Dev 360 | Radhika’s Killing: ‘Honour’, Control Rules Digital India | Patralekha Chatterjee

The murder of tennis player-turned-coach Radhika Yadav reignites an uncomfortable question: How does contemporary India understand the word “honour”? Whose honour is society defending when a young woman is punished for choosing to live on her own terms -- and when sections of the populace quietly sympathise with her killer, not always openly, but through nods, WhatsApp whispers, and the familiar logic of “had it coming”?

On July 10, 2025, in Sushant Lok, an upscale neighbourhood in Gurgaon, one of India’s most globalised urban hubs, a young woman was murdered by her father. He shot her four times in the back as she cooked breakfast. Her name was Radhika Yadav. She was 25.

Deepak Yadav, Radhika’s father, was a real estate agent with rental income. By all accounts, the family was financially stable. After a shoulder injury, Radhika had taken to coaching tennis --booking courts, training aspirants, earning her own money, and promoting her personal brand on the social media. Her father felt humiliated. “When I used to go to Wazirabad village to get milk, people used to taunt me, saying that I live off my daughter’s earnings. This troubled me a lot. Some people even questioned my daughter’s character. I told my daughter to close her tennis academy, but she refused,” Deepak Yadav told the police. Instead of defending his daughter, he turned violent.

This is the paradox of urban India: women are encouraged to succeed -- but only within boundaries. Step outside them, and the backlash is swift, sometimes fatal.

The Gurgaon police called Radhika’s murder an “open and shut” case and is reportedly working on a chargesheet based on strong forensic and testimonial evidence. A Gurgaon court has remanded Deepak Yadav, the killer-father, to 14 days’ judicial custody.

But this isn’t just another crime story. It is the story of a woman killed for trying to live up to her own aspirations. A close friend says Radhika faced strict control and social media surveillance at home.

Radhika’s father’s confession -- that he felt shamed by villagers who mocked him for “living off her earnings”, and his alleged disapproval of her tennis coaching and social media posts -- lays bare the broader socio-political context. The murder happened in Gurgaon, not a village backwater. It was a patriarchal execution carried out amid high-rise aspirations and gated denial.

This is not an isolated case. This is part of a continuum of “dishonour” killings in India. The savagery can’t be boxed into stereotypical narratives about the rural hinterland or poverty. A few years ago, another young woman pursuing a Bachelor of Computer Application degree in Delhi was murdered by her parents because she married a man from another caste.

“Despite constitutional guarantees of individual freedom and legal provisions under the Indian Penal Code (now Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), honour killings continue to persist, often supported by informal social structures like caste panchayats,” points out Ajuni Bedi in LawChakra, a legal portal. Official data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recorded 25 cases of honour killings in both 2019 and 2020, rising to 33 in 2021. These figures are likely an underestimation, as many incidents go unreported or are disguised under other categories of crime, Ms Bedi adds.

The reaction of the political class to Radhika Yadav’s murder in a state where women sportspersons have excelled in recent years is revealing. Very few major politicians, in the ruling party or the Opposition, have publicly commented on the subject. Wrestling coach and BJP leader Mahavir Singh Phogat is one of the rare ones who openly condemned the barbarity. One former chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, called the murder “a domestic matter” and remarked: “Back when there were bigger families, people had more morals and values. The elders impacted the younger generations in a positive way.”

But this isn’t just political failure; it’s also cultural rot. Haryana-based women’s rights activist and former volleyball champion Jagmati Sangwan, whom I have known for many years, put it bluntly: “Radhika Yadav was not only a successful tennis player but a young woman coming into her own, making conscious professional choices and having her own views about what she wanted to do with her own life. This is seen as an assertion. There is a backlash from the inherently patriarchal society. Women athletes are adored for their medals, their trophies. Families see awards won by daughters as part of family honour. The state government has also been offering many incentives --but the personal aspirations of women sportspersons are a different matter altogether. It signals agency, growing confidence in oneself. This is hugely resented.”

Ms Sangwan’s words point to the contradiction at the heart of this tragedy. Radhika was celebrated when she won. But she was condemned the moment she chose to be her own person in real life and on reel.

The khap panchayats (unelected village councils) have been predictably muted. Yet it is no secret that many of these groups, spread across multiple states such as Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have a long and troubling history of issuing extra-legal diktats that restrict women’s autonomy -- especially around clothing, technology use, and movement. Their ideology lives on in family WhatsApp groups, parental ultimatums, and quiet approvals of punishment for defiance.

Digital India, with its promise of empowerment and nearly 900 million Internet users, has become a paradox. Platforms that offer voice and visibility also function as instruments of surveillance -- especially for women. Careers, relationships, and identities are not just shared; they are scrutinised. Visibility is seen as provocation. Autonomy, especially when expressed online, becomes ground for punishment.

Such digital policing is, of course, not confined to Haryana. It exists across India. Not every case of patriarchal control ends in murder, but the psychological violence is real. The spotlight must remain fixed on this ecosystem of violence -- the taunts, the scrutiny, the fragility that saw Radhika Yadav’s success as betrayal.

The conflict between tradition and modernity is not theoretical. It lives in India’s urban living rooms, as much as its village lanes. Countering this will require legal reform. Despite the Supreme Court’s repeated condemnation of honour killings as grave violations of fundamental rights, the country still lacks a law that specifically addresses such killings. It will also require many more public figures to defend a woman’s right to be seen and heard the way she chooses.

Digital India cannot celebrate visibility and simultaneously punish it. Radhika Yadav’s life was a testament to what it means to rise, to assert, to be seen. Her murder must not be reduced to just a footnote.