A man’s suicide leads to clamour around India’s dowry law
On the night of December 9, 34-year-old Indian man Atul Subhash took his own life. A placard reading “justice is due” was found beside his body.
Subhash, a software engineer from Bengaluru, left behind a 24-page suicide note and an 81-minute video, in which he attributed the distress in his life to issues surrounding his marriage and ongoing divorce proceedings. The note and video, which reveal disturbing details of his situation, quickly went viral on social media and sparked widespread outrage.
In the video and letter, Subhash accused his estranged wife, Nikita Singhania, and her family—her mother and brother—of persistent harassment and cruelty, claims they have denied. A few days later, the three were arrested, and a court placed them in custody for 14 days.
Subhash’s death has also triggered a wave of support from men’s rights activists and sparked a broader debate about India’s stringent dowry laws. Critics argue that these laws are being exploited by women in divorce cases to harass their husbands, even driving them to suicide. India’s Supreme Court has weighed in, with one judge calling the law “legal terrorism” used as a weapon against husbands rather than a protective measure.
However, women’s rights activists maintain that dowry-related violence continues to claim thousands of women’s lives each year.
Subhash and Singhania had married in 2019 but had been separated for three years. Subhash claimed he was not allowed to see their four-year-old son. He also alleged that his wife had filed “false court cases” against him, accusing him of cruelty, dowry harassment, and other offenses.
In the video, Subhash accused Singhania’s family of extortion, alleging they demanded 30 million rupees ($352,675) to drop the cases, 3 million rupees for visitation rights to his son, and an increase in his monthly maintenance payments from 40,000 rupees to 200,000 rupees.
He also spoke of the numerous trips he made to attend court hearings and accused a judge of harassment, bribery attempts, and mocking him. A notice, apparently issued by the judge, dismissed these claims as “baseless, immoral, and defamatory.”
Subhash’s death ignited protests in several cities, with many social media users calling for justice. His supporters argued that the case should be treated as a murder, demanding the arrest and life imprisonment of Singhania. Thousands also tagged her employer, an American multinational firm, on X (formerly Twitter), urging them to fire her.
In response to the public outcry, Bengaluru police launched an investigation into the individuals named in Subhash’s suicide note. On December 14, Singhania, her mother, and her brother were arrested on charges of “abetment to suicide.” During questioning, Singhania denied the allegations of harassment for money, according to the Times of India.
In the past, Singhania had accused Subhash and his family of dowry harassment. In her 2022 divorce petition, she claimed they were dissatisfied with the dowry gifts her parents had given at the wedding and demanded an additional 1 million rupees.
Dowries have been outlawed in India since 1961, but the bride’s family is still expected to gift cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom’s family. According to a recent study, 90% of Indian marriages involve them and payments between 1950 and 1999 amounted to a quarter of a trillion dollars.
And according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 35,493 brides were killed in India between 2017 and 2022 – an average of 20 women a day – over dowry. In 2022 alone, more than 6,450 brides were murdered over dowry – that’s an average of 18 women every day.
Singhania claimed that her father died from a heart attack soon after her wedding when Subhash’s parents went to him to demand the money. She also alleged that her husband used to threaten her and “beat me up after drinking alcohol and treated the husband-wife relationship like a beast” by demanding unnatural sex. Subhash had denied all the allegations.
Police say they are still investigating the allegations and counter-allegations but Subhash’s suicide has led to growing calls to rewrite – even scrap – India’s stringent anti-dowry law – Section 498A of the India Penal Code.
The law was introduced in 1983 after a spate of dowry deaths in Delhi and elsewhere in the country. There were daily reports of brides being burnt to death by their husbands and in-laws and the murders were often passed off as “kitchen accidents”. Angry protests by female MPs and activists forced parliament to bring in the law.
As lawyer Sukriti Chauhan says, “the law had come after a long and hard fight” and “allows women to seek justice in cases of cruelty in their matrimonial homes”.
But over the years, the law has repeatedly made headlines, with men’s activists saying it is being misused by women to harass their husbands and their relatives.
India’s top court has also warned against the misuse of the law on many occasions. On the day Subhash’s suicide was reported, the Supreme Court once again flagged – in an unrelated case – “the growing tendency to misuse the provision as a tool for unleashing personal vendetta against the husband and his family”.
Amit Deshpande, founder of Mumbai-based men’s rights organisation Vaastav Foundation, says the law is being used “mostly to extort men” and that “there are thousands of others who are suffering like Subhash”.
Their helpline number, he says, receives about 86,000 calls every year and most cases are about matrimonial disputes that include false dowry cases and attempts at extortion.
“A cottage industry has been built around the law. In each case, 18-20 people are named as accused and they all have to hire lawyers and go to court to seek bail. There have been cases where a two-month-old baby or an ill nonagenarian was named in dowry harassment complaints.
“I know these are extreme examples but the whole system enables this in some manner. Police, judiciary and politicians are turning a blind eye to our concerns,” he says.
Mr Deshpande says according to the government crime data for more than 50 years, a large majority of male suicides were by married men – and family discord was the reason for one in four suicides among them.
Patriarchy, he says, also works against men. “Women have recourse to laws and they get sympathy, but people laugh at men who are harassed or beaten by their wives. If Subhash was a woman he could have had recourse to certain laws. So, let’s make laws gender neutral and extend the same justice to men so lives can be saved.”
There should also be stringent punishment for those who misuse the law, otherwise this will not be a deterrent, he adds.
Ms Chauhan agrees that women who misuse the law should be punished, but argues that any law can be misused. The Bengaluru case is in court and if it is proven that it’s a false case, then she should be punished, she says.
“But I do not support it becoming gender neutral. The demand for that is regressive as it disregards the need for special measures that acknowledge that women are disproportionately impacted by violence.”
Those going after Section 498A, she says, are “driven by patriarchy and because it’s a law for women, attempts are made to strike it down”.
“It came after years of societal patriarchal injustice. And this patriarchy remains the reality of our generation and will continue for generations to come.”
Despite the law, she says, demand for dowry is rampant and thousands of brides continue to be killed over it.
The need of the hour, she adds, is to “make the law stronger”.
“If three out of 10 cases that are filed are false, then it is for the courts to impose penalty on them. But women are still suffering very much in this country so do not ask to repeal the law.”
