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Open defecation is ‘cruelty’: Court grants woman divorce

Ajmer: It’s a story that revolves around a ‘toilet’, but not with a ‘Prem Katha’ that inspires Keshav (played by actor Akshay Kumar) to win back his wife’s love in the latest Bollywood flick, Toilet—Ek Prem Katha.

On the contrary, in this real life story that unfolded in a Bhilwara village, the absence of a toilet at home has led a woman to part ways with her husband, forever.

The woman, who was married in 2011, moved the Family court at Bhilwara in 2015 to get her marriage dissolved on the ground that she was forced to defecate in the fields as there was no toilet at her husband’s house. Two years later, the Family Court Judge Rajendra Kumar Sharma allowed the divorce on Friday, considering the absence of a toilet at home as “cruelty” against the wife.

It is probably the first such case in the country where a court has treated the absence of a toilet at home as “cruelty” and akin to “outraging the modesty of a woman” and allowed a marriage to be dissolved on those grounds. The development comes at a time when the Government of India is running a crusade against open defecation under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

The woman (whose name has been withheld by the court) told TOI that she felt like being stripped whenever she was forced to go out in the open to answer nature’s call. With the house having no bathroom either, it was like bathing on the roadside, she said after receiving the divorce decree on Saturday.

The 24-year-old woman lost her father at an early age and has studied up to Class VIII while being raised by her uncle. Like her ex-husband’s family, her family too is engaged in farming and cattle rearing. The ex-husband also had just primary education and is a local wrestler, nicknamed ‘Chhotu Pehlwan’.

For Chhotu Pehlwan, the demand for toilet was an unusual one, as most women in his village have been defecating in the open. Pehlwan’s family asked if the woman and her family didn’t realise that he had a house with little space, where his mother and sisters too lived, when the marriage was fixed in 2011.

Family court judge Sharma noted in his order, “We spend huge money to buy tobacco, liquor and mobile phones but are unwilling to construct toilets in our houses for the dignity of our mothers and sisters.”

Open defecations in the 21st century was a blot on our society and breached the fundamental right, dignity and privacy of a woman, the court said. “In villages, women have to wait till dusk to go out to answer nature’s call. This is not only physical cruelty but also outraging the modesty of a woman,” the judgment read.

In her divorce petition, the woman said that when she asked women members of her husband’s family about the toilet, she was told to wait till the dusk and go out in the open. She told the court that there were times when she had to control the pressure for hours.

Source : timesofindia



This post first appeared on Daily Kiran, please read the originial post: here

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