Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death

RECOLLECTIONS

Founder/President of
Children's Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting,
Kumar Jahgirdar has helped so many people,
that he has lost count himself.

Many have asked me, what is a young guy like me, doing in the Men's Rights Movement. Some are amused, some are curious. This is the story of how I ended up here and why the movement has my undying support.

There comes a time in everyone’s life, when their path shall cross with something greater than themselves. When that happens there are only three ways to do things: you go about your business as usual though amused and intrigued, you decide you will take control and lead or you stand back and enjoy the show. I’m the third kind of person. Eventuality is taking shape in front of me, and I am a proud witness to have the knowledge of this ticking bomb.

MRM is the story of Men and Women in the process of building that bomb. I have seen their faces. I know each one of them. I wish I could say I want to sit back, relax and laugh as hard as possible when these terrorists take India by surprise. But they don’t believe in hiding much. In fact they are everywhere. Perhaps you may have seen them on TV. But the Indian news media is downplaying them. They are morphing the names of their organizations into entirely fictional ones so that the media’s own agenda is complied with. They call them as guests on talk shows and turn it into a 7 against 1 argument. They portray them as buffoons, lampooning and reducing them into caricatures. They dismiss them thinking they are misogynists.

Witty, smart and universally known for his misplaced
jokes, Atit Rajpara was the President of MRA, Pune
when I first met him. Since then he has moved on
  and embraced the Men-Going-Their-Own-Way view of
Men's Rights Movement. He has been a
source of great inspiration and a Mentor no less.

Why? Because the media probably does not understand them either. These so called misogynistic cultural terrorists are not exactly saying things that are in vogue. In this country we have had a great history of dismissing people before hearing their views and banning books before anyone reads them. But the Men and Women that belong to the rising tide of the Men’s Rights Movement in India, are unshaken. Their resolve is untarnished. This is the story of my path crossing with theirs.

After an episode of seduction leading up to a ridiculous break-up in college three years ago, I went into a frenzy. As a boy fresh out his small town existence, I was shocked to see the kind of apathy I was met with outside of a circle where people knew almost nothing about me or my character. I was studying in Pune then. My so-called ex-girlfriend accused me of “kind of” raping her. (The truth was she just wanted to get rid of me, because she had found a man whom she saw as better than me.) This was enough gunpowder for those closest to me, to turn their backs on me. My own friends looked at me with disgust. I made the mistake of confiding into some by telling them that I wasn’t guilty. Some wanted me to “act mature”, “suck it up”, “man up” and “quit complaining”. Others were of the view that it was “probably your (my) fault”, “no self respecting woman would accuse a guy of rape just like that”, “I should be sent to jail”, “quit troubling her and trying to ask why, or we will go to the cops.”

Jyoti Tiwari is many things. A wife, a mother, a sister.
But that is only her alterego. She's also a superhero.
A firebrand MRA and is often seen on TV kicking the wits
 out of Five to Six Feminists single handedly. Her position
 in the Men's Rights philosophy not only shocks women
but men too. Very analytic in her approach she is known
for sticking to facts and being extremely vocal about
counter-data. She also blogs quite often.

A few came up with rather creative ways to substantiate and connect dots that never existed in the first place. It was an attempt to make me look as if I was a pervert. Very soon even my blank gaze into abyss was turned into an urban myth. A friend later revealed that many thought that I was a pervert who stares at his colleagues’ boobs. Many suddenly "got the feeling" that "I have my eye on them."

Here’s a question: what if the girl in question, wasn’t a self respecting woman? If we were to crawl out of the holes of ignorance induced by nearly a hundred years of feminist propaganda in India, male shaming and false claims of a little thing called ‘patriarchy’ it is easy to see that not all women are born with a dash of self respect. Women are as human as men, and share similar, if not the same flaws as men today. And if the reader of this piece were to reduce this to the age old cliché argument of “most women are not like that” I would ask the reader to substantiate any of their claims beginning with “most women”. Most of these claims about “most women” begin with most common myths and assumptions about them. Myths that are so old that may have been true once upon a time, but in this age of Third Wave Feminism, have no ground.

Dismayed and disillusioned by how cruelly my friends and colleagues turned me guilty until

Easily India's answer to Matt O' Connor (from
the notorious Fathers 4 Justice in the UK)
Virag Dhulia does not even believe in bullshit,
much less buy it. Perhaps one of the most vocal
and articulate MRAs in India, Virag is a Technical
Architect by profession and an ass kicker by choice.
Virag has been invited to Rajya Sabha Standing
Committee and has taken the movement inside the
Parliament. He is also the head of Gender Studies,
at Confidare India and believes that the battle must
be waged on both legal and academic front.

proven innocent I turned to excessive intoxication. The pain of the break-up was hard enough already and the kind of social persecution I met with did not help. I was later to discover that the sword of legal intervention was hanging right over my head. The burden of constant accusation, judgement, heartbreak, dropping academic performance and a total alienation eventually pushed me to contemplate suicide. On October 17th, 2012 I was 22 years old. I decided that I will kill myself not because of a break-up, but because I felt that the self-constructed image of mine being holier-than-thou had been tarnished forever. Prior to the events unfolding as they did, I did not smoke, I did not drink, drugs were out of the question and the only definition I understood of the term, was medicine. All this in a college, where you were indeed judged for not indulging in these things. Not only was it okay to do it, you were not 'cool' if you didn't indulge. I took the judgement as and when it came. Sometimes I'd laugh it off. Other times it would get awkward, but I resisted no matter what. In retrospect, naïve as it may be I had a code for myself.

Eventually I started believing that I did in fact rape her. That it was my fault. Days passed, and on one hazy evening I drank till I couldn’t move. I lay flat on my bed, and kept crying. After looking it up on the internet I set my mind to buying a household product with chemical compounds that could prove lethal if consumed copiously. While laying there in the said condition I made token calls to people I had been closest to. My mother and my cousin I grew up with in my hometown, also studying with me. I love him a lot, I don’t tell it enough.

In the next two hours my cousin called up my roommate because of the way I talked got

Deepika Bharadwaj is a media person through
 and through. She's a journalist, an anchor
 and a filmmaker. For the past few years she has
 been struggling to complete her documentary
Martyrs of Marriage. A lack of funds has slowed
 down the film in its final stages. But she isn't in it
 just for the sake of a story or her film. MRM is
 no fun and games for her and she is one
 of the biggest advocates of the goals of the 
Men's Movement in India.

him concerned. My roommate expressed worry too. My brother arrived with a few of his friends and when he saw me lying in the condition I was in, he couldn’t help but slap some sense into me. I kept crying. He spent that evening calming my nerves and reminding me who I was and what kind of strong, honest people my parents were. And thus I was stopped from doing something stupid before I could attempt it. He had always known me to be strong as well. And when he saw how weak I had been acting, it really did scare him. A few days after the breakdown I thought it wasn’t worth it to go down without a fight.

My experience made me question everything. I knew that there was something called the Men’s Rights Movement in the US. I had watched some videos on YouTube and I felt that I was connecting really well to what was being said. I would later discover that most of these faces were very big names globally in the Men’s Rights Movement. People like Karen Straughan, Warren Farrell and Paul Elam. The consciousness western men had achieved, in terms of their role as a gender in their respective societies was shocking. In

Anil Kumar makes Robots for fun. No really,
that's his job! He is a Robotics Engineer, and 
is the true nightmare of Indian Feminists. 
The Director of Indian News Desk on the 
internationally acclaimed MRM mouthpiece
 A Voice for Men, his hobbies include revelations 
and debunking of Feminist influenced or 
sponsored "statistics". Soft spoken but stern, 
disliked by Feminists but respected by
 Indian MRAs in equal measure Anil is credited
 with bringing international attention to the 
Indian movement. He is also one of the
 founding fathers of the movement in India.
Even as you read this, he is busy creating Anti-
Feminist Terminators in his basement.

fact these people were fighting back. In India we are used to nodding and feeling ashamed of all sorts of fair and unfair accusations made by women towards men.

I was graduating in Media and 2 years of studies had taught me that there is absolutely no such movement or idea that is being discussed somewhere in the world, and not in India. We really do have everything in India, if we look really hard. So as I sat in the computer lab of my college I ran a search for Men’s Rights Movement in India, and indeed it was there! Not just that, it was already eight years strong, the largest and most vibrant movement anywhere in the world, minimal split when compared to other parts of the world, but above all, untouched by western

Sandesh Chopdekar (centre) is one of the chief counsellers
 at Men's Rights Association, Pune. He is one of the most 
influential members in Pune and has admiration from
 other members. His resolve to make good and fix things
inspires everyone and as the person who has heard 
hundreds of stories of the victims of false cases or just 
plain gender bias against men, and his own legal 
knowledge make him a very sharp individual. Even though 
there is practically nothing you can say that he can't
 counter -argue, he has a policy about new members. 
He allows new guys to express their emotions as much 
as possible. 

conservatism and an intervention of religious orthodoxy. I found myself on the SIFF website and I did not know it then, but I had called up the Bangalore centre. After a short talk I was welcomed into the movement. That Friday I found out about Men’s Rights Association, Pune. I went to meet these people, expecting an office like other NGOs I had previously been to.

To my absolute amusement it was only a large group of guys that only met in a public park. Under a shade these guys sat together in groups offering each other legal counsel, emotional support and above all allowed people to cry. They accepted masculinity as it came. They did not just assume there was something wrong with people who came to see them. They were not a mission to fixing men. They were only asking to curb and revoke unfair and biased laws. They were demanding back something which was rightfully ours – our dignity. They were willing to listen.

Manpreet Bhandari is only his alias.
He is really Superdad who is often seen
standing on the streets of Bangalore,
protesting for equal rights of parents
towards shared parenting.

In months to come, I would realize that my problem was nothing in comparison to what other people are going through. They couldn’t see their children, have turned practically broke paying constant alimony, have been duped by lawyers several times, have had their entire family jailed over false dowry cases, over false domestic violence cases, sisters have lost their brothers, mothers have lost their sons. And all, for what – an assumed imagery of women being always right and moral? I met people and I talked to people that changed me. It wasn’t about me anymore. It wasn’t a grudge I was harbouring due to a failed relationship and the unfairness I was met with. This had become larger than me.

I’m still studying to shape my future and career. And

The mysterious Jay Man, is largely
unknown. He is seen on Facebook,
has confirmed that he is not a lawyer,
but has immense command over law.
He has been secretly waging a war on
both the Indian and American legal
system, to get the custody of
his son back from his estranged wife.

since last year I have come back to my hometown of Patna. I do not get to frequent MRA, Pune as much as I would like to anymore. But one thing is for sure. I am never going back to who I was. With all our flaws and internal differences within the movement, we are still the best in the world. MRM has given me a reason, never to be ashamed of my gender no matter what anyone says. I won’t be held liable for acts of criminals and murderers just because they happen to be male. In time, I shall carry the philosophy of MRA wherever I go and whatever job I do.  And when I’m done, I will return fully committed. Until then I will keep causing trouble for all-feminists and misandrists.

NOTE: The images of Men's Rights Activists displayed on this post are the people who have inspired me the most or have been close acquaintances.

-End of Log-

~The RED Indian~