Say no to Dowry

Shruti R Sharma
On the night of 21st March 2019, a man in Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram brought a lady to a District hospital in an emaciated state. Soon doctors pronounced her dead and later told police that her body appeared small and skeleton. That man was the husband of the deceased named Thushara, 27, a mother of two. The police sub-inspector later said that the autopsy revealed the story of cruelty. Thushara had died of starvation and pneumonia. The doctors found several injuries due to blunt force on her body. There were scars of cuts on her hand veins. Thushara got married in 2013 but her in-laws repeatedly demanded an additional two lakh rupees as a post-marriage gift. Her family was hard pressed financially and could not meet the demand. Later on her family lost touch with her from 2016 and her husband erected large metal sheets around his five-cent plot making it impossible to know what went on inside. When Thushara died, she weighed only 20kg. She seemed to have been on a diet of sugar and soaked uncooked rice. Her in-laws were backward and believed in witchcraft. Further investigation is still going on till writing of this article while the husband and mother-in-law were arrested on the charge of the murder. Reading this case sends chills through my spine while imagining the pain and torture, both physical and mental, Thushara was going through for all these years adding the torment of witchcraft. Maybe death proved to be an easy escape for her soul from the claws of these monsters in the body of humans who denied their own family member of food over dowry. This is one of the thousands of cases reported or unreported in India every year, where women are either burnt alive or murdered with conspiracy for dowry. We are living in our protected bubbles lulled by our loved ones and if everything in our bubble is going right and everyone is happy, we think that the whole world has become a better place to live. It’s only when we step outside into the real world do we see the harsh practices of demeaning women still going on in a country that is on the peak of its development. We read every now and then how India is progressing in every sector from nothing to something and we believe that now we are on a right path of up-gradation. But we forget to stare deep into the problems that are hiding behind the norms of our society, the norms that are still watering the cruelty in human mind and souls.
Patriarchal society
India is a secular country with diversity of cultures and people who put their blood and sweat for the honour of the same. But I strongly believe, and I’m sure many would agree with me, that all these ethical and moral codes are only made by and for the goodness of patriarchy. This society has manipulated women for their ease. See the irony of this system; people give her the designation of a Goddess when they have to worship one to gratify the Gods and it is funny how the same people do not let her enter those temples when she is going through menstrual cycles. Why? Maybe then the Goddess has taken five days leave. Well, it is not a rule if it can be turned ON and OFF according to wills and needs, rather it is an example of domination and forceful implementation of a religious law in a society. And the norms of taking and giving dowry in India is continued from a very long time and has, unfortunately for Indians, poly forked into many evils of our society like domestic violence and female foeticides. Since more than 40% of India population is poor and can’t afford the cost of giving dowry, so they choose an easy way to kill their daughter before she is even born to be free of any such troubles in the future. Although dowry is not the only reason for female foeticide but the truth is not hidden that dowry system has affected the lives of more than 90% of married women in India. And in a survey it was found that nearly two in five (37%) married women have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their husbands in India. The cycle of domestic violence is repeated around generations. Sons tread on the wheels of their father and justify themselves by saying that they’re mard and have a birth right over beating their wives if not agreed to do what said.
Anti-Dowry act
In the past few years, the Indian criminal laws have experienced tremendous amendments. The Indian laws are diligently amended to protect the interest of women in India and provide them safety against any illegal or immoral act. Among the various women-centric laws in India, the most commonly invoked law is the anti-dowry law. The Dowry Prohibition Act has been in place in India since 1961, under which any act of giving or taking dowry is punishable in India, punishment being imprisonment of up to 5 years and fine of Rs. 15,000 or the value of dowry given, whichever is more.
Ground reality
We can say that the current situation compared to early India is better due to the dowry prohibition laws put forward by the Government but as Mark Manson has said in one of his best seller ‘The subtle art of not giving a…’ that “Life is essentially an endless series of problems, the solution to one problem is merely the creation of another”. Just like the community of mosquitoes became immune to the DDTs, likewise criminals always find their way out from one loophole or another. Now the dirty business of dowry has taken a fancy name of gifts which looks so decent from outside but inside it is still hatching the eggs of the same Satan. Because if so is the case, exchange of the gifts should be bidirectional instead of being unidirectional. We do not realize the chain of dark life we trigger for our daughters when we first agree on initial tiny demands of groom’s family before marriage that magnifies after the bond is official and the girl is in the hands of the greedy people. Girls become a source of money for them and then the stories never have happy endings. Women are told by her parents that they bind the pride of two families and are hence chained from speaking out loud even if suffering from immense pain. The criminal minded family members involved in such greedy acts take advantage of this loyalty and either torture her to a saturation where her parents are left with no choice but to fulfil the demands or in worst cases like Thushara where parents are not well off, there occurs a mature conspiracy to make the murders look like accidents.
Wake up call for women
The above mentioned case was from Kerala but it is a story of a million. We don’t know how many girls like Thushara gave up their lives for nothing or how many are struggling right now as you all read this article. It is not easy being a girl in this society or even any society of this world but the achievement lies in kicking down these rules that try to quell your voices. Women who think that reputation lies in the sufferings are being taught wrongly. Reputation lies in one’s own beliefs. No matter how many laws and acts are implemented, as long as women don’t determine to end this torture, it is a never ending lane. Once a friend of mine from Manipur told me how peaceful they live in their hometown. I managed to ask “how?” and in return she gave me the answer that may become a solution to our dowry problem.
Before a girl and boy gets married there, parents asks them to spend some time together and see if they’re compatible for each other. If love is nurtured between them only then the process of binding them in the relation of husband-wife begins. And unlike other parts of India, in north-eastern states, bi directional flow occurs. That is, gifts come from groom’s side while bride goes to their house. And hence the answer for why they live peaceful lives. Balance is the law of nature, without balance, things fall off. We mustn’t forget that humanity is what kept this species alive till today and the day when every last hope for humanity will be lost, will be end of our era. So let us try to become more like humans and Say no to Dowry (give or take). Because seeds of a relationship should be built upon love and trust as greed for money has destroyed more homes than building them.
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