Death of a Husband

WHEN THE SYSTEM IS CALLOUS, death becomes a form of protest. Students immolate themselves against reservations, farmers con•sume pesticides over debt burden, and, occa•sionally, it takes a suicide to blow the lid off an issue that just about everyone is aware of but chooses to ignore. The death of Atul Subhash did that for the weaponisation of women’s protection laws against husbands in divorce proceedings. Subhash, a 34-year-old white-collar employee, hung himself at his home in Bengaluru but left a trail of documentation to ensure that the retribution he sought would happen.

His 23-page suicide note meticulously described the ordeal he had been put through ever since his marriage. He had connected with his wife on an online matrimonial site in 2019. The families had met and it was no different from any other match in the beginning but hadn’t worked out. By 2021, she had left the home and he claims it was because he had been relentlessly pressured to loan money for the business of her mother-in-law. What he gave instead went to a house they were purchasing. He demanded the money back. The stresses on the marriage piled up. Covid happened. She wanted his brother-in-law to stay with them in Bengaluru, He refused. And then the separa•tion and the ugliness that followed when lawyers and court cases are involved. He was refused access to their son. His note accused the judge of corruption and having asked for a bribe from him. He had so many hearings in Jaunpur that it became impossible to get leave from office. The final trigger was when he spoke to the judge about many men like him being driven to suicide and being mocked by his wife and then his mother-in-law. He decided to prove his point.

He took his life on December 9 and, almost timed to it, on Decem•ber 10, in an entirely unrelated case, the Supreme Court seemed to put in words what he had been going through. Section 498a is a law instituted in the mid-1980s to prevent dowry deaths, a widespread phenomenon at that time. But it was soon gamed by matrimonial lawyers to make husbands pay up more during divorce proceedings. The law was one-sided, where arrest was a given once the complaint was filed and, not just the husband, any relative, far or near, could be jailed if they were names in the complaint. It was terrifying enough to be a trump card in negotiations if the wife had no compunction about filing false cases. While quashing one such FIR that had been filed, the two-judge Supreme Court bench had observed: “The inclusion of Sec•tion 498A of the IPC by way of an amendment was intended to curb cruelty inflicted on a woman by her husband and his family, ensuring swift intervention by the State. However, in recent years, as there have been a notable rise in matrimonial disputes across the country, accompanied by growing discord and tension within the institution of marriage, consequently, there has been a growing tendency to misuse provisions like Section 498A of the IPC as a tool for unleashing personal ven•detta against the husband and his family by a wife.”

In Subhash’s case, Section 498a was present but many others had been added on top of it. There is even a murder case because his father-in-law died of a heart attack and Subhash was said to be responsible for it. Subhash also made a video before killing himself which contributed to the outrage people have been feeling over his death. Member of Parliament (MP) Kangana Ranaut commented to a news agency that the video was heartbreaking and condemned “fake feminists”. She added that in 99 per cent of cases, men were to blame and that immediately led to a slew of angry comments directed against her. Tejasvi Surya, MP from Bengaluru, recommended that laws be made gender neutral so that such abuse of laws don’t continue. The subtext is that if the system is going to be gamed then it must be possible for both men and women to do it. Women’s rights organisations say that these are exceptions and that the law is necessary because widespread atrocities against women warrant it.

What Section 498a led to was also men’s rights organisa•tions. There were so many husbands who had been victimised by it that they started coming together to work out how to face it. Initially when called by news channels for discussions, they would be ridiculed because it didn’t occur to mainstream media that men could be victims too. That has changed over the last few years. Husbands foisted with such cases inevitably turn to support from such groups. An organisation called Ekam Nyaay came out with a research report which documented suicides by husbands and boyfriends between January and December 2023. They collected 517 such cases where deaths were because of “mental harassment, false cases, domestic violence, extramarital affairs of the wife, and others.” The report said, “A total of 1,22,724 men died by suicide in 2022 as compared to 48,172 women. Number of married men who died by suicide in 2022 was 82,000. The most common cause of suicide of men is family problems which are not described in detail by NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau).”

The wife and in-laws of Subhash now have cases filed against them for abetment to suicide. The death might have shocked many and highlighted the issue but it probably won’t lead to any systemic reforms. More such suicides will happen and occasionally India will wake up to the agony of wronged husbands and then forget about it. Gender-neutral laws sound like a simple solution but getting them passed is difficult politically. The judiciary has for years been grappling with diluting Section 498a, sometimes it does and then another judgment reverts it back to a draconian form. Subhash’s helplessness was as much from the corruption in the judicial system that he ran into. Besides the suicide note, he had a letter addressed to the judiciary in which he asked that at least his old parents and brother be spared now. He wrote, “My brother has met my wife only for 2 days just after marriage and my father has met my wife for 4 days (2 days just after marriage + 2 days at my father in law’s funeral). They both are charged with 498a+package and DV (domestic violence act). I have no idea why my parents and brother need to get harassed. My parents are old and do not understand the process and system too much. My father has difficulty walking. I hope that with me gone, the courts will not harass my old parents and brother in these false cases because I am destroying the source of money itself. All the best with your social justice now. I might not win against this faceless evil but it will not feed off me at least.”

Death of a HusbandharassmentIndian societyjudicial reformsjudiciaryMen-women relationshipSection 498A