There is one way to know if a struggle is bringing positive results. When it is suddenly time to change direction ? or to enlarge its bounds. The Madhya Pradesh women?s commission is now faced with complaints from men, over issues with which the women?s movement has been dealing for quite a while. Active members of the movement all over the country have acquired experience and expertise in tackling and resolving problems such as those of domestic violence, conjugal exploitation, property rights or child custody. They have been able to build up some awareness about the rights of women and gender justice among various strata of society. For anyone at the receiving end of injustice based on gender inequality, they would be perceived as the right people to turn to. This is both a sign of success and the beginning of many ironies. When men turn up at the Madhya Pradesh women commission?s door complaining against harassment from wife and in-laws, or denial of property and conjugal rights, the members can only hear them out sympathetically and, in some instances, prepare their cases for them and send them on to the human rights commission and other fora. For the commission can only extend help directly to women, even if the problems of the men are rooted in gender exploitation.

The irony here is on two levels. It is clear that awareness about gender justice as a concept has reached many strata of society. It is often men from underprivileged communities or castes, particularly those who have married above themselves, and men from women-dominated tribal communities, who are coming to the commission for succour. One example is particularly telling. A woman who had married into the minority community is fighting for her child?s right to his father?s property. The child is male. So the women?s commission is not empowered to help him. On another level, these complaints reveal the power equations behind gender injustice most starkly. That is not new, but it shows clearly that it may become increasingly less practical to maintain a distinction between women?s issues in particular and human rights in general. A movement specifically for women?s rights must not be abandoned or changed at this point of time. All the same, developments such as those in Madhya Pradesh may be pointing the way it will take in the future.