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We all know and understand what taxation is? Taxes are levied by the Government in lieu of which it provides infrastructure and other facilities to its citizens so that they can make a living for themselves.
It is also the cost of providing law and order system in the country and also for administering the country. Taxation is an understood agreement between the citizens and the Govt. that the citizens would pay the Govt. as per an agreed upon tax code and in return the Govt. would provide with better facilities.
Even the Constitution of India recognizes the right of the Govt. to tax it and the duty of the benevolent citizen of India to be taxed. As per, article 265 of the Constitution which states that, "No tax shall be levied or collected except by the authority of law."
Also, as per Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth”. We shall see the applicability of the above 2 articles soon. Now, let’s take a digression and have a look at what is the Indian Government going to offer us soon.
Now what we are seeing is that a new form of indirect taxation is being levied upon a select citizenry of India. That select citizenry of India is called “The Hindu Husbands”.
Bedazzled? Shocked? Baffled?
Surprised to know, as to how a tax code can be so formulated that it will be implemented on a particular gender, based on their relationship status and religion?
Hang on! And before you jump into the mired mysteries of all sorts of bizarre implementation of the above proposition, here’s how the Govt. of India is going to introduce the above tax code.
The Govt. of India has introduced a new ground for divorce which is called the “Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage” by way of the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010. But it does not stop at this. This bill seeks to amend only the Hindu Marriage Act and also introduces radical property transfer clauses wherein the wife would be gifted at least 50% of the property owned by the husband irrespective of when it is bought – pre marriage or post marriage.
So, in a way the Govt. is saying, “We are incentivizing family breaking” i.e. they are going to greatly reward those women who abuse their husbands, break their marriages and then seek divorce citing it as irretrievably broken. They will also have right to withdraw their petition if they are not adequately compensated, however, husbands have not been given this right.
In a nutshell, the Govt. says to the Hindu Husband – “Just because you are married, you have to now part away with your life’s savings (in the form of your movable and immovable properties), to your estranged wife”, just like taxation, wherein Govt. says, “Just because you are citizen of India, earning here, you have to now part with a portion of your savings to the Government”.
But, in taxation, there is an agreement between the payer and the payee; however, in this case, payment is being made subject to breaking of an agreement – the relationship. Noted women’s rights activists and prominent feminist Flavia Agnes says, “Marriage is an economic relationship”.
Well Madame, point noted, but in an economic relationship both liabilities and assets are shared. But what you are proposing, promoting and promulgating is distribution of assets and liabilities – not sharing. You are saying let liabilities be those of men, while assets can be given to women.
However, this concept of “Taxed Husbands and Relaxed Wives” is unconstitutional as we saw in the beginning of the article that the Government can tax only under an authority of law and that law cannot discriminate based on gender or religion. However, this proposed law is doing exactly the same thing – it is creating discrimination based on gender and religion and our parliament calls it as “positive discrimination”!
How can robbing one’s property merely because of a broken relationship be called positive discrimination whence it violates the very essence of law making in India – The Constitution of India?
This is an outright violation of the constitutional process of law making and thus it renders the bill unconstitutional.
Hence, citizens of India, through the voices of the men’s rights activists, are calling for a “Rollback of this Bill” which means that the Govt. must withdraw this bill and should not pass it at all.
In order to pass the message for the same effectively, a website has also been created which explains as to why this law should not be passed.
Website is: http://www.rollbackirbm.in/irbm
If you truly believe in gender equality and democratic law making process, then protest against this unconstitutional, gender biased, religion biased and anti-male law.
If this law is not protested against and gets passed, it will add to the increasing numbers of suicides committed by young married men in India. As per 2011 suicide statistics, 62433 married men committed suicides compared to 32582 married women. Yet, the society and the Govt. are creating one after another anti-male laws.
If you do not act today, tomorrow it could be YOUR BROTHER, YOUR FATHER or YOU.
Raise your voice now before it’s too late and demand “RollBack IrBM” from the Government of India as we do not want “Relaxed Wives at the cost of Taxed Husbands”.
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