Public Telegram group for asking Questions
Use below link to join Telegram group to join the group directly and browse chat history.
Join Men Rights India Q&A Group
Since anyone can join above group, there is no guarantee of who is who, so people should keep that in mind. However, all group members need to follow basic posting etiquettes, and government of India’s guidelines.
Private WhatsApp group for chat and sharing with others
We have started an online community in form of WhatsApp group where members can discuss and share with other members. It’s now structured as a self-supporting community and admin will only act as facilitator – for adding/removing group members, and ensuring guidelines are being followed.
Also, now it is mandatory to send photo identity and mobile number proof (the same number which is used by WhatsApp) by following instructions in the WhatsApp group guidelines at page below. Click for details on page below only if you are interested in joining the group.
http://menrightsindia.net/guidelines-whatsapp-group-sessions
(note: password is MRI)
Note: WhatsApp group is primarily for sharing and talking with other group members. For posting full story/case to get legal answers and opinions, use Facebook group below.
Private Facebook group for detailed case discussions
Facebook group is the preferred mode for discussion of full story/case. Questions/case can be posted any time and usually comments are given within same day. To join the group, do both of the following:
- Fill up the form here: Men Rights India FB group joining Form
- Then send a join request to this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MenRightsIndia Note: To join Facebook group, filling up form in Step 1 is mandatory. We ignore all those who send group join request without filling up the joining form.
- Read below the guidelines to follow once your request to the group is approved (go to end of post to read Facebook group guidelines).
http://menrightsindia.net/guidelines-whatsapp-group-sessions
(note: password for above page is MRI)
- After you are approved to the Facebook group, you have to call one of verifying admin team within 15 days so the admins can verify the person. Those who don’t call will be removed and permanently blocked from joining group again. Thereafter, for all members who are mostly inactive in group, will need to call a verifying admin every 3 months (you can set a 3 months repeating reminder etc in calendar). The numbers of verifying admins are given inside Facebook group.
- Filling the mobile number in form in Step 1 is necessary and we may call random numbers to check that people are genuine who they claim to be.
Following people will not be approved to our Facebook group:
1. Advocates (you can join our email newsletter as given later below, or Like the Facebook page given below).
2. Non persons, like a profile with company name, business etc.
3. Those who just want to hang around in yet another Facebook group. This group is specifically created for counselling, guidance, discussion of cases; not hanging around or sharing forwards.
Why both WhatsApp and Facebook?
Primary benefit of Facebook group: Facebook group is mainly meant to answer questions raised by members giving their full details in this prescribed format (password is MRI). Each post has its own thread of discussion and that’s a major advantage over WhatsApp, where it becomes difficult to track who is replying to whom.
Primary benefit of WhatsApp group: To share experience and discuss with other members about anything e.g. experience at CAW cell/PS, how much is your lawyer charging for xyz, to meet up with individual members from same city, and so on. So it’s better for people to people chats, and sharing of experience with lawyer, CAW, police, whatever else on wants to talk about.
Note: Your activity in Facebook closed groups is not visible to your friends or show on their walls, if anyone can prove it otherwise send us a screenshot and we will give a reward of Rs 500! It’s just that people don’t think of Facebook for anything private. No one has claimed that reward so far, even though many people keep repeating like parrots that if it’s Facebook it must be visible to public!
No escape from responsibility, do basic homework first
Also, we strongly recommend that you read up the bare act of the IPC sections in your FIR like 498a, 406, 506, 323, 377, 376, Or maintenance, Sec 9 HMA, CrPC125, DV Act, other as applicable before joining the online chat. All these are online. Now most of these bare acts are on MRI itself on links below:
http://menrightsindia.net/bare-acts/ipc-498a-bare-act
http://menrightsindia.net/bare-acts/crpc-125-bare-act
http://menrightsindia.net/bare-acts/the-protection-of-women-from-domestic-violence-act-2005-bare-act
http://menrightsindia.net/bare-acts/hindu-marriage-act-1955-bare-act
Similarly, there are others online. It is very important to read bare act e.g. IPC 498a is commonly called Dowry Harassment case. But if you read the bare act, the word dowry is not mentioned. Then why does it get called dowry harassment case? Because dowry harassment is a form of cruelty, and IPC 498a deals with cruelty on wife. So IPC 498a is basically about cruelty on wife, not only about dowry demands; but that is an easy weapon used by feminist/matriarchal families because the ‘evil’ ‘dowry’ is such a convenient allegation to make in Indian ‘male dominated’ (actually dominated males), ‘patriarchal’ (actually women-protecting and men-sacrificing) society.
Familiarize yourselves with some of the important posts on MRI site as given on top right menu. Also given at page below:
http://menrightsindia.net/important-posts
Why these WhatsApp and Facebook groups?
The idea of these discussions is to empower and enable people to handle their own lives, and their own cases. Who are we to tell anyone what they should do or not do? But there is a wealth of wisdom available with MRAs, and we should all share it within this community. There may be judgments available online, but there is far more wisdom with people who are scattered all over, and the only way to tap into that is to create a community and a trusted network. Also, for every judgment in husband’s favour, there will be 5-10 others in wife’s favour, so merely collecting citations and judgments without giving right evidence at right time doesn’t work out.
The idea of the group came because we see that people may email us, or get some initial counselling over the phone; but after we are not sure whether they stayed in touch with any other activists, whether they went to any weekly meetings or not?, and so on…
Also, the whole effort of some seem to be directed to somehow beat the wife using legal techniques, or some judgements. They are in for rude shock when they find that filing RCR or divorce etc did not work as intended, but instead they have to handle more cases by wife, and they find it difficult even to manage their own lawyer who is getting paid by them!
Email newsletter
Now we have an email newsletter service enabled on this site. If you subscribe, all new posts and any important updates will be delivered to your email. Fill your email below and submit:
[sc:mri_join_email_list]
Note: Don’t forget to respond to the confirmation email. Subscription gets active only after you confirm.
Follow Men Rights India on Twitter
Go the the Twitter profile below and click on Follow:
https://twitter.com/MenRightsIndia
Like our Facebook page
There is a Facebook page Men Rights India where I continue to post about the latest articles and important news and updates. You can go to the page below and Like it. If you like any page on Facebook, it’s news will be delivered to your Facebook news feed.