Why India needs “Purush Ayog” or “National Commission for Men” immediately?

I wish to extend sincere thanks to Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Shri Harinarayan Rajbhar for raising the issue of absence of a “Purush Ayog” or “National Commission for Men” in India. India needs a constitutional body for representation of Men. Hon’ble MP was kind enough to voice our demand that if women have an Ayog for them, why not men. I wish to reiterate the demand and strong reasons why the demand for “Purush Ayog” or “National Commission for Men” is valid and immediate:

1. 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 National 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.

2. 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 National Commission for Men or a Purush Ayog.

3. 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 this big lacunae to an end as in absence of credible data, India would continue to have a wrong understanding of ground reality.

4. 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 since 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, has reached at a stage of a male suicide every 5 minutes.

5. 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.

6. Law Misuse of Gender Biased Laws have seen the Hon’ble Supreme Court stepping in to stop Legal Terrorism. If India had a Purush Ayog, 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.

7. 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.

8. 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 Ministry is based on Gender. Hence, end result is that India does not have even one Policies for Saving/Developing/Empowering boys. Boys 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.

9. 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, inspite 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.

10. 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. Inspite of Prostrate 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 Ayog or National Commission for Men.

11. 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 questioned by various courts across India, with no action from the Government. If we had a Purush Ayog, such a big issue would not have gone unaddressed.

12. 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 National Commission for Men. Even 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 only NCW and WCD. The Cabinet 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.

13. “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” has been the mantra of the current government. Inclusive development can only happen when Men are also included in al policies, laws and police making. Dire need of Purush Ayog or National Commission for Men cannot be ignored any further.

14. Men’s issues need experts from Men’s Rights field to be allowed representation of men and hence not allowing men a constitutional body in itself is Unconstitutional.

Owing to above few strong reasons, Purush Ayog or National Commission for Men is immediately needed in India.
I request the Government to kindly make a Constitutional body to think about half of the voters and half of India’s population, Men. This gap needs to be filled immediately.