Politician gives brides wooden bats to beat drunk and abusive husbands in India

When almost 700 couples were married in a mass ceremony in Madhya Pradesh, India Saturday, their state minister had a gift.

But his wedding present was meant specifically for the brides, in a country that has grappled with widespread reports of domestic violence: wooden bats to “do the talking” for the newlywed women if their spouses drank too much or tried to hit them.

“Women say whenever their husbands get drunk they become violent. Their savings are taken away and splurged on liquor,” Gopal Bhargava said, according to the BBC. “There is no intent to provoke women or instigate them to violence, but the bat is to prevent violence.”

Bhargava said he would suggest the bat, or “mogri,” only as a last resort, according to the Press Trust of India. Though the tools are usually employed in washing clothes to help beat out dust, the ones handed out at the mass wedding over the weekend were inscribed with a caption meant to denote its intended purpose, the agency reported: “Gift for beating drunkards, police will not intervene.”

India has struggled to curb a rise in reports of domestic violence — according to a 2014 BBC investigation, it was the most reported category of violence against women in the nation for a decade. Women’s rights groups in India have also linked the surge in incidents of domestic violence to the proliferation of alcohol sales, prompting some politicians to take steps to curb drinking and shutter some liquor stores, according to the Guardian.

But Bhargava told the Press Trust that “the government or police alone would not be able to solve this problem,” and that the bats might help women defend themselves on their own terms.

“Whenever I visit any rural or urban area in my constituency, women complain about their husband’s drinking habit,” Bhargava told the Press Trust. “They inform me that whatever little they earn is snatched away by their husband for alcohol.”

Bhargava has ordered several thousand more bats for distribution, the Guardian reported.

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 5:55 AM with the headline "Politician gives brides wooden bats to beat drunk and abusive husbands in India."