Beyond 'Men ki Baat': Inside the Business of Men's Rights Activism in India

While some claim that there's money in doing 'Men ki Baat,' there's a lot more at play in the MRA industry.

Beyond 'Men ki Baat': Inside The Business of Being India's Men's Rights Activist

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

"Men ki Baat."

A common phrase, reiterated ad nauseum by most of the men's rights activists in India (MRAs).

On the face of it, the MRA industry would seem harmless, a group of activists trying to be the "voice of men," which they believe men lack as a collective.

But that is not all. MRA have become antithetical to the feminist movement, often leaning towards being pro-establishment. Our deep-dive found that MRA groups have become an active lobby that has infiltrated into all online spaces, where money is huge driving factor. Information is twisted for the algorithm which further pushes such content.

In the past two years, especially since the 2024 Atul Subhash case, these MRAs have become more popular and have seen a surge online.

To an extent that now when any case that concerns alimony, dowry or sexual harassment is reported online, MRAs function at full-throttle and influence discourse online.

Let's take the recent Kerala bus case. Shimjitha Musthafa, a local recorded a video where she claimed that a man could be seen elbowing her on the bus. But the man reportedly committed suicide.

Despite video evidence being available, MRAs ran a targeted campaign against the woman online. In this online ecosystem, more and more posts sprung up, shaming and mocking her.

Suddenly, all women were shamed for recording videos of sexual harassment, while content showed that men are now "victims" at the mercy of women who could record them any time. Such was the conversation steered by the MRAs online.

But who are the most prominent MRAs today and how and why do they operate and reinforce a toxic online environment?

Anil Kumar of the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) told The Quint that there are different categories of MRAs functioning online who might overlap with each other too:

• The social media GenZ influencers

• The manosphere, who subscribe to Andrew Tate and the incel culture

• MRAs like SIFF who work on the ground

• The relatively new but famous MRAs like Barkha, Deepika

The Fault in Our MRAs

Barkha Trehan founded the Purush Aayog in 2019. The official pamphlet shows her photographs with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.

Holding a placard 'I support Kuldeep Sengar,' she gatecrashed the Jantar Mantar protest held for the Unnao rape survivor in December 2025.

Yogita Bhayana, an activist who has been helping the Unnao survivor since the beginning of her case stated that the survivor fell sick and disturbed after Trehan's action.

Speaking with The Quint, Trehan said, “Kuldeep Singh Sengar has spent nearly 8 years in custody yet legal relief continues to be denied, not strictly on legal grounds, but because of his former status as an MLA."

This is not true. In the stay order as accessed by The Quint, the court stated that because Senger is convicted and sentenced in another case and the order in that case was reserved by the court, his bail would be stayed.

Then there is Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj. Like Trehan, he has also relatedly questioned the Unnao survivor's account and integrity. But she claims that she does not associate with Trehan.

We also found a post from December 2023 by former Lok Sabha MP and BJP member Poonam Mahajan meeting "influencers who have been supporting BJP in the past 10-12 years."

The photos featured Deepika. Just a year later, she started the Ekam Nyaay Foundation.

But Bhardwaj has questioned and mocked the Unnao case survivor at several junctures.

"I've questioned the Unnao survivor over the change in her statements. I choose to believe Shashi Singh and her family. Singh was acquitted in the Unnao case," Bhardwaj told The Quint.

As per Bhayana, things were not this bad before. "Deepika and Barkha used to be friendly with me before. But now things have changed, they should be questioning the judges, they have seen the court proceedings. Why didn't they file an appeal in the court instead of harassing the survivor?”

The Money in Doing 'Men ki Baat'

We realised that it’s not a coincidence that more ’men’s rights’ content is taking up space online. It’s not happening in isolation either.

Anil Kumar, a former IITian and one of the co-founders of Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) told The Quint that "pushing more such MRA content content aligns with Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter."

Since Musk has taken over X, the platform has seen a significant rise in right-wing, anti-woke, and to a great extent, the thriving content of 'manospehere' or anti-feminist narrative.

As a by-product, MRAs get more money depending on their engagement metrics. This has also propelled the rise of MRAs.

Bhayana also told The Quint that the currency here is a woman being a men's right activist and that it was all dependent on economic gains.

It's all money, in the MRA industry. They don't have anything to do with men's rights. They are being funded by Kuldeep Sengar's money and also Brij Bhushan and his groups. He spent hundreds of crores on the PR which they are also benefiting from. They earn well because of it and there's a lot of money in the Unnao case.

Yogita Bhayana, Activist to The Quint

All the three MRAs we spoke to, Deepika, Barkha and SIFF have denied these allegations.

Kumar of SIFF said his own foundation, SIFF is an independent Trust which only accepts donations from its members.

But he did admit to The Quint: "There's a small bunch of people like lawyers, businessmen who are actually in this for the money. We don't collaborate with them because we might not align with them culturally or ideologically.”

SIFF's own culture that shows the kind of content they post, including 'rape jokes are normal' and bashing feminists. When we questioned SIFF, Kumar said, "Feminists use anti-men language in their posts then why can't we use a similar language against them? Mostly, the kind of language we have used in our posts is to stir up rhetoric and conversation online."

MRAs also often reinforce the narrative of alleged false case or about alimony.

The issue here is not that the victim of a case is a man. The issue is when MRAs bring up certain cases intentionally to only keep you outraged.

This is why headlines where women have reportedly killed husband on their honeymoon travels far and wide. Sensational headlines, prime time TV debates, WhatsApp forwards, regurgitated by these MRAs to make it seem like it's a mainstream issue happening on a larger scale. These headlines and such content provokes a shock value, a trigger.

Resulting in more engagement online, more TRPs for TV channels. Constant churning out of such reports make it seem like these cases are far more common than you think.

Another favorite point often brought up by the MRAs is: alimony.

SIFF also runs an 'Alimony Gopal Tea Stall' near courts and in exhibitions in honor of Atul Subhash who was also a volunteer at their organisation.

The second favorite argument is that of "false cases."

Lawyers like Tahini Bhushan have handled genuine cases of men, especially the POCSO/POSH/ 498A cases.

There is space within the legal system to address false implication, cruelty, and abuse of process. But MRAs routinely cross the line from legal advocacy into ideological overreach. MRAs knowingly sell men unrealistic outcomes—zero-cost divorces without mutual consent, blanket immunity from maintenance, or automatic quashing of proceedings despite being fully aware that courts do not function this way.

Tahini Bhushan, lawyer to The Quint

What the MRAs Don't Tell You, But the Data Does

False cases are still minority, if official government data is to be believed.

In 2020, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed that less than 8% of all cases under investigation for rape were found to be 'false.'

Not much has changed.

In totality, in the last NCRB report of 2023, 4,48,211 cases of crimes against women were recorded across India. Out of these, around 37,598 cases were categorised as 'Final Report False.'

This means that roughly 8.3% of the crimes reported against women were filed as false cases.

But MRAs conveniently either do not talk about this or question the data methodology. But here's some more truth.

• Out of total of 29,670 rape cases reported, around 3,959 were disposed by the police after being categorised as false cases

• Out of total 1,33,676 cases under Cruelty by husband or relatives (IPC 498A), 6,176 cases were reported as false

• Out of 6,156 dowry deaths, 187 cases reported as false final report

These are just some of the examples to show that a minuscule part of a larger database is extrapolated to undermine our protective laws, to propagate the narrative that false cases have become an epidemic, as MRAs would like you to believe.