/New Delhi (Sputnik) — According to the National Crime Records Bureau in India, a total of 38,947 rape cases were reported in the country in 2016, out of which some 10,068 cases — amounting to about a quarter — were instances where the woman alleged rape after the man reneged on his promise to marry her.
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The high percentage of such cases in the nation's rape statistics has got many people thinking, and the judiciary is beginning to take action.
"The gender laws are biased and twisted against the male members of the society. The situation is so bad that many men are languishing in jail without a reason. We have demanded that rape and all family laws must be gender neutral. Then only will there be justice in society," Kumar Ratan, Delhi convener of the Save India Foundation, an NGO working for the cause of male equality, told Sputnik.
Just last month, the country's apex court decreed that women that are driven by revenge or self-interest will no longer be able to make false allegations of rape when relationships end or when the man in a sexually active consensual relationship and declines to marry the woman for whatever reason.
As women are becoming more confident and educated, the numbers of such casesf are on the rise, given that women today are more sexually liberated and active prior to marriage than in previous generations. When consensual relationships end some women allege rape against their partner out of spite, vengeance or extortion.
In some cases, it is the parents of girls that force their daughters to file such rape charges, as some of them believe that saying their daughter has been raped is preferable to people thinking that she is sexually active on her own accord.
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Apart from the judiciary's move, there are men's rights groups which are working to help people who have been falsely implicated of rape while exiting a consensual sexual relationship. According to them, such false cases belittle genuine rapes.
These groups insist that the identity of suspects shouldn't be revealed early on, to avoid potentially unnecessary reputational damage. They contend that those who make false allegations of rape are encouraged by the fact that rape victims' identities are not revealed, thus shielding even false claimants from social embarrassment. Such procedures should be extended to men to protect innocent suspects.
"The NCRB data is true and alarming. We are struggling with the situation and we are also taking legal recourse by going to the apex court on the issue with a Public Interest Litigation," Dr. Anil of the Save India Family Foundation which is fighting the case in court told Sputnik.
