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Atul Subhash's suicide galvanized men's rights activists and launched a broader debate over India's strict dowry law.
On the night of December 9, a 34-year-old Indian man committed suicide. Next to his body was a sign reading “justice is due.”
Atul Subhash left behind a detailed 24-page suicide note and an 81-minute video in which he blamed problems with his marriage and divorce proceedings.
The letter and video, which contain disturbing details about his life, went viral on social media and sparked outrage.
The software engineer from the southern city of Bangalore has accused his estranged wife Nikita Singhania, her mother and brother of sustained harassment and torture – accusations they have denied. The three men were arrested a few days later and the court remanded them for 14 days.
News of Subhash's tragic death also galvanized men's rights activists and launched a broader debate around India's strict dowry law, designed to protect women from harassment and even murder.
But many say that with the steady rise in divorce cases, the law is now being misused by women to harass their husbands, even forcing them to commit suicide. India's highest court also weighed in, with one judge describing it as “legal terrorism” that was “intended to be used as a shield and not as an assassin's weapon.”
Women's rights activists, however, point out that demands for large dowries from husbands' families continue to kill thousands of women every year.
Bangalore Police
Subhash and Singhania (second from right) married in 2019, but had been separated for three years
Subhash and Singhania married in 2019, but had been living apart for three years and Subhash said he was not allowed to meet their four-year-old son. His wife, he claimed, had filed “false legal cases”, accusing him of cruelty, dowry harassment and various other wrongdoings.
In the video, he accused the Singhania family of “extortion” and said they demanded 30 million rupees ($352,675; £279,661) to remove the records, 3 million rupees for visitation rights of their son and requested to increase the monthly alimony from 40,000 rupees to 200,000 rupees.
He then spoke of the dozens of long trips he has made in recent years to attend court hearings and accused a judge of harassment, demanding a bribe and mocking him. An opinion 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 her 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 of people tagged the American multinational where she worked, demanding her dismissal.
Following the outrage, the Bangalore police launched an investigation against the people named in the suicide note. On December 14, Singhania, his mother and his brother were arrested for “incitement to suicide”.
During interrogation, Singhania denied the allegation that she had harassed Subhash for money, police said according to the Times of India.
In the past, Singhania had also made serious accusations against her husband. In her 2022 divorce filing, she had accused him, her parents and her brother of harassing her for a dowry. She said they were not happy with the gifts her parents gave at the wedding and demanded another Rs 1 million.
Men's rights activists have held protests in many cities demanding justice for Atul Subhash.
Dowries have been banned in India since 1961, but the bride's family is still expected to gift money, clothes and jewelry to the groom's family. According to a recent study, 90% of Indian marriages involve them and payments between 1950 and 1999 amounted to a quarter of a trillion dollars.
And according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 35,493 brides were killed in India between 2017 and 2022 – an average of 20 women per day – because of dowry demands, sometimes even years after marriage. In 2022 alone, more than 6,450 brides were murdered over their dowry, an average of 18 women every day.
Singhania claimed that his father died of a heart attack soon after his marriage when Subhash's parents went to him to ask for money. She also alleged that her husband threatened her and “beat me after drinking alcohol and treated the husband-wife relationship like a beast” by demanding unnatural sex. Subhash had denied all the allegations.
Police say they are still investigating the allegations and counter-allegations, but Subhash's suicide has sparked 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-related deaths in Delhi and elsewhere in the country. There were daily reports of brides being burned alive by their husbands and in-laws, and these killings were often presented as “kitchen accidents.” Angry protests from women parliamentarians and activists forced Parliament to pass the law.
As lawyer Sukriti Chauhan says, “the law came after a long and hard struggle” and “allows women to seek justice in cases of cruelty in their matrimonial home”.
Nikita Singhania had accused Subhash (pictured here with her mother), parents and brother of harassing her for dowry – they had denied the allegations.
But over the years, the law has repeatedly made headlines, with male activists claiming it was being misused by women to harass their husbands and significant others.
India's top court has also repeatedly warned against misuse of the law. On the day Subhash's suicide was reported, the Supreme Court once again flagged – in an unrelated case – “the growing tendency to misuse this provision as a tool to unleash a personal vendetta against the husband and his family.”
Amit Deshpande, founder of the Mumbai-based men's rights organization Vaastav Foundation, says the law is used “primarily to extort men” and that “thousands of others are suffering like Subhash.”
Their helpline number, he says, receives around 86,000 calls every year and most of the cases relate to matrimonial disputes which include cases of fake dowry and extortion attempts.
“A cottage industry has been built around the law. In each case, 18 to 20 people are named as accused and they all have to hire lawyers and go to court to apply for bail. There have been cases where a two-month-old baby and a sick nonagenarian have been cited in complaints of harassment concerning dowry.
“I know these are extreme examples, but the whole system somehow allows this. The police, judiciary and politicians turn a blind eye to our concerns,” he says.
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Men's rights activists say dowry law is used 'primarily to extort men'
Mr Deshpande says that, according to government crime data for more than 50 years, a large majority of male suicides were committed by married men – and family discord was the reason for one in four suicides among them.
Patriarchy, he says, also works against men. “Women resort to laws and they get sympathy, but people laugh at men who are harassed or beaten by their wives. If Subhash was a woman, he could have resorted to some laws. So, let's make the laws neutral in matters of gender and extend the same justice to men so that lives can be saved.
It is also necessary to severely punish those who abuse the law, otherwise it will not be a deterrent, he adds.
Ms Chauhan agrees that women who abuse the law should be punished, but argues that any law can be misused. The Bengaluru case is before the courts and if it is proven to be a fake case, then she should be punished, she said.
“But I do not support becoming gender neutral. This requirement is regressive because it ignores the need for special measures recognizing that women are disproportionately affected by violence.”
Those attacking Section 498A, she said, are “motivated by patriarchy and because it is a law for women, attempts are being made to repeal it.”
“This happened 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, the demand for dowry is rampant and thousands of brides continue to be killed because of it.
The need of the moment, she adds, is to “make the law stronger”.
“If three out of ten complaints filed are false, then it's up to the courts to punish them. But women still suffer a lot in this country, so don't ask to repeal the law.”
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