Maharashtra tops nation in divorce cases

The maximum number of divorces is among call centre employees, medical professionals and those in the technology sector, says Vicky Nanjappa

The past one year has witnessed 43,000 divorces across the country. However, owing to the awareness relating to men's rights nationwide, the number of divorce by mutual consent has also gone up. Today, statistics shows 60 per cent of the divorces is by mutual consent.

Among states with the highest number of divorces, Maharashtra topped the list in the past year, accounting for nearly 20,000 cases, with Mumbai and Pune alone accountin for 15,000 of them, while the remaining were reported from Nashik, Aurangabad and Nagpur.

Lawyers say that lifestyle change is one of the primary reasons for marriages ending in divorce. Around five years ago, the ratio was one divorce per 1,000 marriages in India, and today statistics indicate that there are 13 divorces for every 1,000 marriage.

The main reasons attributed to the break-up of marriages in India today are related to equal income between sexes and the high stress levels. The maximum number of divorces is among call centre employees, medical professionals and those in the technology sector.

The trend of filing a dowry harassment case along with a divorce plea has also gone down considerably, as a result of the fight by men's rights organisations against the unfair dowry laws under which false cases were filed to extract more compensation or maintenance from husbands. 

Statistics show that 98 pc of the dowry cases filed across India by women seeking a divorce result in acquittal. In two pc of the cases, with the law presuming 'guilty till proven innocent', the complaint is taken at face value. Also, in many cases conviction is meted out on paper to justify the period spent as undertrial (before bail is granted to the accused). In layman terms, offence not proven yet convicted only to cover the delay in the pre-bail period.

The divorce scenario in India is a mixed one. Men's rights activist Virag Dhulia says the laws relating to maintenance and child custody are highly vague and left to judicial interpretation, which is highly influenced by social mindsets and attitudes towards men.

This leads to a lot of anti-male judgments wherein judges interpret facts and laws from the mindset that a husband/father must pay, irrespective of the merits of the case, so much so that it is ok to alienate the father and the child even while asking the same father to pay for the child's upkeep.

"We get around 200 calls a week from all over India, and our campaigns have been very successful in providing emotional, psychological and legal support to men who are distressed, victimised by their wives and in-laws and by anti-male gender-biased laws. Such men get the support they need from us," Dhulia says.

"As per our studies and interactions with people, the primary reason for divorce is growing expectations of men to maintain their extended families and in-laws, and when the man can no longer take the burden the chord snaps. Men also put up with a lot of emotional and psychological abuse and suffer in silence as they have no place to go. The government also does not provide any official channel to them," he explains.

Dhulia also draws one's attention to changing trends in divorce cases where women have been claiming compensation, which was quite unthinkable earlier.

"Either a woman is entitled to compensation (lumpsum) or a monthly maintenance. In one case, the woman has sought a monthly maintenance of Rs 5 lakh and has also provided a break-up for the same, which is something that does not exist as per our laws," Dhulia says.

"In her plea, she sought money for the child, her own expenses and goes on to give a break-up which includes a monthly entertainment allowance of Rs 10,000, travel allowance of Rs 30,000, telephone bill of Rs 10,000, a security guard for Rs 9,800, clothes and accessories worth Rs 28,000 among others," he says.

The International Association of Masculinists, a men's rights organisation, points out in a press release that the amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act entitled Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010, which has seen tabled before the Cabinet, 'sets human rights back by decades if not centuries'. 

According to the association, they had spoken against this bill as far back as 2010, informing the Indian government of the gross injustice the bill metes out to men while granting special consideration to men, such as:

1. A wife may oppose a husband's filing for divorce at any time.
2. However, a husband is restrained from opposing his wife's filling for divorce.
3. Courts are given great freedom to decide that a husband's property should be granted to his wife.
4. No such option is granted to provide a wealthier wife's property to an impoverished husband.
5. The 'Financial Security of Women' clause in the bill restrains courts from granting divorce unless adequate moneys are paid to the wife.
6. Under the bill the husband is made to paid the wife, in a special Dowry something forbidden by Indian law.