Sometimes, false promises of marriage are prosecuted—under criminal law, as rape
Illustration/Uday Mohite
A recent High Court judgement declared that, under that most famously infamous section of Indian law, Section 420, a false promise of marriage does not count as cheating, but borrowing money and not returning it does. It was a familiar complicated story. The defendant, a film director, had promised to marry the woman complainant (profession not mentioned), borrowed Rs 9.5 lakh from her, returned only two, and reneged on the promise of marriage, abusing her when she brought it up. Financial betrayal could be addressed. Where to go for the betrayal of promises?
Sometimes, false promises of marriage are prosecuted—under criminal law, as rape. This essentially hinges on a world-view which sees virginity or sexual virtue as a kind of property—like money—that has been taken away; a good woman, who would obviously only have sex within the context of marriage, has been swindled of her ‘good-ness’ and sex must be balanced by marriage to create justice.
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A recent spate of works like the Netflix series Tinder Swindler, or The New Yorker article The Worst Boyfriend in the World are stories of con-men who seduce women with fairy tale dreams of plush romance, and in the process cheat them of all their money. In these stories too, the money-swindle is the primary plot. The emotional swindle is glossed over in some kind of false politeness, which does not want to point out that women who believe in fairy tales, have only themselves to blame, because the fairy tale of love is really a fairy tale about money—not a yearning to be cared for. Ergo love itself is a con and doesn’t really exist.
The split verdict on the matter of recognising marital rape implies that violations by those who are “our own” are somehow less violent than those who are strangers. Surely it is a double violation when someone who supposedly loves you, within an institution that is supposedly a proof of respect and respectability, disrespects your consent and your personhood. It is a question of bodily integrity, and also the relational integrity which is able to read and respect consent in all its varied expressions. Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath for a show about marriage as a con, even I am not that romantic.
The movie named after Section 420—Shri 420, recognises that betrayal and injustice are both, emotional and material—they may even hinge on each other. The song Ramaiya Vastaviaya notes, “Nainon mein thi pyar ki roshni, teri ankhon mein yeh duniyadari na thi/Tu aur tha, tera dil aur tha, tere man mein yeh meethi katari na thi” ( Your eyes shone with love, not worldly calculations/ your wore your heart on your sleeve, now you hide a knife in your breast). The film is about a Ponzi scheme to cheat the poor. But that also involves the easy betrayal of bonds without labels, promises that exist in gesture and meaning, if not in words. When promises have been made with gestures and expressions, with implicit meanings, it takes good-ness and an ethical politics of emotions to acknowledge those promises and that we are breaking them; to not pretend “I don’t owe you anything.” In a world that priviliges only tangibles as reality, and nurtures no public language of emotional politics, the hope of justice will always feel limited.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com
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