UNFINISHED AGENDA - GENDER REFORMS IN POST-INDEPENDENCE INDIA

Legal reforms abound; yet Bhati's murder and Subhash's suicide indict our culture-India at 131st place on gender parity. What is the problem?

- RUCHIRA TALAPATRA

The stark contrast between India's official rhetoric on women and the grim realities faced by many of its daughters is visible in recent cases. In January 2025, 28-year-old Nikki Bhati was allegedly set on fire by her husband and mother-in-law over a Rs 36 lakh dowry demand.

In late 2024, software engineer Atul Subhash died by suicide, leaving behind a 24-page note accusing his estranged wife's family of extortion and wrongful harassment under India's anti-dowry laws. These tragedies shocked a nation that now ranks 131st out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, behind Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, but luckily ahead of Pakistan. They force the question: if we can celebrate holidays like Rakhi, Holi, Diwali, Independence Day, Women's Day and Mother's Day, aren't we celebrating women all the time? If we are inclusive of "women-led" vision of development, then, why do so many Indian women still pay with their lives?

COLONIAL LEGACIES AND EARLY REFORMS

India's gender politics were profoundly shaped by colonial and pre-colonial history. British colonial reformers intervened in practices like sati (widow immolation) ostensibly to "save" Indian women, encapsulated in Spivak's critique of the colonial narrative "white men are saving brown women.

from brown men". After independence, India's framers enshrined gender equality in law. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - principal architect of the Constitution - insisted that the "progress of a community [is] measured by the degree of progress which women have achieved".

The new Republic enacted landmark legislation: the Hindu Marriage Act (1955) and Hindu Succession Act (1956) granted women divorce and inheritance rights, and in 1961 India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act (though its early enforcement was weak).

Nevertheless, entrenched patriarchal norms survived.