Domestic Violence in Hindi Movies

Recently, I started watching Hindi movies properly after a gap of over 20 years.
I used to avoid Hindi movies since I became adult and no longer forced to go with my parents as I used to dismiss them as emotional melodramatic Fights, Songs and Dances.

The theme of this blog is that the Hindi Movies have indeed been describing violence against men and women and possibly at equal magnitudes all along. They have shown equal amount of negative female and male characters in thousands of movies. They also show that the main person who inflicts violence on a woman is rarely her husband.

I wish to focus on movies that are reasonably successful and they depict violence, deception against the male playing a role of boyfriend or a husband.

With this blog, I am starting a list of Hindi movies that contain very specific and direct actions of violence against the husband in a matriomonial relationship. With some luck, we can get the digital videos and then create a collage of all these Hit movie using snippets from all of this. Please help me make this into a formidable collection.

First movie that I'd like to list is King Uncle, 1993
In King Uncle, a wife and a mother of 3 children is shown abandoning her husband for sake of her love life with a rich boyfriend and is the pivotal moment of the story.

SECOND Movie is Rishtey, 2002

Here the WIFE is shown as gullible and manipulated by conniving Father IN LAW who is
out to do everything within his power to kill his poor son in law and destroy his marriage.

Anil Kapoor plays role of boxer named Suraj who is forced to leave boxing due to injury. He is married to Karishma Kapoor, who is daughter of rich man Amrish Puri.
Amrish Puri harasses him for a period of about 7 years forcibly separating his daughter from him using fabricated evidence. Anil Kapoor somehow fights and manages to revive health of his child, who was born with physical deficiency.

Other Movies in this Category are Gadar, DDLJ...

I am told that Govinda has been perennial disliked son-in-law but I stay away from his movies.

Third Movie is Mera Naam Joker, 1970

It is a classic Raj Kapoor movie. Raj Kapoor gets cheated and misled in love by three women, his teacher, a circus artist and a street tramp with dreams of becoming actress. I've been told that the story resonates Raj Kapoor's own life.

Fourth Movie is Dhoom 2

Abhishek Bacchan is rebuked by his pregnant wife and his sidekick about his capability of getting married on his own. It was a light banter of talk and overall designed to humilate the husband.

There is also a Fight Sequence in start of the movie where wive's and girl friends call to harass Abhishek and his sidekick with some demands which seems bit unreal only cause they are in middle of shoot out. Wives talking in that manner is not too believable.


Fifth is Akele Hum Akele Tum,1995

Role of Husband and wife played by Aamir Khan and Manisha Koirala. Someone from SIF has told me that this movie has something to do with life of Gulzar.

Once again financially stronger Father in Law persistently objects and creates rift in married life leading husband to go through separation, single parenting, court battle eventually to lose the custody of the child. Movie does end in a reunion.

Sixth is Zubaida, 2001

I have a very deep connection with this movie. I saw this movie in whole when my wife was pregnant and for reason I still never can fathom, my infant son used to sleep within minutes of me playing a song from this movie.

Here Karishma plays the lead role of a Mother who abandons her child. It is well balanced movie.

This is what some other review said for this movie

The main character, Zubeidaa, has overlapping shades to it. Zubeidaa has fiery feminist instincts and is rebellious and tempestuous until the end. At the same time she's feminine, vulnerable and very young. She chooses to live her life the way she wants to. After giving into paternal authority once in her first marriage, she isn't willing to throw away her chance for happiness the second time. Fully aware of the prince's previous marriage and family, she's ready to accept a strange environment and a different religion for the sake of love. She makes her choices and sacrifices willingly and knowingly. Karisma has surpassed herself as the passionate, defiant, willful and troubled Zubeidaa, the truly modern woman

Seventh is Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke,1993

This is a movie that has lot of female roles with many overlapping and conflicting roles. Aamir Khan plays role of Rahul who ends up taking responsibility of struggling business and three kids.

There is a song sequence "Chikni Soorat..." depicting sexual molestation of by female workers of his garment factory.

In same movie, two other actors Badlani and Maya (played by ?, Navneet Nishan) cause havoc in life of Aamir in their desperate attempts to make him marry Maya. Badlani is Sindhi Merchant who refused credit until he realised Maya wanted to marry him and then he was overly generous and manipulative.

There is also a sequence in which Juhi fakes role of his wife to prevent engagement. It is very clearly depicted that there were people who knew Juhi was lying openly but no one spoke to support Aamir as he was falsely humilated. In that particular narrative however, it was later revealed that drama of Juhi was justified since she loved him.

Further, in the same movie, it is noteworthy that Juhi refused domination of her father into deciding her marriage and ran off providing the love triangle in story.

To be expanded..... Waiting for tips....

Meet the Divide and Rule Demon

Over the past few days, I have been depressed and feeling completely let down. I have been reading lots of articles and emails on the groups and internet and the more I read, the more I feel depressed.

I am feeling let down because there is an emergence of a voice within me that says to me that Article 498a was not a result of incompetence on the part of the Government of India.

Contrary to what Bollywood has often portrayed, The Government of India is not collection of by blundering fools and lazy bureaucrats who inadvertently created the monster named IPC 498a.

IPC 498a is probably the most brilliantly laid out strategy of a Divide-And-Rule. The phrase “Divide-And-Rule” for many amongst us may bring images of a British Viceroy ruthlessly segregating Indian population for ruling. It is said in history books that though Hindus and Muslims fought before British came, their fights were largely political. On a social level, they had accepted existence of each other with few sporadic and violence marred attempts of conversions.

When Viewed in this manner, the strategy behind IPC 498a is the ultimate frontier. It divides the fabric of society and the line of demarcation cuts across every house in every country across the world. IPC 498a divides a man from a woman like nothing else can.

The individual who coined the name of “Save Indian Family” for our, this group did zero in on the ultimate devastation that this divide-and-rule strategy of IPC 498a will cause; most (including me) missed upon the objective behind formation of the 498a.

A proverb that comes to my mind is that “One can wake up those who are asleep; BUT one cannot wake up those who are pretending to be asleep”

All of the activities of our group are primarily geared towards collecting men and waking up the government and spread public awareness towards the atrocities that aimed towards the men. All of us are collectively beating up our chests in despair that the government (the mai-baap) does not seem to understand or listen to our pleas.

But, the government is wide awake and listening to us carefully. Alas, it is not listening to us as male victims. It views us as providers of feedback on how 498a is faring. It is just pretending to be deaf, callous and incompetent when we share our traumas due to IPC 498a. The government knows that it was precisely the intent behind IPC 498a. So, when we narrate our side with full emotions, the government is silently congratulating itself and upwardly showing sympathy to us. Government in rare candid moments does show disdain but never budges.

All of our activities are just the fuel that the IPC 498a juggernaut needs to grow: Our painstakingly created websites, our weekly meets, our Dharanas, our attempts to spread awareness, our sarcastic jabs, our direct assaults; our efforts to fight our own cases; our willingness to help other fellow distressed brothers, mothers and sisters will completely work against us unless we bear in mind that actually division is intended.

When we call our ex with word bitch we are dividing and distancing ourselves. Our efforts divide us further from the woman. We all feel angered and we all are focussed on hurting the other side. It is indeed ironic that few angered 498a woman calls her husband Kutta

Now, I suddenly understand meaning of what Swarup Sarkar said to me “The enemy is not your wife but the system”.

As I can all of a sudden visualise, 498a is supposed to divide a man from a woman. All that is required for such division to occur is that both sides feel that they more vulnerable than the other.

British achieved division of Hindus and Muslims by making Muslims leaders realize that minority will suffer under majority rule. For Hindus, they said majority will be denied privileges under minority rule. And, Pakistan was born.

The more we fight in this manner, the harder we fight, the stronger 498a will become. It seems that our efforts of protests were rewarded by the birth to Domestic Violence Laws.

It is like we are part of the Matrix movie. We are part and parcel of the IPC 498a system and our appointed role in this machine is to raise voice and vent out our fear and our anger against our former wives and the female groups reciprocate.

IPC 498a makers used their power to publicise that newly wed wives, not mothers or sisters are harassed in the typical Indian family.

When I saw the movie “Dulha Bikta hai” I was so moved by it that if someone had actually told me that the Indian government had recently formed IPC 498a that would now terrorise the husbands, I would have danced on streets.

Many like me in the Indian society accepted introduction of IPC 498a that had built-in Trojan of Divide and Rule. I've become aware of damages it caused 25 years later.

Hindu scriptures do have anecdotes of demons who grow stronger with every injury because their blood drop on ground will cause more demons. I am beginning to see 498a as something similar. We all need to know who exactly our enemy is and how we are disadvantaged.

Let us all think and share on how we can change gears and not seek to be victims of the ultimate kind.

To be continued: How do we foil this divide and rule strategy?

Saat Phere

(NEW DELHI)

Soon, saat phere around the holy fire will not be enough for people to acquire the status of a legally married couple. In a major move to improve the condition of women, the government is ready with a draft Bill to make registration of all marriages compulsory. According to the new Bill — the Compulsory Registration of Marriage Bill, 2005 — prepared by the National Commission for Women, marriage registration will be compulsory for every individual, if either husband or wife or both are Indian citizens. The proposed law will be applicable to all citizens. According to the new Bill, 'marriage' will mean and include all marriages solemnised or contracted between a male and a female, irrespective of the religion or caste of either partner, and will also include marriages performed as per law, custom, practice or any tradition of either party to the marriage. "This proposal will prove to be a milestone in women's empowerment and checking crime against women. If this proposal becomes law, it will help curb child marriages, polygamy, forced marriages and large scale trafficking of women" says a member of the commission. Once the proposal becomes law, Indian citizens marrying in India or abroad will have to get their marriages registered within 30 days. If they fail to do so, a fine of Rs 2 per day will be imposed. Persons married before the Act comes into force may also register their marriage under this Act and time limit of 30 days will not be applicable for them. Under the new Bill, at the Union level, an office of Registrar-General (Marriages) will be established. The registrar-general will have the power to issue general directions regarding registration of marriages and will take steps to coordinate the activities and unify the records of chief registrars appointed at the state level. At the district level, district registrars and additional registrars will be appointed.The draft Bill has been finalised by NCW and will now be sent to the HRD ministry for approval.

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Courtesy: Times of India Article