ANJALI SUBEDI KATHMANDU, March 13: “When you are not given lawful exit from a marriage that has failed to work, you either harm yourself or the other party to get out of the situation.

DIG Ranjan Koirala might not have killed his wife for no reason.” The state-ment comes from Bishal Thapa*, a man of 39 who fought for divorce for 3 years but failed to get it eventually.

The lost legal battle to free himself of the troubled marital life cost him his career, social circle and above all, jeopardized his pursuit for happiness in life, lamented Thapa, a former lecturer at a college in Kathmandu.

The story goes like this. Thapa and his wife had a normal life for two years of their marriage. Their relationship soured due to some reason and things continue to a turn for the worse over time. Soon, both he and his wife went public about their situation, charging each other of torture and abuses. While the man´s story, being the anti-current news of violence against men, got sufficient media coverage, the woman on the other hand got the support of several women´s organization, who were ready to rally behind her. Unlike Thapa, his wife began to use facebook wall to portray the "real face" of her husband, arousing interests and comments from advocates and ana-lysts interested in social issues and discovering new things happening in the society.

While both had ruled out any possibility of things getting any better their

Unequal divorce laws rendering men helpless myrepublica.com

demands were completely different. Thapa wanted to end the relationship by getting divorce, but his wife wanted to keep her "culprit husband" hitched to prevent him from enjoying freedom.

With their case drawing attention of hundreds of people, the Supreme Court recently decided in favor of his wife, leaving Thapa to ponder over few questions. “My wife says I am an abuser. She says I am not fit to be a husband. She has damaged my reputation and my life in every possible way. But if that is the case, shouldn´t I be left alone?” says Thapa.

While the wife was not available for comments, Meera Dhungana, the advo-cate who handled this case, stated that she won as she did not want to leave the husband irrespective the developments in the marital life. Turn-ing such cases in favor of women is not a big deal as divorce laws are more sympathetic toward women, states Dhungana. “Interestingly, it is again the patriarchal mindset that has led to this situa-tion. Who are the lawmakers in our country? Majority of them are males and they could not imagine men becoming a victim as they consider them-selves superior,” Dhungana explained.

In Thapa´s case, his wife is free to restart a new life with another man if she wishes to do so. Then, her marriage would automatically come to an end. But in case of Thapa, he could be jailed for up to 3 years and fined Rs 25,000 if he goes for a second marriage. “If a wife files a case against her husband accusing him of polygamy, he could be slapped a jail term of up to 3 years," says Dhungana, adding, "But if a wife chooses to remarry, that simply annuls the marriage.”

Now, as he could not get divorce, the situation is forcing Thapa to reconcile with wife. But this is extremely unfair, remarks an advocate Keshab Raj Aryal who had filed case. “Marriage is about mutual journey. No one can be forced to remain in it unwillingly; this is a sheer violation of human rights and freedom. But the divorce law in Nepal is unfortunately tilted against men.”

Commission wary of flood of divorce if law made flexible As men do not have a separate body to take interest in their marital prob-

lems, many men reach out to women commission seeking its support to sort out their problems. According to the officers at the legal section of the commission, number of such males is constantly on rise.

“Men wanting divorce want us to work as a facilitator for this. They come to us, of course, when their wives are not ready to grant divorce,” says Kal-pana Khatiwada, legal officer at the commission. “The law is biased and some men have literally been victim of this. But such cases are very few and we are not sure whether it is already the time to review the law,” she added.

According to legal expert of the commission Saraj Raj Thapa, if the law eas-ily allows men to leave their wives, it is going trigger shocking results. “You will see hundreds of men going for divorce. Will this do any good to society?”

The assumption of the officials at the commission is based on the cases they have been handling since a few years. “Many women come here after being neglected by their husband. The men wanting divorce start torturing wives so that they simply get rid of the women. These men would leave the women in seconds if the law is made flexible,” stated Thapa.

Note: The ( * ) sign denotes Name Changed ( The name- Bishal Thapa-mentioned in the article is not the real name)

Keshab Raj Aryal

Keshab Raj Aryal, an advocate who has handled divorce cases since long and has been researching in this particular topic, had in 2011 appealed before Supreme Court judges to reform the divorce laws. The court had then ordered for necessary homework to make divorce laws equally men friendly. However, the matter was not followed up, said Aryal. Excerpts of the interview:

Why did you want the court to review the law?It is very important to give justice to women to empower them. But at the

same time, men have equal rights over justice. Currently, the divorce law in Nepal is very imbalanced and faulty. Men cannot even go to the court directly to file divorce.

What is the process for men?Unlike for women, they have to go through VDC or ward, where the case stays for a minimum of a year. Even after it reaches the court, there is the least chance of their winning. Men win in less than one-fourth of cases.

It is said that making the law liberal for men would invite flood of divorce cases?Will anyone leave wife or husband just because the law allows it? If our society is going to see such reaction following flexible divorce laws, we should understand there is something wrong with our social and marital life and the way we have been interpreting it. We should not promote hypocrisy. When one party in the marriage is not happy, the other one can-not be happy or peaceful either.

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