Dowries and Death

                                                                              

As an enlightened and aware Indian citizen you probably read the newspapers, magazines or listen to daily news, all of which tell tales of the magnanimous scale of violence that Indian women in our so called modern society go through every day. India’s classical past and its rich cultural heritage accorded women a designation of honour and a treatment equal as men. But gone are those days of classicism and culture; today as you read about the increasing rate of atrocities and violence inflicted on women, you are perhaps compelled to wonder if we have actually changed for the worst with all the education and modernization the Indians have acquired for themselves. Has modernization given birth to greed given which has awakened the hidden devil within us? 

Being a woman in India is damn challenging; for some women every single day is a battle as they live through lewd remarks, harassment and sexually inappropriate behaviour at the hands of strangers. But what when the torturers are people you call your own, your very family?  One of the most common crimes against women that have existed in our country for many decades is Dowry-related crimes. Dowry crimes are so very rampant in India and they have such a long history that today these crimes are known worldwide as the typical ‘Indian’ crimes. 

Types of Dowry Crimes & Vital Statistics:

Dowry-related crimes can be of many types: wife-bashing and various other sorts of domestic violence inflicted by husband and in-laws on a bride, marital rape, acid throwing, creating emotional trauma on the bride through ceaseless threats, and last but not the least, robbing the bride of her life if their dowry demands are not met.

 When a woman is married off, she spins a web of dreams regarding her new life with her husband in a new family amid her in-laws. But when they treat her inhumanly by battering her, abusing her verbally, torturing her for money and so on, she is made to go through the most harrowing experience of her life. Not only is her world of dreams shattered to a thousand pieces, she might also become prone to depression as our society frowns upon those who lift a finger to accuse their own family and drag them to courts.

The culture of avarice is flourishing in our country, and also increasing is the goriness of the dowry-related crimes. You’ll recoil in terror if you go thorugh the statistics of deaths upon dowry in India. In the year 2012, 8233 newly-wed brides were murdered on the basis of dowry-related issues, as recorded by the country’s National Crime Records Bureau. 

One very noteworthy dowry death that generated ripples all across the nation was that of Pravartika Gupta who was murdered last year. She was charred to death in the bedroom where she was sleeping with her daughter who was just a year old. Her in-laws had threatened her because her parents could not hasten their dowry payment schedules. There was an agreement that her parents will pay an amount of £15,000 in hard cash and will also purchase a Honda City four wheeler for the in-laws. But suddenly they started demanding that her parents should also buy a lavish apartment which was nearly impossible for Pravartika’s parents to afford. As a result, Pravartika was sentenced to an untimely and gruesome death.

Laws against Dowries Meaningless: Why so?

There are laws in place against Dowry in our country, but in spite of that, Dowry crimes continue to play their menacing role. This is because the laws come with many loopholes.  In fact the 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act has been proved more or less ineffective due to some fundamental flaws. 

For instance Section-3 of this Act declares dowry system a punishable offence for both dowry taker and dowry giver. Now the dowry giver is always under pressure, he cannot easily lodge a complaint because he doesn’t want to ruin the chances of a prospective wedding for the daughter in the family, and is also scared of encountering legal sanctions. So this clause is a defective one. 

Section 7 of this act declares demand for dowry as a non-cognizable offence, which implies that lodging a complaint for it is mandatory. And for many people, being scared of getting involved in unnecessary legal hassles, wasting time, money and resources are the main reasons for not seeking help. Furthermore, this act declares dowry offence as a bail-able one, which implies that the convict or guilty can be released on anticipatory bail no matter how grave a crime (e.g. bride burning) they have committed.

Changes are Needed

As is obvious, death and dowry go hand in hand because laws in our country are lacking in so many aspects. Two necessary steps that have to undertaken to combat the evils of dowry are: 

1. 1. Dowry laws need to be sterner
2. 2. The judicial procedure pertaining to dowry crimes needs to speed up

Only once these changes are incorporated, will dowry become obsolete in our country, as the in-laws and husband of bride will think twice before committing these inhuman crimes.

Obsolete Traditions in a New World

                                                            

Obsolete Traditions in a New World

In this 21^st century, Indian women claim to be modern, educated, aware of their rights and think of themselves to be at par with men in every respect. But when the independent women of India openly try to decry the orthodoxies still prevalent in the society, they are faced with conflict and condemnation at every step. Does this indicate that the Indian society, at its very core, still retains the anti-woman outlook it has since centuries no matter how advanced the women of today are both educationally and economically?

 It can be safely said that in many ways, even today whatever gender equality or independence of women we get to perceive in India is just on the surface level; while at the deeper levels of our society nothing has radically changed for women. This probably is the only reason that can explain why even today, some of the most abominable and heartless ‘Anti-woman traditions’ that should have been long obsolete are still observed in many parts of India, predominantly rural India.

Here is a look at the 5 most shocking Anti-woman traditions prevalent till date in our so-called modern society that neither the worldwide feminist revolution could brush aside, nor the light of woman literacy could bring an end to.

1. Balika Vadhu: 

It is common knowledge that long back; it was a custom in India for young girls to be married off prior to reaching puberty. What is shocking is that this atrocious practice is still prevalent in many parts of Northern India, especially in regions like - Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat and Haryana. Though ‘Child Marriage’ is now illegal, when villages in rural areas still practice such traditions, who is to report it? The structure of the society allows parents and family members to marry girls off at a very young age, killing her innocence and all chances of a normal, happy childhood. She is often expected to start having babies right after she matures, generally before her body is physically ready for the purpose of child bearing, and sadly this often leads to fatal consequences putting at risk the lives of both the mother and child.

2. Widow Maltreatment: 

Widows in the past were awfully mistreated in our country. If when a husband passed away, the wife was often expected to stay away from other family members in isolation and it was believed that she is was the one who brought ‘bad luck’ to the family and was somehow to be blamed for her miserable fate for life. The society made her life utterly difficult by putting countless restrictions on her as if she too had ceased to live. 

Many young widows were forcibly made to shave their head or cut their hair short. They were restricted from eating any delicacy food items, dressing up in bright colours or wearing jewellery and their only attire was a plain white sari. Surprisingly, the same practice still prevails in many parts of modern India. If a widow chooses to live her life on her own set rules, she becomes an object of society’s derision.

However certain positive steps are being taken to battle the present situation. We saw the example of the same when this year on Raksha Bandhan, the widows of Varanasi were brought to the limelight because they got the opportunity of tying ‘rakhi’ on social reformer, Bindeshwari Pathak’s wrist. One of the widows who made news in this event is Namuna Gautam, because in her long life of 80 years she tied rakhi to someone for the first time. This indicates how much widows were maltreated and kept out of all auspicious and holy occasions, even in this day and age!

3. Female foeticide: 

This abdominal tradition has become a matter of national crisis in our country and due to this shameful social evil; the male-female ratio in India has dropped alarmingly. In many Indian homes when it is known that the woman who has conceived has a girl child in her womb, she is often forced to get an abortion. This matter came to limelight many a times, and many radiologists in small towns and villages who advertised it as their business to tell the gender of the baby as soon as possible so that families could decide if they wanted to keep a girl child or not were shut down; their medical licenses cancelled. Yet, in many parts of India, this practice continues and countless girl foetuses are killed inhumanely every year. 

4. Dowry system: 

In spite of so many anti-dowry laws, the evils of dowry system still prevail in our country. It appears, as if a father is not marrying off his daughter; he is rather fixing a deal in the marriage market where the in-laws have the upper hand to demands whatever they want. And in many caste systems of India and also in many states, this practice of ‘buying a husband’ continues.

5. Dev Dasi: 

In many of the temples of Southern India, Dev Dasis often dedicated their lives to the almighty and were supposed to lead a pious life in service of the Lord. But the lecherous priests often fulfilled their physical desires by exploiting the Dev Dasis sexually. The same thing is happening till today, and even more rampantly due to increasing corruptions.

Don’t you think it is time these obsolete traditions came to an end? Do they really have a meaning in this New World we are trying to create? We invite all members of our blog to contribute any other ridiculous traditions they know are rampant in India even today, so that together we can make a difference.