Indian government today issued a detailed clarification over an alleged comment by Maneka Gandhi on suicide by men which created controversy online.
Following is the verbatim clarification by the government:
“To connect with people through online space, the Minister of Women & Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi held a one-on-one interaction with people through a Live Facebook Chat on June 29, 2017. The activity reached out to nearly 2,00,000 people, with over 700 questions received.
During the course of the interaction, a Facebook users posted the question, “Q. What our Govt is doing to reduce higher suicide rate among men, majority of which is due to Gynocentric Gender-Biased laws.?”
To this the Hon’ble Minister responded, “Which men have committed suicide ??? Why not try and resolve the situation rather than commit suicide – I have not heard/read of a single case.”
However, media reports have misconstrued the statement and missed the context of the question. The question was in the context of suicides committed due to the supposed gender-biased laws. However, the response of the Minister is unfortunately being judged in isolation and taken out of context. The Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Minister have constantly advocated for equal rights of all citizens of the nation.”
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