Sometimes, one learns of an event — yet another event — involving a woman’s tragic end in India and thinks, as a commentator, “But what (else) is there to say, now, that has not already been said so many times before, to no avail in the life of this woman, and in the lives of even more unknown others?” One learns, in this instance, of 27-year-old Ridhanya in Tiruppur who died by suicide this week after two months of marriage, leaving behind unequivocal statements that it was her marriage itself that caused this decision. She had first returned to her parents’ home two weeks after the wedding, before a brief reconciliation. In these statements, it is clear that she believed that there would be no saving grace for her, no avenue to create a new life for herself.
No one can know the interior life of another. Her reality was her own. It is futile — and insulting — to imagine other realities for her, even if an outsider presumes there may’ve been other paths. In her world, the marriage was definitive and irrevocable, and the abuse was too much to bear — these, she expressed in her own words.
In photographs published in the media, Ridhanya smiles beside her husband, Kavin Kumar. She entered the marriage optimistically, and it shows. Following her demise, Kavin Kumar and his parents, Eswaramoorthy and Chithradevi, have been arrested on charges of dowry harassment and abetment to suicide. Investigators posit that the Rs 70 lakh Volvo luxury car and 300 gold sovereigns that were given to them by Ridhanya’s family at the time of the wedding had not sufficed. A further 200 sovereigns gold, which had been promised earlier, had been pending, and this is believed to have been the source of the pressure placed on her. In voice notes sent to her father shortly before her demise, Ridhanya alleged that her in-laws and spouse were subjecting her to daily mental torture, and that her spouse was also assaulting her.
I was thinking about whether this event in some way offers a cautionary tale: specifically, for families that demand dowry, and families that do not take abuse or even marital unhappiness seriously enough. Perhaps it can, for a brief span of time, while this case is still fresh in public memory. Perhaps some avaricious people will reconsider their plans, and perhaps some innocent ones will be saved from ending up in such families. But other than the present media attention, there is very little that is unique about this case. Abuse and abetted suicides within the institution of patriarchal marriage happen all the time.
Dowry has been illegal in India for over half a century. Since 1961, those who demand it, and those who acquiesce to giving it, would largely have done so while been aware that both are crimes. Kavin Kumar’s family certainly must have been. In a time when misogynists flagrantly claim that marital laws are skewed in favour of women, Ridhanya’s commonplace and heart-rending experience and resultant demise could inspire deeper, or at least more data-driven, pondering. But the question is: have we regressed too far into a world of skewed facts?