Suicide is the leading cause of death for married women in India. According to a study published by the medical journal, The Lancet, married women in India accounted for 28,085 of 44,498, or 63 percent of all suicides by women between 2014 and 2020.
The latest data (2024) from the National Crime Records Bureau indicates the same pattern. What is more, young married women in India are at greater risk of suicide than anywhere else in the world. The majority of these women (67.6 percent) were under the age of 30. Their deaths are triggered primarily by marriage-related issues involving an intensely patriarchal custom of dowry (now legally banned), which young brides are expected to keep giving the groom’s family. The failure to fulfill these demands often turns fatal, with the woman either committing suicide or being killed.
Dowry is primarily a South Asian phenomenon and more intrinsically an Indian one. At least 15 dowry-related deaths occur every day in India. Significantly, the domestic violence and torture that the woman is subjected to does not stop with dowry payment. Then comes the pressure to bear male offspring.
Grave crimes of dowry-related torture and deaths are not confined to less educated or economically vulnerable families.
This was the case in a recent incident where 33-year-old Twisha Sharma was found hanging at her marital home in Bhopal on May 12, just five months after her marriage in December last year to Samarth Singh, a lawyer, whose family is rich, upper-caste, and educated. His mother, Giribala, is a retired district judge and was chairperson of the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Bhopal at the time of the incident.
Sharma herself was well educated. She had a degree in business management and was a former beauty queen as well.
Sharma’s family alleges that her in-laws were dissatisfied with the dowry they gave and she was routinely subjected to mental torture and violence. Her mother told police that minutes before her death, Sharma spoke to her over the mobile phone, and she overheard her son-in-law shouting at Sharma.
According to unconfirmed reports, Sharma was pregnant and her husband had forced her to undergo an abortion.
Sharma’s family allege that the autopsy and investigation were not conducted properly as Giribala used her influence in the state to obstruct justice . They refused to cremate the body until a second autopsy was conducted by doctors from AIIMS Delhi. The first autopsy had been conducted by AIIMS Bhopal doctors. Sharma’s family had even protested outside the Madhya Pradesh chief minister’s residence, demanding a fair probe into their daughter’s death. They finally cremated her 12 days after the incident.
The family’s apprehensions of a biased probe were not unwarranted. Not only did Giribala manage to get anticipatory bail from a local court, but Samarth too absconded initially. It was pressure from Sharma’s family and public anger that resulted in the high court cancelling Giribala’s bail. Both mother and son are in jail currently.
With allegations being cast on the impartiality of the police probe and the judicial process, the Supreme Court took suo motu (on its own) cognizance of the case and directed a Central Bureau of Investigation probe instead.
It is not just newly married women who succumb to pressure. 37-year-old Esha, who was married for 13 years to Bhupendra Sahu, jumped with her 6-month-old daughter from the sixth floor of a building in Hyderabad. While the mother died, the baby survived as she landed on cables near the apartment boundary wall. Media reports quoted the police stating that the husband said Esha was suffering from post-partum depression. Local online news portals that followed up on the story revealed that Esha was being harassed by her husband for giving birth to a second daughter. The couple already had an 8-year-old daughter and Sahu wanted a male heir. Both Esha and her husband were software engineers. The police have since arrested the husband in the case.
What is appalling is that the media, as well as social media users, celebrated the survival of the baby without once questioning the husband’s version of events.
In both cases cited above, the accused families were rich and educated. That did not prevent them from harassing their daughters-in-law and driving them to suicide.
It is 65 years since dowry was outlawed in India; the giving and taking of dowry is forbidden. Yet the custom flourishes, albeit in a more glamorous avatar. One reason is the booming wedding industry, which promotes lavish, ostentatious multi-day wedding ceremonies. It is practically a social statement of your status. Couples as well as families seek to replicate the designer weddings of celebrity film stars. Most often, it is the woman’s parents who bear the humongous bill. That is just the beginning. Post-wedding, the demands of the groom’s family keep escalating. “Gifts for your daughter” has become the new name for dowry.
As per Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code, now codified as Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyay Samhita, cruelty by the husband or his relatives, as well as harassment for dowry, are crimes punishable with a three-year jail term and a fine. If the harassment results in the death of the woman, it is classified as a dowry death under 304B of the IPC, now Section 80 of the BNS, and is punishable with a minimum seven-year imprisonment. If a woman dies an unnatural death within seven years of her marriage, Section 304B is also invoked.
Laws alone do not deter people from demanding dowry. More than legal punishments and fear of the judiciary, what is required is a socio-cultural movement to uproot dowry from Indian society.
Hindus claim to worship female goddesses. But their married daughters are not safe and are being driven to suicide.
