The Pune murder case, in which a young man was allegedly killed by his fiancée and her partner, has become an Indian cause célèbre. While the crime is cruel and unforgivable, it begs the question why? If she did not want to marry the man, she could have just said no. The accused – Siya Goyal – is only 20 years old, according to reports, and had said she did not want to marry her fiancé. Socially, it opens up a much larger question that in many Indian families, even today, why is it so hard for a young woman to say no? In theory, modern India celebrates women’s choice. Women study, work, travel, earn, lead teams, run companies and talk about empowerment. But inside the intimate spaces of family and marriage, choice can still be heavily negotiated, and sometimes quietly denied. A UN Women Discussion Paper (2023) provides a definitive, systemic breakdown of why modern progress fails to automatically grant women true personal agency. It highlights that individual choices regarding marriage, work, and bodily autonomy are actively bottlenecked by deep-seated social norms rather than a lack of legal rights, and globally, progress on gender equality is slow, has stalled or is backsliding. Multidimensional Process Women’s agency is the multidimensional process through which women formulate self-defined goals, hold self-efficacy to pursue them, and make strategic life choices. It is not merely an individual cognitive trait, but a relational capacity heavily mediated by formal institutions and informal social norms. True agency requires not just the freedom to make choices, but also the structural power to challenge and transform unequal gender hierarchies. Main Vaapas Aaunga, set against the wounds of Partition, had a deeply disturbing family moment: the women of a displaced family are left behind in newly created Pakistan. The matriarch says no and resists as she sees the horror of what is being decided. But the patriarch decides. The men ensure that he is taken to India, even if on a makeshift stretcher. His body, his survival, his journey matter. The women’s fear, refusal, and fate are absorbed into the larger authority of the male decision. The scene stays with us because it reveals that while the women were present, they suffered the consequences of decisions they did not make. Women’s agency is still most fragile at the points where society is most invested: marriage, sexuality, divorce, inheritance, motherhood, respectability, and family honour. The modern woman may be told she is free, but her freedom often comes with invisible clauses. Choose, but do not shame us. Work, but do not neglect the home. Speak, but do not sound angry. Leave, but only if the abuse is unbearable enough for others to certify. Say no, but be ready to explain it. This is why cases of women killing husbands or fiancés receive such intense attention. They are shocking and they should be. Violence by women cannot be explained away as ‘rebellion’ or ‘helplessness.’ Men, too, are victims of intimate violence. But we must be careful not to build a false equivalence. The data on gendered violence in India still tells a much larger and more persistent story of women being harmed inside homes, marriages and families. Crimes against women remain staggeringly high. A crime against a woman was registered every 71 seconds in India in 2024. Cruelty by husbands and relatives continues to be one of the largest categories of recorded crime against women. Globally, too, women are far more likely to be killed by intimate partners or family members than men are. So, when a woman is accused of killing a man, we must condemn the crime without using it to erase the scale of violence against women. At the same time, we should not avoid the uncomfortable question it raises: what social routes do women have when they want to refuse a marriage, end an engagement or reject the life chosen for them? No Agency Agency is therefore not only an individual quality but also a social permission structure. It is created by families, institutions, laws, and economic independence. A woman has agency not only when she speaks but also when her speech changes the outcome. This is why even powerful women are not free from gendered punishment. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently pushed back sharply against US President Donald Trump after he claimed she had sought a photograph with him. She exercised public agency: she rejected the humiliation and refused the script of female deference. And yet, Meloni herself has faced the circulation of fake, sexualised AI-generated images. Even when a woman occupies the highest office, the digital crowd knows how to drag her back to shame and humiliation. Women may enter public life, but their image is still treated as available for violation. From Partition homes to political offices, from arranged marriages to AI deepfakes, the pattern is not identical, but the question is connected: who gets to decide what happens to a woman’s life, body, reputation, and future? The answer should be obvious: she does. We need families where a daughter’s ‘no’ is not treated as betrayal and where engagements are ended without shame. We need divorce to be seen not only as a failure, but sometimes as a survival. We need economic systems that allow women to leave without destitution. We need legal processes that are accessible before violence escalates. We need men to understand that rejection is not humiliation. And we need women to know that agency is not selfishness. A woman should not have to destroy herself, or anyone else, to escape a life she did not choose. (The writer is an Associate Professor of Organisation and Leadership Studies at S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai. Views personal.)
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