Another promising life comes to an end reportedly because of a dowry demand. How is it that despite a law prohibiting it, dowry continues to plague modern India? And what can we do to fight it? Read on….

     

The Big Story

The stickiness (and sickness) of India’s dowry menace

(Source: The News Minute)

The death by suicide of a 26-year-old doctor in Kerala reportedly because her fiancé, a fellow doctor, called off their wedding due to her family’s inability to pay the dowry demanded—a BMW car, land, gold—should lead to a desperately needed conversation on the persistent stain of dowry in Indian society.

He had proposed marriage and she had said yes.

But then, Ruwais allegedly told her of his parents’ expectation of a luxury car, land and gold. Dr Shahana’s father had died recently and her family was unable to meet those demands. Ruwais then reportedly called off the marriage, leading to Shahana’s death by suicide.

Ruwais has now been arrested for abetment to suicide and under provisions of the dowry prohibition law. Kerala health minister Veena George has asked the department of women and child development to conduct a probe. Kerala Women’s Commission head, Sathidevi visited Shahana’s mother and assured her of an investigation into the case.

God’s own country?

All that glitters (Source: Money Control)

One thing stood out for me: The fact that it happened in Kerala, the state with India’s best human development indices; #1 in literacy (94%), in maternal and child health (its maternal mortality is the country’s lowest at just 30 per 100,000 live births), in life expectancy (average female life at 79.9 years, higher than that for men at 72.2 years).

But, says senior journalist KK Shahina: “It’s a paradox that despite doing so well on many indicators, Kerala society remains very patriarchal and conventional with a long history of dowry.”

In 2021, the state was rocked by the death of a 22-year-old Ayurvedic student Vismaya Nair. Within nine days of her marriage, she had told her parents about the violence from her husband, S Kiran Kumar for not bringing enough dowry. Apparently, 1.25 acres of land, 80 gold sovereigns and a Toyota Yaris car were not enough. In June of that year, she hanged herself in the bathroom. In May 2022, a Kerala court found Kiran Kumar guilty and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.

Despite the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, dowry continues unabated in the state in the name of ‘gifts’. “There is a great deal of social acceptance for these ‘gifts’ in the form of gold and cash which are expected,” says Shahina. “These are legitimized as ‘choice’ and ‘celebration’. But of course, the bride has no control over the property or the ‘gifts’.”

Make mine supersize (Source: Medium/Nitesh Sakpal)

Seminars were held. Anti-dowry campaigns were launched on social media. And the Kerala Women’s Commission submitted a draft bill to the assembly with measures to check dowry harassment and extravagant weddings. For instance, it suggested a cap on ‘gifts’—Rs 100,000 in cash and no more than 10 gold sovereigns.

In 2022, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the state assembly that as many as 21,026 dowry harassment cases had been registered since 2016. Of these, only 251 had ended in convictions. The state has also seen 84 dowry-related deaths since 2016; seven cases reported in 2022 alone.

“The law alone is not enough. It’s the attitude that needs to change,” says Shahina.

It’s a change that involves everyone.

“The bride’s side is equally responsible,” a reader wrote to me, requesting anonymity. “The girl’s parents always look for better opportunities. When they find one, they treat it as a jackpot and even go beyond their financial capacity. But they have the option of a groom who might not be as wealthy but equally well-mannered with a decent salary.” So, why do parents invariably opt for the richer groom (with a high price tag)?

India’s enduring shame

The Kerala tragedy tells us one thing: Dowry is not limited to geography or, for that matter, religion. Dr Shahana was Muslim, as was her fiancé, Ruwais. Theirs was intended to be a ‘love’ marriage, so how did dowry play any role?

The stickiness of the dowry issue can be seen in the National Crime Records Bureau crime data for 2022. Released on Monday, the data tell us there over 16 dowry deaths a day—6,450 for the year. As many as 13,479 cases were registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961.

Even amongst liberal and progressive Indians who scoff at the idea of taking or giving dowry, the rise of the Indian wedding industry can exert its own pressure. To get an idea of just how much, consider that just 23 auspicious dates between November and December are expected to generate Rs 4.25 trillion in business.

The line between an outright demand and social pressure is blurred with the growth of social media. Designer outfits, destination weddings, gourmet buffets and one-of-a-kind décor, much of it paid for by the bride’s family since it’s ‘traditional’ to do so.

Equally concerning is the near obsession with marriage itself. Parents first pressurize their daughters to marry the ‘right’ man picked by them and defined as someone within the caste and community, with a good job and assets, even if he does come with a price tag. Then, when daughters complain of domestic violence, they put pressure on her to persist with the marriage of the sake of ‘family honour’.

Along with the fight to stamp out dowry, maybe we also need a campaign that tells young Indians that marriage is fine, but not being married is fine too.

I, for one, am rooting for this dad in Jharkhand who told his daughter she didn’t have to put up with a miserable marriage and welcomed her back home with a band and baja (no baraat).

In numbers

The percentage of women candidates recommended for appointment to the Civil Services is up from 24.05% in 2017 to 26.87% in 2021.

Source: Minister of State Jitendra Singh in Parliament

Watch

Canada's Christine Sinclair beats a drum after playing in her final international match, a 1-0 defeat of Australia. (Source: AP)

Christine Sinclair played her final match earlier this week. To understand the ecstatic standing ovation for the 40-year-old Canadian soccer player, consider she’s the all-time leading goal scorer in international football, has put in over 330 appearances for Canada, featured in six different World Cups, won two bronze Olympic medals—and a gold in Tokyo. “The legacy she leaves behind is enormous, having touched every aspect of sport in North America. Current players praise her leadership and humility, the younger generation calls her a role model, head coaches say they become her students and her trophy cabinet is filled with silverware from every professional year she has played,” notes Moving the Goalposts, a newsletter on women and football that I get in my inbox. Also, read my colleague Dhiman's Sarkar lovely tribute here.

Watch Christine Sinclair’s final moment with Canada women national soccer team here.

Can't make this s**** up

Dharambir Singh

BJP member of Parliament Dharambir Singh wants a law that will make parental consent mandatory in love marriages. Bringing up the issue in Parliament on Thursday, Singh said love marriages are why divorce is increasing. It is also leading to “conflicts in the villages”, he said. The MP from Bhiwani Mahenderagarh was, however, silent about whether parents should be made culpable when daughters end up in abusive arranged marriages.

From the courts

(Source:Unsplash)

Single women’s right to surrogacy

The two-judge bench of BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan was responding to a petition filed by a woman lawyer who is single and has argued that she has the right to reproduction and motherhood even without marriage. The right to reproduction includes access to medical advancements such as surrogacy, she argues.

No preaching please, SC tells Calcutta HC

I had written earlier about the Calcutta high court’s gratuitous advice to young girls to control their sexual urges and not give in “to two minutes of pleasure”. The court’s observations were made during a bail hearing in a case of consensual sex between two people where the girl is a minor and her parents had slapped POCSO (protection of children from child sexual offences) charges on her boyfriend. While the bail was welcome, the advice was not.

Now, the Supreme Court has made its stand clear: Judges are not expected “to express personal views or preach”. Earlier, the top court had stayed an Allahabad high court direction for the examination of a woman’s horoscope to find out if she was a ‘manglik’.

…And the good news

Women can be the karta of a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), the Delhi high court said. Societal perceptions can’t be reason to deny rights conferred by the legislature, the division bench of justices Suresh Kumar Kail and Neena Bansal Krishna observed. “Men and women historically were born equal,” the judges said, quoting the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the liberal judge of the US Supreme Court. “Over a period of time, with the advancement of civilization and hierarchical division of society, women have been pigeonholed according to gender roles.”

Briefly noted

Sohini Chattopadhyay’s grandmother has died suddenly and she is searching for the rituals of mourning. This is how her running story begins in ‘grief and confusion’. But running in the dimly lit footpaths of Delhi is more than an act of ritualistic mourning, more even than an act of courage. It is a rebellion. The revolt against women’s traditional space within households and a demand for equal public space. It also brings with it the keys to a sisterhood of shared experience, running through menstrual cramps, dealing with public molestation, and the struggle to be visible (in 1967, Chattopadhyay notes, Katherine Switzer, one of the first women to run a marathon in Boston was denied permission a year earlier on the grounds that women were not physically capable of running a marathon). The Day I Became a Runner is not restricted to being a personal account. It is a history of women athletes in India and, via that examination, the arc of citizenship in our modern republic.

Ultimately, writes Chattopadhyay in this book I cannot recommend enough, “Sport is a project of nationalism. It offers women a solid, respectable reason to put themselves and their bodies out there in the world.”

The Day I Became a Runner by Sohini Chattopadhyay, Harper Collins , Rs 599

News from elsewhere

One week after his pal Vladimir Putin asked Russian women to have more “eight or more babies”, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un apparently shed a few tears while acknowledging his country’s falling birth rates for the first time at the National Conference of Mothers held in Pyongyang. Kim apparently wept as he asked women to “have more babies, be better comrades”.

Israel has said the head of Unicef, Catherine Russell’s remarks condemning acts of sexual violence by Hamas on October 7 are ‘insufficient’. Russell has called the accounts of sexual violence ‘horrific’, saying, “Survivors must be heard, supported, and provided with care. Allegations must be fully investigated.” Meanwhile, the Israel military has said two civilians in the Gaza strip killed for every Hamas militant is a ‘tremendously positive’ ratio. At the time of writing, 17,177 Palestinians have been killed, including over 7,100 children.

South Africa is set to become the first African nation with shared parental leave after a high court in Johannesburg ruled that working parents can take turns in taking four months leave. Previously, this leave applied only to mothers and, prior to the ruling, fathers were entitled to only 10 days leave after the birth of a child.

Before I go

The one-of-a-kind Rainbow Lit Fest with talks, film, panel discussions, dance, drag, and book launches, kicked off on Saturday in Delhi at the Gulmohar Park Club. Queer and inclusive, the fest “brings together different identities and sections of society to explore common ground”. It runs for only one more day today. Don’t miss it. Check the schedule here. Buy tickets here.

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