
Men have no representation in the Law Making process of India. While Gender based Laws are discussed or drafted, only Women centric NCW and WCD Ministry are asked for inputs while the concerns and issues faced by men go unheard because of absence of a Commission for Men or a Purush Aayog.
There is no data collection by the Government on issues faced by men as only NCW and WCD are giving inputs to data collection processes of National Family Health Surveys or of Census of India or of even National Crime Records Bureau. A Male Constitutional body would be able to bring these big lacunae to an end as in absence of credible data, India would continue to have a wrong understanding of ground reality.
India has been termed as the Suicide Capital of the World with over 90000+ Male Suicides. Male Suicide in India has always been more than 2 times of women over past 20 years of data available with National Crime Records Bureau. Unfortunately, in absence of a Men’s representative body, no work has ever been initiated by any Government towards Male Suicide, which has today, reached to an alarming stage of a male suicide every 5 minutes.
We are a unique country, which has a Ministry or Government department for Women, Children, Forests, Animals, Fishes but no such Representation for Men, which in itself is ironical.
Law Misuse of Gender Biased Laws has seen the Hon’ble Supreme Court stepping in to stop Legal Terrorism. If India had a Purush Aayog, it would have stepped in much earlier to cater to such overloading of the Hon’ble Courts with frivolous litigation and governments could have been much more proactive in taking steps to make Justice speedy by avoiding overloading of Judiciary with frivolous litigation.
India has evolved as a country of Gender budgets. Such budgets are generally drawn based on the requirements of bodies like NCW and WCD and hence India sees allocation of ZERO budgets for Men’s Issues, Empowerment, Enablement, Skill development, Health etc. etc.
Boys, have always been left as a disregarded entity whenever it comes to Child policies by any of the previous Governments since the focus of Women and Child Ministries based on Gender. Hence, end result is that India does not have even one Policy for Saving/Developing/ Empowering boys. Boy’s School dropout rate is highest and Male Child Labor goes unchecked for decades because of gender based focus of WCD and primarily because of absence of a Male gender focused Constitutional body.
Sexual Abuse of boys was found to be 6% higher than that of girls in under 18 years category while sexual abuse of young males (18-24 years) was found much higher as per Ministry of WCD Survey in 2007. Surprisingly, being a Child development ministry, no attention, policies, actions were taken by this ministry on their own findings. Sadly, in spite of change of the government over years, boys continue to be the largest victims of sexual, physical, economical, financial abuse across India. It is high time that a constitutional body focused on Male Gender is formed to take care of men and boys.
Men’s Health has been an ignored issue by governments since Independence. Male life expectancy ratio has been always lower than female in India but still there is not a single policy which is focusing on Men’s Health. In spite of Prostate Cancer claiming more lives than Breast cancer, has there been any focus from any Government on it? No. That’s why we need a Purush Aayog or Commission for Men.
Men have been at a receiving end of Homelessness, being thrown out of their houses and even fake cases. Rehabilitation of men, who are wronged with, has been advised by various courts across India, with no action from the Government. If we had a Purush Aayog, such a big issue would not have gone unaddressed.
Looking at the history of various Cabinet reports, Parliamentary reports, Law Commission reports, men and their side has always been ignored primarily because of absence of Commission for Men. Lately during the making of Workplace Sexual Harassment Laws of India, the intention of covering the male working population in the safety cover was ignored under pressure of NCW and WCD. The committee had also asked NCW to provide details on Harassment of male work population but even that was not provided. As a result, India got another biased law that even Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT, Bangalore) had said to be Unconstitutional.
Development has been the mantra of the current government. Inclusive development can only happen when Men are also included in al policies, laws and policy making. Dire need of Purush Aayog or Commission for Men cannot be ignored any further.
Men’s issues need experts from Men’s Rights field to be allowed to represent men and hence not allowing men a constitutional body is clear discrimination against Male Gender.
Owing to above few strong reasons, Purush Aayog or Commission for Men is immediately needed in India.
Since our demand for the formation of Men’s Commission has reached the parliament and few MPs are taking an interest too, we are very hopeful to have our demands met soon and Men in India will have “Men’s Commission”.