A woman's right to marry

What does 'empowerment' mean in a country when choosing one's partner can mean death?

Do Indian women have a right to choose who they wish to marry?

Chillingly, the answer remains a resounding 'no' even as 2022 draws to a close. The latest supporting evidence comes from recent murders where victims were dismembered by intimate partners and family members. All because they dared to choose their own partner and exert agency in their personal lives. Their bodies were chopped into many parts, and then disposed of.

Once again, the cases focus attention on violence as the family response when a young man or a young woman chooses his/her partner.

A ghoulish case which hit the headlines in November but has been edged out of the spotlight is that of twenty-two-year-old Aayushi Yadav. Yadav, a Delhi resident, was shot dead allegedly by her parents for daring to choose her own partner, a young man from another sub-caste. Her body was discovered by the police in a suitcase, left unattended at Yamuna Express highway at Mathura.

It made front-page news, coming as it did in the wake of another gruesome murder – that of Shraddha Walkar, another young woman who was killed by her live-in partner, Aftab Poonawala. While the Shraddha Walkar case is still in the news, the brutal murder of Aayushi in the name of 'honour' is fast fading from public memory.

The most recent case of killing in the name of a dubious notion of 'honour' is from Karnataka's Bagalkote district. Twenty-two-year-old Bagyashree Gowda was in love with Bhujabala Karjagi, but her family did not want them to marry because Karjagi was from the Jain community while Bagyashree belonged to the Kshatriya caste. The couple ran away and got married in a court a year back. The story took a barbaric turn when they came back to their village. Earlier this month, Kariagi was allegedly attacked with a machete by his father-in-law, according to media reports. The 34-year-old man died of injuries soon after. The police suspect it to be one of those cases where the accused did not approve of his daughter's marriage to the young man.

Such cases of 'honour killings' are now being reported from across the country, from different communities and religious groups.

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In May this year, yet another 'honour killing' was reported from suburban Hyderabad. Twenty-five-year-old Billapram Nagaraju died on the spot after assailants attacked him with a dagger at Saroornagar on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The accused includes the man's brother-in-law. Nagaraj had married Syed Ashrin Begum. The local police suspect it to be an 'honour killing.'

Last year, a father killed his 19-year-old daughter for eloping with her Dalit paramour in Rajasthan's Dausa district.

In 2017, another sensational case of an honour killing hit the headlines when Amit Nair, a young man from Kerala, who had married Jaipur-based Mamta Chaudhry, against the wishes of her parents and brother, was shot dead allegedly by a hired killer. Mamta was six months pregnant when her husband was killed.

As someone who started out as a crime reporter on the city desk of a national newspaper, and who has written about 'honour killings', what strikes me is that while many highly conservative parents no longer have issues about their daughters opting for professional disciplines of their choice and aspiring to be career women, they still do not accept choice when it comes to personal life. Aayushi was doing a bachelor's degree in computer application from a private college and dreamt of becoming a software engineer. Mamta is a lawyer and had interned with an NGO. Their parents did not object to their professional aspirations.

These cases raise the critical issue of agency when it comes to one's personal life. They should make us reflect on what we understand by the word 'empowerment.'

When it comes to a woman's agency, here is some data from the latest National Family Health Survey (2019-2021), which offers the big picture. On the issue of 'woman's agency', the latest National Family Health Survey notes that overall, only 42 per cent of women in the 15-49 age-group India are allowed to go alone to a market, a health facility, and to places outside the village; 5 per cent are not allowed to go alone to any of the three places. The proportion of women who are allowed to go alone to all three places increases steadily with age, from 26 per cent among women aged 15-19 to 55 per cent among women aged 40-49. Women's freedom of movement increases with household wealth, but it does not vary consistently with education. The percentage of women who are allowed to go alone to all three places increases from 40 per cent among women in the lowest wealth quintile to 50 per cent in the highest wealth quintile.

The proportion of women who report freedom of movement varies greatly by state. In Himachal Pradesh, 82 per cent of women are allowed to go alone to all three places, compared with only 2 per cent in Lakshadweep, 15 per cent in Kerala, and less than one-third in Goa, Odisha, Manipur, Nagaland, and Karnataka.

In cases when a woman is killed for marrying outside her caste or religion, the issue at stake pivots around the clash between the right to marry a person of your choice, guaranteed by The Constitution, and regressive social mores where violence is viewed as a legitimate family response if a woman transgresses what the family sees as a boundary, notably marrying a person of her own choice who happens to be of another caste or religion.

Though such killings in the name of a dubious honour continue to prevail, they do not become a political issue. No political party is sticking its neck out to defend an adult Indian's right to marry whoever s/he wishes, with or without parent's approval. It is considered too controversial for any political party to take it up seriously. In popular discourse, typically, it gets treated like a crime story.

In the past few years, the issue of the right to marry as a fundamental human right has grabbed attention, both internationally and nationally.

In October this year, the Delhi High Court held that freedom of choice in marriage in accordance with law is an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Constitution and "questions of faith" have no bearing on a person's freedom to choose a life partner which is the essence of personal liberty. The Rajasthan Prohibition of Interference with the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill in August 2019 is still awaiting Presidential assent.

There is a scheme which seeks to incentivise inter-caste marriages. It is called Ambedkar Scheme for Social Integration through Inter-Caste Marriages. The Narendra Modi government took a decision to give every inter-caste couple, which has a Dalit as one of the parties, an incentive of Rs 2.5 lakh. Before this, this scheme was meant for couples whose income was lower than Rs. 5 lakhs per annum.

But a lot more needs to happen. Far too many couples who marry outside their caste or faith still pay for their perceived 'transgression' with their lives. And political parties skirt the core underlying issues for fear of antagonising sections of traditionally-minded voters.

The harsh truth for many Indians, 'community honour' continues to be located within a woman's body. A woman who exercises agency over herself is seen as violating this 'honour' As in the case of Aayushi Yadav and countless others, the family tries to redeem its 'honour' by destroying the body of the woman who caused the dishonour. Sometimes, even a man gets killed, as collateral damage, as in the cases of Bhujabala Karjagi and Amit Nair.

Amid all the high-decibel talk about New India and Vishwa Guru, the truth is that a young Indian can be killed simply for exerting agency when it comes to their personal life. We don't yet have a central law which explicitly addresses' honour killings', nor is there political will to counter the structural factors underlying this gruesome reality.

As 2022 draws to a close and we usher in a brand-new year, it is time to collectively demand change. Empowerment means the right of an adult Indian to choose his/her own partner.

(Patralekha Chatterjee is an independent journalist and columnist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.