Siya, Twisha & the wages of society's focus on marriage

If Siya Goyal conspired to kill her fiance, she deserves the punishment the law reserves for such acts. But the episode should also make us wonder why a 20-year-old's family was more interested in fixing a match for her than supporting her in pursuing a career and economic self-reliance and fulfilment

- Barkha Dutt

At first glance, the two women who have occupied India’s headlines, energy and imagination for the last few weeks are mirror images of each other’s lives — both sordid tales of macabre domestic violence and abuse.

Twisha Sharma, 33, was found mysteriously dead in the home of her in-laws in Madhya Pradesh. Her death — her family says she was killed and there is mounting evidence for why it was not a suicide including ante-mortem injuries — uncovered the underbelly of influence peddling. Giribala Singh, Twisha’s retired-judge mother-in-law, and husband Samarth Singh, a lawyer who went absconding, used every trick in the book to tamper with the evidence and malign her character.

And Siya Goyal, 20, is in jail on allegations of conspiring with her supposed romantic partner, Chetan Chaudhary, in the death of her fiancé, Ketan Agarwal. The police say Ketan was deliberately pushed down the cliffs of Lohagad Fort in Maharashtra by Siya and Chetan, with Siya presenting it as an accidental fall. This was after her first alleged attempt to kill him failed four days earlier, at the very same spot. That day, Ketan survived apparently by holding onto a bush for support and Siya claimed she had jumped because she saw a snake.

Crime, abuse, conspiracy and, likely, murder are at the heart of both of these cases. And water-tight investigations must end with exemplary punishment in both cases — no “ifs and buts” on that score in either case.

But, scratch the surface, and there is another theme that unites these cases: Indian society’s unhealthy obsession with the institution of marriage at all costs and the clear inability of young people, especially women, to tell their parents the truth without fear of being judged.