When Sacred Bonds Become Chains

"Samrajī śvaśure bhava, samrajñī śvaśurām bhava, nanāndari samrajñī bhava, samrajñī adhi devṛṣu." — Rig Veda 10.85.45 "Be the queen in your father-in-law's house, the queen in your mother-in-law's house, the queen among your brothers-in-law, and the queen among your sisters-in-law."

- DEEPAM CHATTERJEE

of marriage: a woman entering her new home not as a servant, not as a sacrifice, but as a queen—respected, honored, sovereign in her dignity. Marriage was meant to be the soil where love, respect, and dharma could flourish. Yet what we see today is a grotesque reversal of this sacred vision. In Greater Noida, a woman named Nikki was set ablaze by her husband and in-laws. Years of compromise, of appeasement, of paying into the endless hunger of dowry demands, ended not in peace but in fire. Her little boy stood by, watching his mother burn. Imagine the imprint of that moment on his soul. Imagine the silence that will follow him through life, a silence heavier than words.

We comfort ourselves by calling such incidents rare, exceptions, tragedies of "others." Yet the truth is more brutal—Nikki is not an isolated case but one face among countless women whose suffering within marriage never makes headlines. Each time another woman falls, we shake our heads, condemn the cruelty, and return to our comfortable lives. But these are not mere crimes; they are revelations of our collective failure, our moral bankruptcy, our refusal to face what marriage in India too often becomes.