Opinion | Twisha Sharma And India's Deadly Culture Of 'Adjusting A Little More'

Twisha Sharma, a former Miss Pune and an MBA graduate, is dead. Her parents allege she was murdered by her husband and his family over dowry. This case will dominate the headlines for some time, but will eventually fade from public memory like countless others. Beneath the media spectacle lies a more uncomfortable question: what happens in the months, sometimes years, before such deaths? A daughter's desperate cry for help is responded to with "adjust", "compromise", or "save the marriage". Her parents even promise to give more dowry, but refuse to bring her back. Girls are repeatedly sent back into abusive homes till one fine day, they are dead. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2023, reports 6,156 dowry deaths (S. 304B IPC) in a single year.

Marriage in India is tied to notions of caste, status, and family honour. To secure a socially "suitable" groom, the bride's family "pays for the marital alliance" by giving dowry. The value of dowry is shaped by factors such as the groom's caste, status, income, education, profession, etc. On the other hand, disadvantages of the bride - such as her caste, status, disability, darker skin tone, age, divorce - result in a higher dowry expectation. This custom continues to survive because society sustains it. There is no clear divide between "dowry takers" and "dowry givers" - most families participate and benefit from the system, depending on whether they are marrying a son or a daughter. Dowry, though illegal, is socially visible and openly negotiated.

Once this alliance is secured, a woman is expected to make the marriage work at any cost. When domestic violence begins, which is inevitable given the subordinate status of women, first within her natal family and then in her marital home, her lack of ownership of property, control over her sexuality, the stigma attached to divorce, and the lack of support from her natal home after marriage, her cries for help are ignored. Only after the untimely death of their daughter, the natal family makes public the incidents of blood-curdling atrocities committed on the young bride. The cause of her death is attributed to 'dowry', which has become a metaphor for the violence suffered by young brides in their marital homes.

From "Kitchen Fires" to Criminal Law Reform

The anti-dowry movement gained national attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s after rising reports of young married women being burned to death in alleged "kitchen accidents". Women's groups documented violence linked to dowry demands and campaigned for stronger legal intervention. This pressure led to major amendments in criminal law:

• The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, was strengthened through the 1984 and 1986 amendments, which widened the definition of dowry, increased penalties, made offences more stringent, and improved enforcement mechanisms.
• S. 304B IPC "dowry death", introduced in 1986. If a woman dies under unnatural circumstances within seven years of marriage, and if she was subjected to cruelty or harassment related to dowry demands "soon before her death", the husband and his relatives are presumed responsible.
• S. 498A IPC, introduced in 1983 to criminalise cruelty by husbands and relatives. "Cruelty" includes (a) any wilful conduct likely to drive a woman to suicide or cause grave injury or danger to her life, limb, or physical or mental health; and (b) harassment of a woman with a view to coercing her or her relatives to meet unlawful demands for property or valuable security, including harassment related to dowry demands.

The NCRB report of 2023 recorded over 1.33 lakh cases of cruelty by husband or relatives (S. 498A IPC) and remains the largest category (30%) of crimes against women in India. Most organisations working with survivors of domestic violence would agree that the NCRB data is only the tip of the iceberg. There are over 8 lakh cases pending trial at the end of 2022. Of the cases that reached judgment (64,345 cases, including convictions, acquittals, compromises, quashing, and withdrawals), the conviction rate hovers around 12-15%.

Perpetrators Walk Free

Domestic violence occurs within the privacy of the home, away from independent witnesses and public scrutiny. The violence may be physical, verbal, psychological, economic, sexual, and coercive in nature. Women endure sustained abuse over several years before approaching the police. By then, documentary evidence, messages, medical records, or witnesses may no longer be available. Even today, police often continue to treat such complaints as "family disputes" rather than serious violent crimes. Complaints are informally mediated, and women are routinely pressured into reconciliation because of stigma, social ostracisation, concern for children, or financial dependency.

Even where FIRs are registered, investigations are inadequate. There is little specialised training on investigating coercive control, financial abuse, patterns of domestic violence. Investigating officers routinely fail to preserve forensic evidence or record statements sensitively. In cases where the woman has died, critical forensic lapses include delayed post-mortems, improper preservation of the crime scene, and failure to investigate prior complaints of abuse. These deficiencies substantially weaken the prosecution.

Moreover, police insist on including dowry demands in complaints, irrespective of whether explicit dowry demands were actually made. The police believe that dowry demand is a critical ingredient required to invoke these offences. As a result, the broad pattern of domestic violence is reduced to the narrow language of dowry demand.

The criminal justice system's dependence on direct evidence creates yet another barrier. Courts expect detailed allegations regarding dates, individual acts of cruelty, and precise dowry demands. However, domestic violence rarely unfolds through isolated incidents. It is repetitive, cumulative, and normalised within family structures over time. Although the law creates presumptions in dowry death cases, courts require extensive corroboration. The threshold for proving "soon before death" under S. 304B IPC or "wilful conduct likely to drive a woman to suicide" under S. 498A IPC continue to be inconsistently interpreted.

Rarely do all evidentiary factors align perfectly to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Any discrepancy, inconsistency, omission, or subsequent improvement in testimony results in acquittals under the legal principle of granting "benefit of doubt" to the accused. This is one of the primary reasons why conviction rates remain extremely low.

Then there are delays that further weaken prosecutions. With thousands of cases pending trial for years, survivors face sustained pressure from both natal and matrimonial families to reconcile, compromise, or withdraw complaints. Women who depend on maintenance negotiations, settlement discussions, or divorce proceedings are often forced to turn hostile.

Where Do We Go From Here?

To ensure that no more women like Twisha Sharma lose their lives to domestic violence, natal families must stop prioritising marriage over their daughter's right to live free from violence. Women who speak up must be believed, supported, and be given the freedom to leave abusive homes without shame or pressure. At the same time, the State must move beyond symbolic outrage. Domestic violence must not be treated as a private family matter, but as a serious structural violation of women's human rights. This requires timely intervention, survivor-centred support systems, safe housing, economic assistance, trauma-informed investigations, and a criminal justice system that responds to violence before it escalates into suicide or death.

(D'Mello is the director of Majlis, a legal centre for women and children. majlislaw@majlislaw.com Views are personal)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author