The tragic and horrifying “honeymoon murder” case in Shillong, Meghalaya, has once again exposed the mask of a society which proudly claims modernity with traditional values but remaining deeply feudal and patriarchal at its core.
A young woman named Sonam, recently married, allegedly conspired the murder of her husband Raja during what should have been a celebration of new beginnings.
The reason? According to police, she wanted to marry her lover, Raj, a man from a “lower” caste. Unfortunately, this story has been reduced in popular discourse to a sensational tale of love, betrayal and murder. But a close examination of this case demands that we go beyond the headlines and understand the deeper rot entrenched in the heart of our society.
To simply say that Sonam hatched the plan to kill her husband for “illicit love” would be a distortion. To argue that she is a cold-blooded criminal is equally incomplete.
The question we must ask is: what kind of society produces a Sonam who sees no viable path to pursue her love, except through a conspiracy, deceit and death? What kind of cultural fabric makes a woman so cornered that even the act of loving outside prescribed boundaries becomes life-threatening?
The Violence of Patriarchy
It appears at the surface that Sonam acted with full agency while making a calculated decision to end her husband’s life. But this so-called agency in a patriarchal society is often severely distorted. Women may act but often within tight confines created by centuries of social conditioning, religious control, caste boundaries and patriarchal family structures.
Sonam did not kill because she had too much freedom. She killed because she had none.
Her choice to love a man from a "lower" caste was not only unacceptable to her family but also to the wider society around her. Her father, a heart patient, symbolically represents the emotional blackmail many daughters face: “Don’t bring shame to the family. Don’t kill your father’s dignity.”
For Sonam, love was not simply a personal emotion. It was a transgression.
This is not an argument to absolve her of guilt. Without any ifs and buts, murder is a crime and Raja’s life cannot be written off as collateral damage in a tale of social oppression. But we must also ask: if Sonam had the societal permission to love Raj freely, would Raja still be alive?
Caste, Class, and Control
Apart from patriarchy, caste continues to operate as one of the most insidious forms of control in India, deciding who we can love, marry or even eat with. When caste intersects with gender, the control becomes more vicious. Women’s bodies, choices and reputations become the battleground on which caste purity is policed. Marrying within the caste isn’t just a preference, it’s a non-negotiable demand in most families.
Sonam’s lover, Raj, is from a so-called lower caste and reportedly, of “lower status”, two markers that made him utterly unsuitable in the eyes of Sonam’s family.
In such a context, love is not just forbidden; it is dangerous. Women who dare to cross these lines are often punished. They are disowned, beaten, imprisoned at home or worse, killed in the name of family honour.
But in a modernising India where young women are going out for higher education and joining the workforce. Young boys and girls are meeting outside their caste. They are falling in love. They keep dreaming. Sometimes, like in this case, the repression leads to twisted and tragic outcomes.
In this murder, caste violence hides in plain sight. Raja died not only because he was in the wrong marriage, but because the “right” marriage was defined by caste supremacy. The murder may have been personal, but its causes were deeply social and political.
Myth of the 'Good Woman'
Sonam observed a religious fast on Ekadashi, the same day she pushed her injured husband into a ditch. This irony is disturbing but not unusual. Women in India are raised in a culture that celebrates religious ritual while denying them emotional and sexual autonomy.
The ideal woman is expected to be chaste, obedient, sacrificing and above all, silent. She can fast for her husband’s long life but not choose the man she wants to spend her life with.
When a woman violates this social patriarchal code, she ceases to be the “good woman” and becomes, in popular imagination, a “dangerous woman.”
But how long can women be expected to silently endure the contradictions thrust upon them? In a society that denies women the right to desire, dissent, or dream differently, every act of rebellion can take explosive and sometimes even violent forms.
Sonam’s crime was horrifying, yes. But the social violence she endured, intangible, invisible, and normalised had been going on for far longer.
A Society that Kills Right to Love
This case is a reflection of a broader societal pattern. It is part of the same fabric that kills couples in the name of honour, forces young people into unwanted marriages or turns love into a site of fear and punishment. In a country where laws against “love jihad” are a reality and inter-caste love is criminalised, stories like Sonam’s are inevitable.
Similarly, insisting on marriage as a “janam-janmantar ka bandhan” (life-long bond) even when it is not working, even when no love remains or when it is suffocating or marred by domestic violence, is already a set up for potential violence. By villifying divorce and those who choose it, society often pushes couples in failing relationships to the wall. Sometimes, the reaction is extreme, like plotting the murder of one's partner.
What could have been a simple story of love and resistance, a woman choosing her partner outside the sanctioned lines, became a tale of conspiracy and murder. Why? Because there is no room in our social imagination for the messy, complex and courageous act of loving freely or moving out from a marriage or love without hurting each other.
The question, then, is not only “Why did Sonam kill?” but “Why are we still building a society where such choices seem impossible?”
If we want to prevent more Rajas from dying and more Sonams from turning into perpetrators or vice versa, we must do more than cursing the modernity or vilifying the so-called freedom or education of girls or sensationalising the case.
Indian society must find ways to loosen the grip of patriarchy, caste, religion and status over personal lives of young individuals. Families must stop treating love as a threat to their honour. Society must stop punishing women for having a will of their own.
It is not enough to condemn this murder. We must also dismantle the structures that made it seem like the only way out. Feminism is not just about empowering women to make choices but also about transforming the conditions under which they must choose.
It is not Sonams, but casteist patriarchy that is the real bewafa, killing love, choice and freedom. Unless we do that, the next Sonam and Raj may already be writing their own doomed love story.
(The writer is a Professor of Journalism and Regional Director at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)