Kamal Ghorui
The two sisters, aged 25 and 23, in a Rajasthan village who died of poisoning hours before their twin weddings, allegedly by suicide, per police, were teachers in a primary school. Early Feb, three sisters – aged 16, 14 and 10 – jumped to their death in UP. Among their diary notings: “Mention of marriage caused tension in our hearts.” Last Sept, a Delhi man killed his wife, angered over her social media posts.
Uttarakhand HC, meanwhile, acquitted a man of abetment to suicide of his wife, adding that “being suspicious is common” – example of a constitutional authority normalising male toxic behaviour that is ruinous, even if not mens rea . Yes, it is a tightrope, but “being suspicious” is code for cruelty, and controlling behaviour is domestic violence.
In India, young women take their own lives over reasons NCRB calls “family matters” – suitably vague. Yet we know exactly what it means: the vortex that is “Indian family tradition” that sucks the agency out of couples, and dumps a burden of expectations on women. Two-thirds of women who die by suicide in India are below 25 years old. The age group 15-29 years, from post puberty through marriage and childbirth, is the most vulnerable to family pressures – arranged marriages, forced to stay married in abusive relationships, and an erasure of the individual replaced by her relation to male relatives and family. It is no surprise either that more educated women and more women in rural India attempt and complete suicides, both married and in ‘marriageable’ age.
NCRB’s “family matters” is the trap that denies women the right to exercise choice of career, or lifestyle, or partner, or wherewithal to walk out of a bad marriage. It denies men freedoms too, but as studies and data show, men take their own lives mostly over economic reasons.
So, when Bhagwat frowns at live-in relationships, or Uttarakhand wants live-ins registered, or Gujarat proposes de facto parental approval for “love marriages”, they must recognise it’s a losing battle they’re fighting. Live-ins are a statement by men and women of rejecting “family matters”.
They are constitutionally protected. Inter-caste, inter-faith, inter-community, same-sex, across middle-classes, rural, peri-urban, urban – it’s happening, slowly but incrementally. Despite pushback of killing daughters, asking parents to “control” adult kids, scaring youngsters into marrying their family’s will. There is never a single cause behind any suicide – but always a last straw. Maybe focus on why women are taking their own lives, not how to control them.
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