What did SIFF Achieve?

When SIFF was founded in January 2005, its founders and their supporters never imagined what all it achieved. When it was started, it has about 150 members. This particular website was made in May, 2005.

Achievements in initial years:

  1. SIFF and its volunteers worked to rapidly expand men’s rights meet ups from Bangalore (in South India) to all over India. In just 3 years, meet ups started happening in more than 10 cities including Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai, Nagpur, Bhillai, Raipur and many other cities.
  2. Our goal was to get our team at Delhi to National TV media in 3 years. By end of 2007, Men’s activists were on National TV. This included TV channels like Zee News, Star News and CNN-IBN.
  3. In 2008, SIFF partnered with famous father’s rights fighter Kumar Jahgirdar and helped him create CRISP (Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting). Within months, there were big protests in Bangalore for Father’s Rights and media coverage picked up.
  4. By 2009, SIFF and other partner men’s organisations got more than 2000 media articles published in media.
  5. SIFF and other Men’s Organisations campaign against women’s minister Renuka Chowdhury. We call for boycott of Congress Party. We call for voting for any party other than Congress Party due to its anti-male policies.
  6. In 2009, SIFF volunteers traveled to Delhi to Campaign for election of Men’s Rights Candidate Sudhir Anand in South Delhi seat (from Bharat Punarnirman Dal).
  7. In 2010, SIFF activists traveled to US Congress to cut funding of 300 million to 500 million US dollars to Indian feminists under I-VAWA program. This bill was stopped in November, 2010.

SIFF’s achievements from 2010:

  1. Due to protests by SIFF and other partner NGOs, CrPC 41a was amended in 2010. This was about immediate stop of arrests of men and their family members under Section 498a. However, police took couple of years to follow this amendment. They kept flouting this law.
  2. SIFF activists led many phone actions by making phone calls to police officials whenever they violated CrPC 41a and illegally detained husband, his father or his mother. This went on for 3 to 4 years. Due to this effort, Supreme Court of India was forced to come with more guidelines to bring accountability to police. By 2015, the arrests stopped almost completely.
  3. SIFF Activists were invited to India’s Parliament for discussions on a new law for “No Fault Divorce” and the proposal to give divorce to men or women after 3 years of separation. This bill was known as “Marriage Law Amendment Bill, 2013.”
  4. In 2011, SIFF activists were invited to parliament to testify in front of Parliamentary committee led by MP Bhagat Singh Khoshiari to amend Section 498a and to punish women who file false cases of Section 498a.
  5. SIFF activists were also invited by India’s Parliament for their suggestions on Sexual Harassment at workplace law. Due to pressure from us and activists of other NGOs, Govt put a misuse clause in Sexual Harassment at Workplace Law, 2013. But, they did not make it gender neutral.
  6. SIFF led campaign of many NGOs to ensure that Marriage Law Amendment or IrBM bill is rolled back. The Congress Govt with support from BJP wanted to give half of husband’s property to wife during divorce. Due to campaign for 2 years, Govt rolled it back in 2014.