Men’s Rights, lies and persecution fantasies

As the voices protesting violence against women become louder, another kind of voice is rising. Save the Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) is an organization that does NOT aim to save Indian families, but to save families accused of domestic violence from going to jail.

https://twitter.com/helplines/status/293301818824486912

On the surface, it seems what it claims. However, scratching the surface, it isn’t that either. The SIFF agenda does not aim to fight abuse of men in the meaning of “men’s rights” like “women’s rights”. For example, they do not work for male rape victims though they do claim to carry out desensitization against “patriarchy”. They fight “false rape cases” and “false dowry cases” and overall anti-feminism.

Taking apart a typical propaganda article to show the fallacies and how facts morph into fiction to cater to agendas.

The article in question is “NCRB stats show more married men committing suicide” by Vicky Nanjappa.

What the title states is fact. However, does it amount to the claims made in its content? Let’s take a look.

All quotes from the article.

A report by the National Crime Record Bureau shows that in the year 2010, 168 men ended their lives everyday.Vicky Nanjappa reports.

If one were to go by the report released by the National Crime Records Bureau, it seems that in the year 2010, men in India were the weaker sex. In other words, more husbands committed suicide than wives.

Before we get into the suicide statistics, I want to point out the first mindfake. Number of suicides higher means is not the “weaker sex”. While I believe that there is no point labeling stronger or weaker, the idea that an average person of one sex who can normally easily overpower an average person of the opposite sex is specifically labelled weaker does not hold merit, particularly in the face of rising crimes when exactly that happens. One wonders what that specific ploy achieves. The most that could be said if we MUST label like strong and weak is that men are emotionally weaker or less resilient.

This fits in with the cultural stereotype. Men raised in patriarchy with a sense of entitlement have relatively fewer coping skills under stress or deprivation or denial than women conditioned to deal with it. At the same time, they are under stress to constantly prove themselves. This also reflects in the overall overwhelming number of men getting violent – apart from suicides and such.

Regardless of all that, note that physically women by and large are weaker and this cannot be dismissed so casually. The physical harm by women to men remains negligible and is overwhelmingly the other way around.

This is particularly important since these men use these numbers to imply that cases filed under 498A (domestic abuse) are mostly false as well as claim a reverse norm of women exploiting men. So the statistics must show possibility of domestic abuse or abnormally high suicides among married men alone. If a married woman committed suicide when India lost a cricket match, you wouldn’t accept it as suicide due to domestic abuse, right?

Statistics reveal that last year 61,453 married men committed suicide in India while the number of married women who committed suicide was almost half, 31,754. The statistics was only slightly better for 2009. That year, NCRB statistics show, 58,192 husbands killed themselves as compared to 31,300 wives.

The NCRB is a wing of the ministry of home affairs. Going by its report for the last two years, the suicide rate among men has gone up by 5.6 per cent while that among women has risen by 1.4 per cent.

An analysis of the suicide data shows that every 8.5 minutes a man commits suicide somewhere in India. In other words, in 2010, 168 men killed themselves every day.

There is a nice graph provided.

Suicide Ratio

So why are people committing suicide? This table is sortable by clicking on the header to enable easy comparisons (unlike govt data).

[table id=7 /]

Or in other words:

Suicide data for India by causes

It does not tell us much except family problems being a big reason for suicide. What kind of family problem is not specified here. Whether the causes are marital is difficult to ascertain like this. However what is clear is that on the whole, for most reasons, men are committing suicide more and this is not exclusive to family problems even in the highly unlikely case that if they were solely marital. We leave this be, for below (I just wanted to use this very useful and pretty table :p).

The article goes on with some more statistics, but the next concern it raises is:

However, it is in the 30-44 age group where the statistics turns grim for men: 30,444 victims against 14,402 women.

To begin with, we are now not talking about married, unmarried widowed, divorced, etc, but an age group. Fair enough to assume that most are married, and so on, but out of these 30,444 men who committed suicide between the ages 30-44, a mind boggling 16,053 were self employed (and over a fourth of them farmers). This is 49.2% of all male suicides, 52.7% of his target group, and he thinks this data is relevant for domestic abuse? More likely looks like floundering family owned businesses (which could also explain the “family problems”)

In contrast, 51.5 of all suicidal deaths are housewives, though the numbers for men may be more on the whole. Except for things like dowry or pregnancy, everything has more men committing suicide, including things like illness, insanity or AIDs – which can’t even be attributed to any other kind of discrimination for it to be called a “men’s rights” issue.

Then we have:

Virag Dhulia, a men’s activist from Bengaluru who runs several ‘save the male’ campaigns, explains that despite the efforts of groups like his, the message is falling on deaf ears, and blames what he calls “unfair laws targetting men” for this statistic.

I understand that Virag Dhulia has a personal issue with the Dowry Act. Unless I am mistaken, he’s the guy who sued his wife for giving Dowry, when he got booked under the Dowry Prevention Act. That doesn’t sound very helpless to me, but I can understand that he feels strongly about it.

However, the statistics don’t agree that men are doing particularly worse from either domestic abuse or divorce settlements. The table below is Statistics of suicides by marital status (You’re welcome). Looking at it, it is fairly clear that suicides are higher among separated men than divorced men. Generally these settlements are a part of the divorce. If I am to use Virag’s logic, I think this is fairly concrete proof that guilty minds at rest, less men commit suicide after giving away their properties to the evil women? :p

[table id=8 /]

Additionally, in cities – the supposed target group where these supposed malpractices happen of framing the husband, etc The rate of suicide is less among married men than among single men as well as less among divorced men than separated men. If men are dying from spousal abuse, then the numbers ought to be more for married men than single or separated. Also, if men were being driven to suicide by divorce settlements, those numbers ought to be bigger.

In other words, this is gender propaganda invented to incite hate about women by projecting men as large scale victims of them and fueled by pure spite. I would have said lies, but it is actually possible that they liked the numbers so didn’t look too closely at them. Giving them the benefit of the doubt.

There is more about how the laws are unfair, but it moves into the legal aspect and away from suicides, so separate article for them.

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10 thoughts on “Men’s Rights, lies and persecution fantasies”

  1. Ms Vidyut, who ever you may be…
    You will realize the use/misuse of these totally biased laws when you will be trapped in such cases by either your SIL/DIL…
    You might have heard case of Nisha Sharma, Delhi in 2005 who was given so many bravery awards for falsely framing her would be in laws as she was already married to her paramour when facts came in light it was too late for the people who were falsely accused.
    But God did the justice same Nisha Sharma and her family was accused by her SIL in 2012.
    You can escape by saying such cases are rare then please do visit the any family court, you yourself come to know the reality…
    Please visit and inquire few cases, you will find the most of the cases false…
    you cant visit, do not falsify MRAs, SIF etc..

    Please God shake..

  2. Great. What Vidyut is explaining that 60K men didnt commit suicide due to marital problems, adultery, dowry issues etc. She claims in her data- just a few thousand. She should let us know some more facts- was anybody prosecuted for abetting men’s suicide? Everyday we hear news that such and such person has been arrested for abetting a women suicide- are life of men less valuable than that of a woman? Law provides for mandatory magisterial inquiry in case of women’s unnatural death- why is such inquiry avoided in case of Men’s death? Forget this debate as to whether 5000 or 25000 or 60000 men committed suicide- all that we are saying that there must not be gender discrimination even after death. Suicide of a man or a woman- both are unfortunate and both should receive same urgency in society.

    1. Mr/Mrs 99% falls..
      For knowledge I would like to tell you these statistics are given by Indian Govt not by any body else..
      Plz update yourself before commenting..

  3. Farooq Abdullaaah

    You talk of all facts and figures. Right. lets go by that only, Y is the conviction for 498a , domestic violence very low? may be as per you its bcos of settlement. If the girl is so aggrieved , then can the grievance be equated to money then? then all murderers and rapists will give money and get away right. If money would not be involved in the dowry , DV cases there would be no 498a cases only. Actually the real victims who are from rural areas never come to file a complaint. Let the 498a, DV cases be decided in 6 months flat, if it is proved false then no money and the same 3 yrs jail for the complainant along with monetary compensation for defaming him. Then see how all these 498a, DV cases will vanish. For a common man and his family his status in the society is more important and all bcos of this stupid laws and the rising number of unscrupulous women the Indian society is being killed. I recently saw a recent data point where in 40% of all children born are outside wedlock in spite of the government giving so many incentives to get married. The day will not be far off when that statistic will apply to India. Let God save the Indian society

  4. If a man suicides while undergoing divorce proceedings…he is “divorced” or “separated”?

    And your method of comparing percentage of male for individual categories is really faulty. Like the percentage of single men committing more suicides than married men as a percentage calculated by comparing with females can also be explained by single women committing less suicides. Please don’t start playing a number game if you are not particularly good at it.

    Men’s rights does not deny the fact that there are problems that women face in the society and laws are needed to combat them. But the misuse of these laws is just as big a concern. You do not need SIFF to state that. Here is an article from Madhu Kishwar, a prominent Indian feminist acquiescing to the fact. (http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue120/domestic.htm) By trying to deny it, it is feminists like you who are taking an extremist position…..not SIFF.

    And by the way, please do not try to bring everyone down to your level by saying “they liked the numbers”. Am I then to understand that Women’s Rights Organisations like it very much when number of rapes in India go up every year because it suits their rhetoric/purpose? Not everyone has such perverted mindset.

  5. Statistics reveal that last year 61,453 married men committed suicide in India while the number of married women who committed suicide was almost half, 31,754. The statistics was only slightly better for 2009. That year, NCRB statistics show, 58,192 husbands killed themselves as compared to 31,300 wives.

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