The Save Indian Family Movement (SIF Movement) is convening its 12th National Meet on Men's Issues in Vadodara from August 12 to August 14, 2022. On this occasion, I wish to draw brother activists’ kind attention to something essential for the movement and MenKind in the country.
The Movement
All the like-minded brother NGOs (including Daaman) working for the cause of Men in India, with all their strengths and shortcomings, constitute the SIF Movement, the Men's Rights Movement in India. With time and actions being the teachers, we all made mistakes and learned from them, we tasted hardships as well as success, and paved the way for the further course of action for Men's Rights in India.
During the course of our journey, since inception, especially under the patronage of the SIF Movement, all the brother NGOs have got to learn a lot. We have created several amazing things including SIF-One #8882-498-498, the only National Helpline for Men in India! We’re constantly optimizing the use of the human resources that we harvest in weekly meetings to advance the cause of Men! Important to note here is that neither all Men who reach us are victims, nor that all the victims that reach us are aware or willing to participate in the battle for Men's cause.
It was the collective effort of all of our brother NGOs under the auspices of the SIF Movement only that we were able to prevent the passage of the IrBM law and stopped the criminalization of marital rape by saving exception 2 under section 375 of the IPC from being removed.
The Scenario
Men’s Rights Movement started witnessing a steep rise in misuse of 498A of IPC, when wounded individuals came together and formed the SIF Movement; today, after all the efforts, a normal man falsely implicated in 498A of IPC stands with more options and liberty than a privileged man had a decade ago. Yet, we still have thousands of people struggling, which we haven't been able to reach.
Even in the best of the privileged class peoples' circle, numerous are struggling to cope with the pressure of false rape and gang-rape allegations on one pretext or the other. Most of these, either land up in never-ending judicial proceedings trying to save their skin, or else, they pay a portion of their fortune to live a modest life with peace.
We’ve come a long way in creating awareness in society, yet there is a constantly growing number of people in need of help and guidance. Agreed, that there are far more people accepting the gender bias against men in society, but with everything that we’ve accomplished we still have major gaps in our efforts in terms of content that is required.
The Requirement
Lack of content is restricting the growth of the movement and the huge majority of the movement revolves only around trying to survive 498A or Family Court matters or rape allegations.
To have, and grow as an ideological revolution, we need proper content, away from 498A or rape or misuse of laws in any form. We need a revolution where Men's cause is seen as a way of serving humanity, rather than serving our own cases. Though we've grown many folds, still, due to the lack of content other than gender-biased laws, not enough newcomers realize that as Men's Rights Activists, our service to others should be our priority.
We cannot bring an effective social change, or change in institutions if individuals struggling for that change are ideologically inclined to engage only as long as their own issues are not resolved.
We need content in the movement to make newcomers realize that satisfaction in Men's Rights Activism is in providing a service to others for the sake of MenKind. Especially when it’s something that gives people not merely what they want, but what they need.
We need content that elaborates that we are not here to merely survive, but to learn something and be part of something bigger than ourselves, MenKind!