Delhi air hostess Anissia Batra's death: Why empowered Indian women still feel forced to stay in bad marriages
The death of 39-year-old airhostess, Anissia Batra, who was the daughter of a retired Indian Army major general, in South Delhi’s Panchsheel Park on June 13 has left many in shock and utter disbelief.
The photos posted on Annisia’s social media accounts give no hint of the deep troubles ailing the marriage.
Anissia was a young, educated woman, who chose a career that remains out of bounds for scores of women in India’s patriarchal society. She worked with the German airline Lufthansa and came from an educated family. Her father Major General (Retd) RS Batra served the country for over 40 years. Yet, Anissia remained caged in a marriage that, friends and family now confirm, was abusive right from the word go.
According to Anissia’s brother, Karan Batra, Mayank Singhvi and his family allegedly repeatedly harrased his sister for dowry and Mayank reportedly physically abused her on more than one occasion.
Anissia’s mother Neelam Batra has alleged that her daughter had been facing physical abuse at the hands of her husband ever since the two tied the knot in February 2016.
Neelam reportedly told the police, “The abuse began during the couple’s honeymoon itself. Singhvi beat her up in the room and lobby of the hotel they were staying at. She had to move to safety at a friend’s place and returned to India alone.”
Even after that, abuse apparently continued. Mayank’s family assured Annisia’s parents that it would stop — but it never did. “Singhvi would drink and beat my daughter,” Neelam has alleged.
And this brings us to the big question — why do educated, able, empowered women continue to suffer in marriages that have nothing to offer them apart from abuse and insult? Why do families not speak up and not stand up for their daughters in time?
It is important to ask these questions because Annisia is not the only woman who chose to remain in a marriage that left her dead.
Whether she killed herself or has been murdered is a question best left to the investigators but the fact that either way, it was clearly an unhappy, abusive marriage that claimed her life is a point we can miss at our own peril.
In 2011, a Delhi-based doctor Chandra Vibhas Sahu killed his wife Supriya Tussar, who had both a BTech and a Masters degree, after reports of prolonged torture during their 10-month-long marriage. At the time of the murder, Supriya had landed a job promising her a salary of Rs 85,000 per month. Before finally killing her, Sahu had thrown Supriya into a mental asylum. She was rescued by her parents. But surprisingly, the parents then asked Supriya and Sahu to sort out their differences and give their marriage another chance.
In a cruel irony, Sahu used the i20 car given to him by Supriya’s parents as a wedding gift to dump her body, 1,000kms away from Delhi, in Allahabad.
Newspapers almost everyday are throwing at us stories of women killing themselves or getting killed in marriages over sundry issues. And yet, women and their families are choosing to look the other way, as if getting beaten up by the person you are married to or his family is just as normal as eating, drinking or sleeping.
Many women suffer in marriages because they do not have the financial resources to sustain themselves. The situation gets further complicated when there are children to be taken care of.
Families also do not ask these women to return because they often do not have the means to provide for their daughters.
India has lived with these problems but there was growing hope that with women getting educated and building careers and lives for themselves, they would be able to walk out of abusive marriages.
Annisia’s tragic story is proof that we are nowhere even close.
The air hostess’ family has pressured the police for a second autopsy and to arrest Mayank for what happened to her. But it is truly sad that they could not apparently anticipate the outcome of allowing Annisia’s abuser such complete control over her.
On June 27, Major General (Retd) RS Batra lodged a complaint at the Hauz Khas police station, stating, “If she (Annisia) is physically harmed, her husband and his parents should be held responsible.”
Which means, the family sensed that she could be harmed — and yet apparently thought it was okay for her to stay with her husband.
The Batra family has lost its daughter and this is a time of tragedy for them. No matter what they do, they can’t bring back Annisia — and that is the lesson women must draw from her story.
Your life is more precious than any marriage. It doesn’t matter what society says, a bad marriage is not worth your life. Staying alone is not impossible. Rather, it is a hundred times better than being in a bad marriage.
And why should women think that they will have to live alone, if they walk out of a bad relationship?
You have the whole world of opportunities open to you. All you need to do is believe in its beauty. Use your education and your financial independence to build a better life for yourselves.