Confidare Reaches Amity

I remember the two Amity law students coming to our meetings and just standing quietly in a corner. I connected with them and they told me they want to understand and work upon the area of men’s right. These two students connected me to Mokshda Pertaub Bhushan a dynamic lady who is Asstt professor in Amity Law School.

Mokshda is definitely a feminist but as I jokingly tell her because she is mother of three sons she knows what is happening around her in the name “Feminism”. We as a team thought of doing a discussion in the changing scenario. When I first went to Amity for a discussion I represented the “Forgotten women” of India the mother and sister part, also a little bit of men’s right. I was delighted to see students as well as teachers agreed on every point I raised.

In April 2014, I joined Confidare,an education company focusing on men’s welfare as a Research Analyst. Our team in Confidare was always keen in doing research and taking the viewpoint of the young generations who are taught “Feminism” everywhere. We wanted to see the reactions of the young budding lawyers on men’s rights.

We had more discussions with Mokshda as she is working hard on the gender justice and child right issues. She liked the idea of discussion between men’s right and women’s right. She facilitated this discussion in Amity Law School. So, finally on a hot sunny afternoon we reached Amity Law School for the discussion. I, Rohit Girdhar and Simar Suri Paul were the participants of the discussion.

The hall was full of about hundred students; young budding lawyers were right in front of us. Simar Suri Paul is a women’s right supporter and a Supreme Courtlawyer, Rohit was there to speak about child rights and alienated fathers which was not heard yet by anybody. And for the first time I was representing men’s right in an educational institution.

Discussion started with Simar, she is a very good speaker and has a thorough knowledge of law. She spoke about the issues which we normally hear daily but she was aware of the issue that women are taking undue advantage of the rights they are given, which I think everyone is aware of these days.

I was given ten minutes to speak about men’s rights. I chose to speak bilingual; I started with a question –“What are men’s rights?” and as expected no answer came from students. How will they know when they never heard about it? I started saying that generally people correlate men’s right with misuse of laws but it is much more than that. I talked about MISANDRY which was a new term for the law students. I talked about issues of young men.

When I said starting from toilet to education everything is for WOMEN only, young men clapped. I raised the issue that everyone talks about problems related to women whether the  problems faced by women during periods or pregnancy nobody discusses how a young boy feels when he is gaining puberty or watches porn for the first time, there is no forum where a boy can go and discuss his problem. I could see young men smiling shingly and agreeing. There are people around him who will make him feel guilty about everything he does.

Then came Rohit who talked about the children suffering around us, he shared the pain of alienated fathers and urged the young budding lawyers to do something about it. He shared the data how a kid is affected when he is alienated for his/her father.

The best session was the question and answer session;Mr. Nilendra Kumar the director announced a prize for the best question. Students asked very intelligent questions, a girl asked me we girls are always asked to learn cooking because they have to get married one day, I smiled and replied that is with boys too they are told study and earn you have to maintain a family and nobody asks him whether he wants to do it or not, I still remember the delightful clapping of the boys on this.A boy asked to Rohit what if my girlfriend after keeping physical relation with me blames me for rape , Rohit instantly replied come to CONFIDARE immediately because there is no machinery which will help you. 

Rohit answered questions about children and their rights. We were happy to see young women asking some very good questions about men’s right but I could see the problem that men’s right means anti women. Questions answers session cleared the doubts , one woman asked “madam men have these ego issues”, “I said women too have egos , I have a lot of ego this is human nature do not see it as a woman issue problem will be solved “.

We could see the problem, FEMINISM teaches everything as women issue although it can be a general issue of each and every one. We concluded with this thought that it is not about one gender, it is society as a whole which is suffering and children suffer the most.It is of no use if i speak or some MRM person speak and MRM people listen , it is useful when we speak about men's right and the non victims listen and understand . We were happy to see young men getting their thoughts validated by a men’s right group. Questions were still coming after the end of the discussion because men’s right hit people hard. It is a milestone for MRM in India that it reached an educational institution and gave food for thought to young generation.