On the night of December 9, a 34-year-old Indian man committed suicide. Next to his body was a sign that read “justice is due.”
Atul Subhash left a detailed 24-page suicide note and an 81-minute video blaming the problems in his marriage and divorce proceedings.
The letter and video, which contain disturbing details about his life, have gone viral on social media and sparked outrage.
The software engineer from the southern city of Bengaluru accused his estranged wife Nikita Singhania, her mother and brother of persistent harassment and torture – allegations they denied. The three were arrested a few days later and a court remanded them in custody for fourteen days.
News of Subhash’s tragic death has also galvanized men’s rights activists and sparked a wider debate over India’s strict dowry law.
Many claim that with divorce rates steadily increasing, the law is being abused by women to harass their husbands and even force them to commit suicide. India’s Supreme Court has also spoken out, with one judge describing it as “legal terrorism” that was “intended to be used as a shield and not as a weapon for a killer.”
However, women’s activists point out that dowry still kills thousands of women every year.
Subhash and Singhania (second from right) married in 2019, but had been estranged for three years [Bengaluru police]
Subhash and Singhania got married in 2019 but had been living separately for three years and Subhash said he was not allowed to meet their four-year-old son. His wife, he alleged, had filed “false lawsuits” accusing him of cruelty, dowry harassment and various other misdeeds.
In the video, he accused the Singhania family of ‘extortion’ and said they had demanded 30 million rupees ($352,675; £279,661) to withdraw the cases, 3 million rupees for visitation rights for their son and asked to increase monthly maintenance payments from 40,000 rupees to 200,000 rupees.
He then spoke of the dozens of long trips he had made in recent years to attend court hearings and accused a judge of intimidating him, soliciting bribes from him and mocking him. A notice that appears to have been issued by the judge calls the allegations “baseless, immoral and defamatory.”
News of the suicide sparked a storm of protests in several cities. Many took to social media to demand justice for Subhash.
They said his suicide should be treated as a case of murder and targeted Singhania, demanding that she be arrested and sent to prison for life.
On X (formerly Twitter), thousands tagged the American multinational where she worked and demanded they fire her.
Following the outrage, police in Bengaluru opened an investigation against those named in the suicide note. On December 14, Singhania, her mother and brother were arrested on charges of “abetment to suicide”.
During interrogation, Singhania denied the allegation that she had harassed Subhash for money, Times of India quoted police as saying.
In the past, Singhania had also leveled serious allegations against her husband. In her 2022 divorce petition, she had accused him, his parents and brother of harassing her for dowry. She said that they were not satisfied with the gifts given by her parents during the wedding and demanded another 1 million rupees.
Men’s rights activists have held protests in many cities demanding justice for Atul Subhash [BBC]
Dowries have been banned in India since 1961, but the bride’s family is still expected to donate cash, clothes and jewelry to the groom’s family. According to a recent study, they are involved in 90% of Indian marriages and payments amounted to a quarter of a trillion dollars between 1950 and 1999.
And according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 35,493 brides were murdered in India between 2017 and 2022 – an average of 20 women per day – over dowry. In 2022 alone, more than 6,450 brides were killed for dowry – that’s an average of 18 women per day.
Singhania claimed that her father died of a heart attack soon after her marriage 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 treating the husband-wife relationship like an animal” by demanding unnatural sex. Subhash had denied all allegations.
Police say they are still investigating the allegations and counter-accusations, but Subhash’s suicide has led to growing calls to rewrite – or even scrap – India’s strict anti-dowry law, Section 498A of the Indian 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 burned to death by their husbands and in-laws, and the murders were often dismissed as “kitchen accidents.” Angry protests from female MPs and activists forced parliament to introduce the law.
As lawyer Sukriti Chauhan says, “the law was arrived at after a long and hard struggle” and “allows women to seek justice in cases of cruelty in their marital homes”.
Nikita Singhania had accused Subhash (pictured here with his mother), his parents and brother of harassing her for dowry – they had denied the allegations [BBC]
But over the years, the law has repeatedly made headlines, with men’s activists saying it is being abused by women to harass their husbands and their relatives.
The Indian Supreme Court has also repeatedly warned against abuse of the law. On the day Subhash’s suicide was reported, the Supreme Court – in an unrelated case – once again drew attention to “the growing tendency to misuse the provision as a tool to unleash personal revenge against the husband and his family” .
Amit Deshpande, founder of Mumbai-based men’s rights organization Vaastav Foundation, says the law is “mainly used to blackmail men” and that “there are thousands of others who are suffering like Subhash”.
Their helpline number, he said, receives around 86,000 calls every year and most of the cases are about marital disputes, including cases of fake dowry and extortion attempts.
“A cottage industry has been built up around the law. In each case, 18 to 20 people are named as suspects 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 a sick adult has been named in dowry harassment complaints.
“I know these are extreme examples, but the entire system somehow makes this possible. The police, judiciary and politicians turn a blind eye to our concerns,” he says.
Men’s rights activists say dory law is ‘mainly used to extort men’ [Getty Images]
Mr Deshpande says that for more than 50 years, a vast majority of male suicides have been committed by married men, according to government crime data – and that family discord was the reason for one in four suicides among them.
Patriarchy, he says, also works against men. “Women resort to laws and get sympathy, but people laugh at men who are harassed or beaten by their wives. If Subhash had been a woman, he could have resorted to certain laws. So let’s make the laws gender neutral and extend the same laws. justice for the people so that lives can be saved.”
There must also be strict penalties for those who abuse the law, otherwise it will not be a deterrent, he added.
Ms Chauhan agrees that women who abuse the law should be punished, but says any law can be abused. The Bengaluru case is in court and if it is proven to be a false case, she should be punished, she says.
“But I am not in favor of becoming gender neutral. The demand for this is regressive because it does not take into account the need for special measures that recognize that women are disproportionately affected by violence.”
Those going after Section 498A, she says, are “driven by patriarchy and because it is a law for women, efforts are being made to abolish it”.
“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 high and thousands of brides are still being killed.
The need of the moment, she adds, is to “make the law stronger.”
“If three out of 10 cases filed are false, then it is up to the courts to punish them. But women still suffer greatly in this country, so don’t ask for the law to be repealed.”
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