Shobhaa De | India’s Unwanted Daughters: Is Twisha Forgotten Already?

   I was born the youngest child and third daughter of my parents. My mother Indira had already produced Ashok, a son, who was eight years old when she gave birth to me in Satara, rural Maharashtra, where my father was a judicial officer. My two sisters, Mandakini and Kunda, were respectively 11 years and six years when I, the newest sibling arrived. My mother was 30. My father 39. Was I an accident, I asked years later. My parents, initially startled by the bluntness of the question, didn’t lie. They replied sheepishly: “No, you were not an accident, but we were hoping for a second son.” I appreciated their candour. I was told much later that two women had indeed wept at my birth, when the nurse apologetically announced: “Mulgi zaali” (“It’s a girl”). One was my visibly upset maternal grandmother and the other my exhausted mother. Had my mother delivered a boy that morning, there would have been jubilation in the courthouse, where my father presided as a district judge. Boxes of sweets would’ve been distributed by the beaming father of a second son. But that morning, there was silence and sympathy as court clerks muttered: “Third daughter… Pity our judge sahib.”

I may have been “unwanted”. But I never felt unloved.

Apart from “Aji”, my grandmother, who always reminded my mother that she’d been reckless by going in for her fourth pregnancy, I was a cherished and pampered child, well taken care of by my parents. Our upbringing was progressive, not liberal. My parents were “woke” enough to provide the same opportunities to all four children, within their limited resources. Zero discrimination. We were lucky. I escaped. My sisters escaped. Around us, growing up in a middle-class “government colony” in New Delhi, were young girls facing the worst kind of prejudice fuelled by neighbourhood horror stories. Most grew up being repeatedly referred to as a “burden” to the family. “Who will pay your dowry??? We will! Your father has to sell his ancestral land so that we can find a good groom.”

This was a comparatively kinder narrative than the other far harsher diatribes aimed at unmarried daughters. “You are draining the family”, they’d be told every day, especially at the dining table, where they’d be served last. Talk would revolve around getting a “dark-skinned, short and stupid girl” off their backs and out of their homes at the first chance.

It’s 2026. And nothing has changed.

This is about Twisha Sharma and her tragic end. Twisha’s ghastly death has galvanised India. For eleven days and nights, feverish media coverage kept the spotlight sharply on the rapidly unfolding details of the investigation. Public opinion was fixated on the inexplicable, emotion-less behaviour of Giribala Singh, Twisha's mother-in-law, a retired district judge, as she strenuously defended the main accused, her lawyer-son (and Twisha's husband). For 11 days, a frenetic cat-and-mouse game kept the public hooked. Would the absconding accused (Samarth) surrender? How long would the feisty Giribala continue to defend the indefensible?

The drama finally ended with Samarth surrendering. Giribala too has been arrested. The rest is up to the CBI and the SIT. Meanwhile, we are left with haunting images of Twisha's cremation, after a second autopsy. Had it not been for Twisha’s brother, Maj. Rakshit Singh, and his impassioned public fight to expose the Sharma family, Twisha’s snuffed-out life would’ve been one more statistic. And Giribala would have undoubtedly started her search for Samarth’s next bahu.

Why has Twisha’s death generated such an outcry in a country where the medieval, feudalistic custom of giving dowry to the groom’s family goes back centuries and remains deeply entrenched in Indian society? Five dowry deaths were reported the same week as Twisha’s case dominated headlines. The statistics are chilling (5,737… 16 deaths per day, a woman dying every 90 minutes). But beyond the grisly statistics is the ugly truth Indian families try and hide: Dowry, Divorce and Death go hand in hand in a society that sees daughters as a liability. Even daughters like Twisha: beautiful, educated, confident and accomplished. An asset, not a burden. Twisha's death has shaken India for multiple reasons, but the main one is the curse of dowry -- which cuts across several social, religious and caste divides, as young women struggle to find their little space in a hostile world that withholds respect and treats them as tradable commodities. When all doors are slammed in their faces, women crumble. If a marriage fails, women find themselves isolated and desperate, disowned by their families, rejected by in-laws, with nowhere to go, and no one to turn to.

Like a young woman commented: “A dead daughter is better than a divorced daughter.” Chilling… Accurate. Divorce or suicide. Which is the better option??? What a choice! India treats divorcees like pariahs, with society invariably laying the blame for a failed marriage squarely on the woman (“She wasn’t cooperative. She refused to adjust to our ways. She wore inappropriate clothes. Her behaviour was too bold. She didn’t bring enough money. She couldn’t produce a son.”) Branded and condemned, a young woman either loses her mind.

Or her life.

Despite the hideousness of it all, many young women still believe: Any husband is better than no husband at all. We remain a husband-fixated society! Even so-called educated and “empowered” women go along with “samaj” sanctioned conventions and blindly sign up for the entire indigestible menu: The prospective groom can be a serial philanderer, known abuser, deplorable drunkard, a bankrupt conman, stalker, predator, cheat, gambler, loser… so what? The family tells the conflicted girl not to give up. “Men change. Especially if you give the family a son…” In short: ghar bachaao. But not the bride!!!

There are countless Twishas in India. Society is watching. Will this case act as the tipping point? Will parents do a major rethink before brainwashing their daughters into believing their life begins and ends with marriage? Will the fake Big Fat Indian Wedding self-destruct?

I am a mother to four daughters. Two of them have daughters of their own. All of them constitute my real wealth. With any luck, India will witness a reset. Our society has become as dysfunctional as Western societies. The old safety nets of family elders guiding and supporting the parivar through turbulent waters have been replaced by an isolated, non-communicative nuclear family.

Our society remains too preoccupied with material gains and lifestyle upgrades to pay attention to a young bride’s desperate cries for help. Twisha’s death is a wake-up call for all of us… before more Twishas pay the price at the altar of dowry.

Sadly… how soon we forget!

The media circus has moved on. Twisha is no longer “trending”.