Anita Anand | A wake-up call: Are families in India failing their children?

Within five months, the National Capital Region of Delhi has witnessed the brutal murder of two young women in the hands of the men they lived with. Shraddha Walkar and Nikki Yadav, both in their early 20s, fell in love and cohabited with their male partners. Nikki Yadav, who was murdered more recently, was married to Sahil Gehlot for about three years. Shraddha Walkar and Aaftab Poonawalla lived together for three years.

According to media reports, the fathers of both women have called for the strictest punishment for the young men. While Shraddha’s father knew about her relationship and was opposed to it, Nikki’s father claims he had no knowledge of his daughter’s relationship with Sahil, or their marriage. He says he and his wife had a close bond with their daughter and Nikki spoke to her mother every night. Nikki and her younger sister Nidhi shared a flat in Delhi. Nidhi too says she has no knowledge about her sister’s marriage with Sahil. Curious.

Beyond the technicalities of the two cases, the reaction of the parents, especially the fathers, is surprising, or not. In Shraddha’s case it was at the behest of her friends that he filed an FIR about his missing daughter, as he and his wife had cut off connections with her years ago, disapproving of her relationship with Aaftab. Nikki’s father denies his daughter’s relationship altogether.

Both young women and their partners came from small metropolises, humble homes and were highly aspirational. While Shraddha chose to tell her parents about the relationship, Nikki did not, or the father is not upfront about what he knows. But, if the father is right and that Nikki and her mother were talking every night and were close, would Nikki not tell her about the love life and her married partner? Clearly not. She kept it a secret.

Young people keep secrets from parents, from a sense of privacy, which is good. But also, to avoid conflict, which arises due to disagreements on lifestyles and choices about careers, friendship with the opposite sex and marriage. In both cases of the recent murders, the lives of the young men and women were quite different from their parents, and in sensing disapproval they kept the relationships hidden from their families.

In India, the family, much like the cow, is sacred. No matter how free young Indians feel, they are deeply tied to their families, especially if the families are traditional. From birth they are indoctrinated with the idea that family is everything, and parents know best. Virtues of loyalty and duty to the family elders (immediate and extended) are passed down from one generation to another, whether they are relevant or not. Disobeying elders is met with withdrawal of love and support and this is confusing to children, caught between their dreams and parental expectations.

Young people, especially in small towns and villages, are rarely allowed to freely mix with the opposite sex. When they are ready for higher education or get jobs in cities, they choose to leave their families, opting for a scary yet thrilling world, different from the one back home. But, with inadequate emotional development and little experience in exercising judgment (as most decisions are made for them by their families), it’s hard for them make choices that will serve them well. Families soon begin to pressure the young people to be married, with people known to them within their community. Sometimes young people have the courage to tell their parents they are involved with other people. Often, they don’t and sometimes, like Nikki, they are married already. Either way around, the consequences are dire, often resulting in violence and death.

And there is heartbreak, sadness, regret, guilt and shame. Indian families have not been able to create an environment of equality between generations and sexes. There is more fear than love, more manipulation than negotiation, more secrets than open communication.

And when a parent loses a child in a violent death, they want revenge. They are more focused on the shame that is brought upon the family than the loss of a child. There is little introspection about what they could have done wrong, or what they could have done right.

And the messaging from the community around is that’s what happens when you let your daughters go into the cities to study and work. The backlash against the little opportunity women have then shuts down for other young women.

What then does it say about the young men involved with these women? Are they stronger, more powerful than the women? Not quite. They are very much under the influence of their families, are frustrated and have anger issues. Both Sahil and Aaftab confessed to strangling and murdering their partners in a fit of rage, both couples arguing over the issue of marriage.

Young men, like young women, are raised in families where expectations are high -- to take over family businesses, marry appropriate women who produce children and carry on the family name, but above all, stay close and true to the family, and obey the elders.

In 2023 in India, young people are questioning tradition and breaking free of their family expectations. In this process, they will make wrong choices, suffer and there will be regrets.

But that’s how learning takes place. Will their parents open their hearts and minds and embrace this call for change?

When will Indian families realise that they are failing their children?