The debates surrounding the tragic suicides of Atul Subhash and police constable, Tippanna Alagur in Karnataka has given space for irrational and dangerous fears being unleashed by men’s rights organisations and a sensational media about “greedy and exploitative” women, and betray an ignorance of the processes of law in addition to a denial of violent patriarchy that continues to impact on the lives and deaths of women and men.  

Naveddu Nilladiddare, Karnataka

The tragic suicides of Atul Subhash and police constable, Tippanna Alagur in Karnataka have once again given rise to volatile debates on the ‘misuse’ of the laws related to gender violence specifically IPC 498A and the Dowry Prohibition Act. It has provoked a PIL in the Supreme Court that seeks reform of these laws to “prevent harassment of Innocent husbands.” It has also given space for irrational and dangerous fears being unleashed by men’s rights organisations and a sensational media about “greedy and exploitative” women who are a threat to the institution of the family with their rapacious demands for maintenance and alimony. Even the Home Minister of Karnataka has legitimised these fears stating that the suicide has “opened up a debate about men’s rights” in the country. These statements and debates betray an ignorance of the processes of law in addition to a denial of violent patriarchy that continues to impact on the lives and deaths of women and men. 

As organisations and individuals concerned and working for women’s basic right to life and dignity and broader issues of social justice that impact all genders, the issues raised by Atul Subhash in his suicide note raise many serious concerns for us too. We understand the pain and anguish of marital distress and a child custody dispute that pushed this young man to take his life. This is exactly what we continue to witness with women who are victims and survivors of family violence. 

Undoubtedly a primary concern therefore is with the misuse of the law at different levels. At one level it is by the police wrongly classifying certain crimes as ‘dowry harassment’ or ‘alimony dispute’. Their continued inability and insensitivity to understand or accept domestic violence in its multiple forms unless it is linked to “dowry demands” leads to them conflating the Dowry Prohibition Act with IPC 498 A in order to “strengthen” the complaint even when there are no such demands. Such cases obviously do not stand up in a Court of Law and get dubbed as false cases that are attributed to women who are lying to get their cases registered. Faulty and over enthusiastic implementation of 498 A also leads to the unnecessary arrest of family members leading to mothers and sisters of the husband also languishing in jails leading to more claims of misuse. At another level there is misuse also by a few women and their families – but this is largely on account of them being misdirected and misled by lawyers for who domestic violence is lucrative business and a legal system where bribery and corruption is the norm as Atul Subhash has also pointed out in his tragic suicide note. 

However, what is of deeper concern is that this tragic suicide instead of pushing us to reflect more deeply on the emotional vulnerability of men in response to personal and structural stress is degenerating into a divisive and distracting debate of “men’s rights” vs “women’s rights” betraying little real concern for men vulnerable to such deaths.  

For instance a Lancet study showed that among social groups, daily wage workers were at a greater risk of death by suicide. The instances of suicide had nearly tripled between 2014 and 2021. From 13,944 in 2014, cases of death by suicide rose to 37, 751 in 2021 among men involved in daily wage work. Family problem followed by health issues are frequently cited as the reasons for rising suicides among married men and daily wage earners.

However a larger share of suicides in productive years of life calls for addressing livelihood insecurities. Alcoholism, unemployment, uncertainty of employment, agricultural distress, academic pressure on students particularly from vulnerable communities are also factors that impact on high suicide rates in today’s context. As per data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on December 4, 2023, there was an increase of 3.7 % 2021, and an increase of 5.7 per cent when compared with total farmers’ suicides in 2020. In fact, one farmer/farm labourer dies by suicide every hour in India. An overwhelming number of these are male (in 2022, of the total 5,207 farmer/cultivator suicides, a total of 4,999 were male.). The growing number of male farmer/cultivator suicides should give pause and prompt an analysis of agricultural policy.

On the other hand significantly, as per data from the NCRB (2022), the proportion of female victims of suicide were more in ‘Marriage Related Issues’ (specifically in ‘Dowry Related Issues’). Housewives accounted for 52.5% of the total female victims and constitute nearly 14.8% of total victims of persons who died by suicide during 2022. A total of 6.4 thousand women who were killed or driven to committing suicide for reasons of  dowry and other related domestic violence in 2022 – a clear indication that deaths of women continue despite the existence of “women friendly” laws that are supposedly being misused on this large scale.

In this complex and sensitive context instead of understanding and responding to the larger vulnerability of men it is unfortunate that organisations like Save the Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) which we believe comprises of or men from the professional and privileged classes are going out on an all-out war on the few hard-won legal rights of women using the tragic deaths of men like Atul as part of their mission “to expose and create awareness about large scale violations of Civil Liberties and Human Rights in the name of women’s empowerment in India”. 

The reality is that while a few men might bear the brunt of the “misuse” of the laws, in life most women, girls and gender minorities continue to bear the brunt of everyday patriarchal control and violence. 

Cases of men being victimised by such laws should be dealt with separately and holistically and not be used to provoke knee jerk reactions that lead to a watering down of the laws that exist. This is urgent given the backlash against the basic rights and agency of women in the current context where their assertions of choice and autonomy is seen as a direct threat to the institution of the family and marriage that have in fact legitimised domestic violence down the ages. Such assertions of women are being vilified as “western” or “Marxist” feminism (as also expressed in Atul Subhash’s note) rather than expressions of those finding their own necessary solutions to the violence and discrimination in their lives. 

The reality is that for one woman who goes to the police or Courts to access any relief or justice from their husbands and families there are thousands who continue to suffer different forms of economic, emotional, physical and sexual violence silently accepting it as their fate.

If the system is flawed and corrupt it is not the laws that need to be challenged and changed. Measures must be put into place that ensure that this system which implements these laws be sensitized, held accountable and checks and balances instituted in ways that do not victimise men in unfair ways or trivialise violence against women, making a mockery of their fundamental right to life, dignity and security.

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Naveddu Nilladiddare is a coalition of organizations and individuals in Karnataka advocating for women’s and human rights issues.

17 December 2024