Family Fission: Goin Critical
Published in Deccan Chronicle on August 10th, 2008
On August 15th, India enters what in the twenty first century is deemed ‘middle age’; a time when we consider our achievements and contemplate the legacy we confer on our children - India's next generation.
While our Prime Minister will pride our imminent membership of the elite nuclear club, from the ramparts of the Red Fort what certainly will not find mention is the Indian nuclear family 'going critical'.
My parents and their generation -children of independence- selflessly provided us ‘nuclear’ security and safeguards, built with the brick and mortar of tradition, values, customs and mores.
Meanwhile our children, for whom we create this future energy, deplete emotionally while we revel in the empowerment of having achieved critical mass with our knowledge economy.
The price paid for this bacchanalia of empowerment, is the ‘nuclear fission’ of the family; cocking a snook at the continuity of tradition, abusing the values enshrined in our constitution, undermining familial security with no social safeguards in place.
Under imminent threat is the atom of the nuclear family – the child. If we do not restore the safety, security and sanctity of the family, we will bring upon ourselves the emotional equivalent of a nuclear winter.
Our constitutional fathers cannot be faulted for not anticipating this sorry status; else they would have included fundamental rights guaranteeing children rights to both parents at all times. Furthermore, parents would have been guaranteed protection to fulfil their parenting duties.
However, in 1990 India became a signatory to an internationally legally binding agreement called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child http://www.unicef.org/crc/. By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention, India committed itself to protecting and ensuring children's rights and agreeing to hold itself accountable for this commitment before the international community.
With rampant divorce becoming the rule -rather than the exception, children are subjected to parental abuse in custodial battles. They are reduced to disputed ‘property’ rather than ‘hearts and minds’; ‘atomic weapons’ to inflict destruction through parental alienation.
For five years I was a father to two sons, before being plunged into the insanity of a custody battle. Instantly, a black coat oversaw my mutation from loving father to social psychopath - a few notches below Veerappan. Based on his protestations, in my absence, blind Justice sanctified my ‘guilt’, generously affording me time to establish my innocence.
My ensuing campaign was not for child custody - never having lost the hearts and minds of my children. I was campaigning for the restoration of my children’s rights to a father: I was fighting for the right to fulfil my parental duties and responsibilities as a father.
As years passed, I was advised to “move on, get married and sire more children” by well-wishers who considered mine a losing battle. Feminists and social workers scoffed at my determination, legally secure in the “infallibility of the woman”.
A female officer of justice, admonished me for “going against Dharma” by seeking access to my children, till I reminded her we were in the precincts of law… not Dharma!
Five years later, when my sons opted to “stay with Papa”, the State Womens’ Commission, was set to ‘lynch’ me with justice. As a man and father, I had ‘violated’ the rights of a woman by depriving a mother of her children. Unfortunately for this august body, I was conversant with the law; the intimidation rendered ineffectual.
While the judicial system yawns awake from its anachronistic slumber to the challenges of familial upheaval, the processes of justice remain punitive for children, with custodial matters taking years to resolve.
Men are legally emasculated by the urban woman who abuses the protection granted by the justice system –to her rural counterpart- to wreak vengeance on husband and father.
Skilful lawyers scavenge and salivate on the remnants of a nuclear family in its death throes, earning handsomely from warring couples who could have invested instead in their child’s education.
Feminists and social workers reduce all men to village drunks and brutish wife-beaters to justify their raison d’etre, preferring not to acknowledge the social dichotomy of rural and urban India; Ofcourse, the rights of the ‘vulnerable’ child are being ‘protected’ too, by denying it a father!
In my encounter with child rights’ organisations, I was comforted with the information that abuse -in the eyes of the law- includes child labour, physical and sexual violence, not mental and certainly not parental abuse!
My references to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child were greeted with apparent ignorance of its contents and even existence, by members of the legislature and judiciary.
Incidentally, excerpts from the Convention state:
“the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding,
“Right to live with and have contact with both parents, to be reunited with parents if separated from them and to the provision of appropriate alternative care where necessary”
If we continue to ‘split our atoms’, we would have nurtured a disturbed dysfunctional and deviant generation of youth with explosive potential beyond our social control.
From this Independence Day onwards, let not fathers and mothers seek votes of confidence to safeguard our atomic interests; if we cannot prevent fission between parents, let us prevent fall-out by not emotionally splitting atoms, by evolving parenting protocols to insulate our children so that India can look forward to an energy rich nuclear future.
On August 15th, India enters what in the twenty first century is deemed ‘middle age’; a time when we consider our achievements and contemplate the legacy we confer on our children - India's next generation.
While our Prime Minister will pride our imminent membership of the elite nuclear club, from the ramparts of the Red Fort what certainly will not find mention is the Indian nuclear family 'going critical'.
My parents and their generation -children of independence- selflessly provided us ‘nuclear’ security and safeguards, built with the brick and mortar of tradition, values, customs and mores.
Meanwhile our children, for whom we create this future energy, deplete emotionally while we revel in the empowerment of having achieved critical mass with our knowledge economy.
The price paid for this bacchanalia of empowerment, is the ‘nuclear fission’ of the family; cocking a snook at the continuity of tradition, abusing the values enshrined in our constitution, undermining familial security with no social safeguards in place.
Under imminent threat is the atom of the nuclear family – the child. If we do not restore the safety, security and sanctity of the family, we will bring upon ourselves the emotional equivalent of a nuclear winter.
Our constitutional fathers cannot be faulted for not anticipating this sorry status; else they would have included fundamental rights guaranteeing children rights to both parents at all times. Furthermore, parents would have been guaranteed protection to fulfil their parenting duties.
However, in 1990 India became a signatory to an internationally legally binding agreement called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child http://www.unicef.org/crc/. By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention, India committed itself to protecting and ensuring children's rights and agreeing to hold itself accountable for this commitment before the international community.
With rampant divorce becoming the rule -rather than the exception, children are subjected to parental abuse in custodial battles. They are reduced to disputed ‘property’ rather than ‘hearts and minds’; ‘atomic weapons’ to inflict destruction through parental alienation.
For five years I was a father to two sons, before being plunged into the insanity of a custody battle. Instantly, a black coat oversaw my mutation from loving father to social psychopath - a few notches below Veerappan. Based on his protestations, in my absence, blind Justice sanctified my ‘guilt’, generously affording me time to establish my innocence.
My ensuing campaign was not for child custody - never having lost the hearts and minds of my children. I was campaigning for the restoration of my children’s rights to a father: I was fighting for the right to fulfil my parental duties and responsibilities as a father.
As years passed, I was advised to “move on, get married and sire more children” by well-wishers who considered mine a losing battle. Feminists and social workers scoffed at my determination, legally secure in the “infallibility of the woman”.
A female officer of justice, admonished me for “going against Dharma” by seeking access to my children, till I reminded her we were in the precincts of law… not Dharma!
Five years later, when my sons opted to “stay with Papa”, the State Womens’ Commission, was set to ‘lynch’ me with justice. As a man and father, I had ‘violated’ the rights of a woman by depriving a mother of her children. Unfortunately for this august body, I was conversant with the law; the intimidation rendered ineffectual.
While the judicial system yawns awake from its anachronistic slumber to the challenges of familial upheaval, the processes of justice remain punitive for children, with custodial matters taking years to resolve.
Men are legally emasculated by the urban woman who abuses the protection granted by the justice system –to her rural counterpart- to wreak vengeance on husband and father.
Skilful lawyers scavenge and salivate on the remnants of a nuclear family in its death throes, earning handsomely from warring couples who could have invested instead in their child’s education.
Feminists and social workers reduce all men to village drunks and brutish wife-beaters to justify their raison d’etre, preferring not to acknowledge the social dichotomy of rural and urban India; Ofcourse, the rights of the ‘vulnerable’ child are being ‘protected’ too, by denying it a father!
In my encounter with child rights’ organisations, I was comforted with the information that abuse -in the eyes of the law- includes child labour, physical and sexual violence, not mental and certainly not parental abuse!
My references to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child were greeted with apparent ignorance of its contents and even existence, by members of the legislature and judiciary.
Incidentally, excerpts from the Convention state:
“the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding,
“Right to live with and have contact with both parents, to be reunited with parents if separated from them and to the provision of appropriate alternative care where necessary”
If we continue to ‘split our atoms’, we would have nurtured a disturbed dysfunctional and deviant generation of youth with explosive potential beyond our social control.
From this Independence Day onwards, let not fathers and mothers seek votes of confidence to safeguard our atomic interests; if we cannot prevent fission between parents, let us prevent fall-out by not emotionally splitting atoms, by evolving parenting protocols to insulate our children so that India can look forward to an energy rich nuclear future.
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