Why does 498a/406 happen to good husbands or to non-criminal husbands?

1) Create a society in which nobody wants to pay any amount more than what they are forced, trapped, seduced, or fooled into paying to anyone for anything. In which rich people have an incredible sense of entitlement (because only narcissists can hope to become rich), and poor people just don't matter to those in positions of influence.

Then sit back and watch general loot, cheating, and thuggery until some sort of revolution occurs. (Here it must be said that the revolution must be real and must be from within for the loot and cheating to stop in any given society.)

Our country is in this phase today, just like much of the rest of the world.


2) Enable an unenlightened set of people to become the ruling class in any society. OR let an oligarchy - kleptocracy assume a dominant role in a country. (It is the same thing said in two different ways.)

Then sit back and—

(a) Watch a ruling class –whose central goal is to perpetuate its status as the ruling class– enact laws designed to create endless internecine strife in the ruled class.

(b) Watch a ruling class which has too little imagination to see fairer ways of furthering its influence bring a country –and thereby itself– to ruin.

(c) Watch them create contrived and impossible bureaucratic procedures
         (i) Which suck the lifeblood out of the ruled,
         (ii) Which exist mainly to enable bribery and an artificial fear of future legal retribution, and
         (iii) Which amount to nothing more in the end than a waste of national time and energy.

Our country has been in this phase for the entire period after independence, although the degree of oppression has reduced a bit of late. I reserve comment about the future.


3) Take any type of relationship. It may be the vendor-buyer relationship, the teacher-student relationship, the business partner relationship, the donor-receiver relationship, the doctor-patient relationship, the lawyer-client relationship, the civil-military relationship, the police-public relationship, or any other.

Make a law which governs the said relationship.

Write in the law that whatever the first party gives to the second party (throughout the period for which the relationship lasts) is refundable to the first party in the event of the end of the relationship. And that whatever the second party gave to the first party will remain with the first party. In addition, specify that the second party will have to go to jail if he does not return what the first party gave to him OR if he demands back whatever he gave to the first party. On top of that specify in this law, that the second party shall pay a monthly amount AND a one-time lump sum to the first party in the event of the collapse of the relationship. Further specify in the law, that the first party will have the right to use the immovable property of the second party in the event of the collapse of the relationship. Add to your law that the second party and his near and dear ones will have to face criminal proceedings, should the first party decide to make any sort of allegations whatsoever with or without any sort of proof.

Then sit back and watch 20 to 95 percent of such relationships collapse. This number can vary, depending upon the level of shame (felt by the first party) associated with the collapse of the particular relationship, the inconvenience which the first party has to undergo in order to establish a newer relationship of the same type, the suffering undergone by people near and dear to the first party during the collapse and rebuilding of the relationship, and the amount of litigation that the first party has to organise and manage in order to get the benefit of the said law.

This, sadly, is the situation today in the husband wife relationship in India. This is why your wife has inflicted 498a/406 on you and your parents.

As an aside it may be mentioned that this is applicable to any relationship-type except the parent-child relationship type. Even in this relationship, only parents will not take unfair advantage of such laws, but children will.


4) Make divorce profitable for wives, and costly for husbands.

Then sit back and watch the divorce rate zoom to the sky. If wives are rewarded only if they invoke criminal provisions against their husbands (or if the rewards come quicker in the event of a criminal case than otherwise), then watch the tide of false allegations which rushes in.

This is the situation in India today. This is why you are facing charges of cruelty related to dowry demand, and criminal misappropriation of stridhan etc.


5) Hold extensive consultations with representatives of prospective complainants while framing laws which are adversarial vis-a-vis two social groups, two genders, two caste groups, or two religious groups, but refuse to let the representatives of prospective accused into the consultation process. Let vested interests get a generous and broad hearing, to the complete and total exclusion of people who will be most affected by the law.

Then sit back and enjoy the spectacle of biased laws being enacted one after the other.

This is the situation in India today. This is why you and your parents are in the present predicament.


6) Make lawyers in-charge of framing and drafting laws. Give them a pre-eminent position in lawmaking. Don't examine their motives while they frame laws. Do not ask the question, "Is this a deliberate attempt to create a law so biased that the affected party will have not choice but to litigate and litigate, thus benefitting that portion of the legal profession which is composed of successful lawyers?"

Then sit back and watch laws which bring in a tidal wave of litigation get enacted.

This is the situation in India today. This is why you are suffering.


7) Give power to thieves who can only profit if there are very high taxes and lots of public expenditure on various types of projects –through kickbacks. OR if they get ridiculously high salaries paid by a public which is being taxed to death.

Then sit back and watch laws which favour various corrupt industrialists and businessmen enacted. Sit back and watch a great tide of tax and spend policies get framed. Get prepared to be taxed to death.

This has happened in India during the Congress raj and may continue under the present dispensation too. Wait and watch.


8) Combine (5) and (6). Let lawyers who usually represent prospective complainants drive the lawmaking process. Let feminazi lawyers rule.

Then watch the fireworks.

You may also wish to read "What is to Fear in a 498a case?" and/or Deconstructing IPC 304b (Dowry Death) – The Insolence Inherent in Legislating Logic


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Published by Manish Udar

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Last updated on 18th November 2014
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