Dowry
deaths are the hidden curse of the big fat Indian wedding
One
woman dies in India every hour in a dowry-related case. A shift in attitudes
towards lavish marriages is urgently due
"The wedding should basically be
in the big palaces of Rajasthan and the reception in a beach house with gowns
and all." This was how a young Indian lady articulated her wedding dreams
on Satyamev Jayate, the new
television talk show hosted by Bollywood icon Aamir Khan.
But
the "happily ever after" myth that permeates Indian weddings was
powerfully dispelled by other studio guests who gave accounts of their horrific
post-marriage lives. One said she was harassed by her husband and in-laws and
ultimately was left to languish in the US until a women's group rescued her.
The audience heard that another woman was tortured in her marital home and
ended up killing herself.
India's
obsession with excessive weddings trumps even its obsessions with Bollywood and
cricket. The culture is held up as a lodestar of bringing families together and
of realising a couple's dreams, in the groom's grand arrival on a bedecked
horse and the bride's finery that she has watched her heroines wear in
Bollywood films. Fireworks, live bands and sumptuous spreads are also pretty
much standard for Indian weddings.
But behind the happy images of the big fat Indian weddings
getting progressively bigger and fatter lurks the unpalatable truth of dowry
deaths. The statistics are shocking. One
woman in India dies every hour in a dowry-related case. Dowry is a social evil
in which the families of Indian grooms can make endless demands of the bride's
family. In extreme cases, the newly wed bride can be murdered by her in-laws or
driven to commit suicide.
The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, amended in 1984 and
1986, made dowry a recognisable
and non-bailable offence. But despite being illegal (except in north-east
India, where dowry does not exist), dowry is becoming more rampant and
entrenched. In 2010, 8,391 dowry
deaths were reported. According to government figures, Delhi alone records a
few hundred dowry deaths each year. But women's rights groups estimate deaths
in the capital at 900 per year. Moreover, there has been a phenomenal increase
in such deaths since the 1990s when they numbered at around 300 per year.
India's economic liberalisation in the 1990s has seen a proportionate rise in
levels of greed, and a bride is perceived by her in-laws as a potential cash
cow.
Appallingly, the effects of the dowry culture can be
traced even to the womb. It is the primary
cause of female foeticide and
bears a direct correlation with female infanticide as poorer parents avoid the
lifelong liability of saving up for a daughter's marriage. This has led to a distorted sex ratio of 933 girls per
1,000 boys in India.
The bane of dowry is not confined to any one section of
Indian society. For the rich, together with the most opulent weddings, the
dowry given is a status symbol that cements their power and prestige. For the
poorer sections of society it is conflated with a basic sense of honour. The
pressure of this expense on the bride's family is borne out in the statistic
that 80% of bank loans in India
are taken to meet marriage costs and dowry demands. Investigations into the
recent spate of suicides by farmers in Vidarbha in the state of Maharashtra
found a clear link to the farmers failing to repay loans that they used for the marriage of their
daughters instead of the betterment of their farms.
A
shift in India's attitude towards weddings is urgently due. Bluntly put, dowry
equates to a family paying a man to take their daughter's hand in marriage. And
the man, with his family, works to extract the maximum price for
"taking" the woman, in ways that can scar lives and damage the
institution of marriage. A practice that conflates its women with gold, silver
and furniture is absolutely reprehensible. Simply having anti-dowry laws has
proved hugely inadequate – urgent emphasis needs to be put on enforcement.
As
a society India must unequivocally come together to reject this practice. The
rejection has to be tripartite, involving rectitude by the giving party, the
receivers and the wedding guests who in their very indulgence of the lavish
festivities encourage the practice. Ending this practice could see couples
channel their funds to educate their daughters well instead of saving money for
their marriages. The days of dowry-drenched big fat Indian weddings must be
numbered – or Indian society's claim to be progressive is disingenuous.
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