What can we learn from the tragic death by suicide of a Bengaluru techie tormented by demands he said his estranged wife and her family were making on him?
In a 24-page note and 80-minute video, Atul Subhash details instances of ugly marital strife including what he describes as extortionist demands: ₹3 crore to settle cases filed by his wife, another ₹30 lakh for visitation rights to his four-year-old son. He talks also of the legal process—40 trips to the family court in Uttar Pradesh—and, specifically accuses the trial judge of harassment and corruption.
A police complaint has been filed against the wife and her family under charges of abetment to suicide. At the time of writing, a police team from Bengaluru has reached Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh but cannot find the wife or her family who have left their home. The wife’s uncle and lawyer have denied the accusations.
An investigation should throw light about the circumstances of Atul Subhash’s death, including his state of mind.
In the meanwhile, the tragedy has been raging on social media. Assorted men’s rights groups have been expounding on “gender-biased” laws that are routinely misused and are demanding that they are repealed. The wife’s name and that of her employer are now in the public realm with demands that the employer sack the wife. Some are threatening to never marry. Others are saying they will marry but under rules to “save us males” that begin with “double the dowry” and include “letting her meet her family only during festivals”.
I may have missed the ones who lamented the continuing misuse of another law; the one that made dowry illegal back in 1961 and which hasn’t stopped the death of 6,400 women in 2022—that’s nearly 18 a day. Nobody claims these women as martyrs. There are no manifestoes decrying all men and all marriage. There are no demands for employers to sack greedy men whose wives continue to die because their families couldn’t pay the price.
A brief historical detour
By the 1980s, two decades after dowry had been made illegal, the spate of deaths of young brides in so-called kitchen accidents had become so common that the government had to make the dowry law tougher and also introduce a penal section to provide for adequate punishment for cruelty inflicted on a woman by a husband and his relatives.
Laws made for women have one awful fact in common. They are enacted literally on the blood and bodies of women. It’s not just the dowry law. The 2013 criminal amendment of rape laws followed the horrific December 2012 gang-rape and murder of a physiotherapy student; the belated workplace sexual harassment and protection of children from sexual offences also originate from this crime that shook the nation.
The domestic violence law of 2005 was so desperately needed that it passed unanimously in Parliament. Nearly 20 years later, one in three women is still subject to domestic violence.
Section 498A is no exception. Across class, religious divide and even in so-called progressive states like Kerala, dowry continues—and women continue to be killed.
And yet, the section has assumed mythic proportions demonized as the golden key for legions of conniving women who are said to be weaponizing a desperately needed legal protection to cash in on failed marriages.
Coincidentally, the Supreme Court earlier this week weighed in on the “growing tendency to misuse provisions like section 498A … as a tool for unleashing personal vendetta against the husband and his family by a wife.” Earlier too, in 2014, the apex court had pointed out how the section had “dubious pride of place amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield [sic] by disgruntled wives.”
Leaving aside the unconcealed sexism of the 2014 observation (“disgruntled housewives”) what does it mean to say the section is misused?
That has never been defined. Sometimes a couple reaches a settlement under the terms of which the complaint filed by a wife, even if genuine, is withdrawn. And sometimes a complaint is entirely cooked up either because (a) the wife wants to use it as leverage to get custody of the children or a decent financial settlement or (b) because she’s plain vindictive.
Men’s rights activists, a word please
There is now a familiar template favoured by the rather well-organised amorphous group united by their hatred of laws that empowers women.
It goes like this: These “gender-biased laws” are bunkum and must be scrapped. Women are mercenary creatures who think their husbands are “ATM machine’s” (their term, not mine). And women who are employed should not be entitled to financial settlement—even if her husband earns much more than she does, or even if she’s had to sacrifice crucial job promotions and transfers because the children had board exams or his parents needed to be looked after.
When the MRAs expound on the misuse of 498A, they ignore how every other law is misused. Laws against terrorism are routinely abused and yet it is nobody’s case that these laws should be scrapped. Our rape numbers are shameful despite having such strict laws and punishments. And of course, dowry continues, sometimes exactly as it is, the purchase of a desirable bridegroom, but also very often in the name of tradition and ‘gifts’.
In any case, our laws have inbuilt protections against misuse. Perjury ie lying to the court is a serious offence. Providing false information that leads to the filing of police complaints is illegal. Why aren’t these being invoked?
Earlier this week, while hearing an unrelated case, the Supreme Court came out with broad guidelines on how alimony is to be determined. The eight points include the reasonable needs of the wife and dependent children, the employment status of both parties, the standard of living of the wife in the matrimonial home, and the financial capacity of the husband. Interestingly, it also includes any “employment sacrifices made for the family responsibilities.”
Perhaps the MRAs can find common cause with feminists in bringing back anti-dowry campaigns to the forefront of national debate. At the end this is not about men versus women. It’s about decent people striving to create a better society for all.
The following article is an excerpt from this week’s HT Mind the Gap. Subscribe here.
