The Booming Indian Economy & Rising Dowry Deaths!

OK I had a bad day hence was upset with any and everybody...Seems like every Wednesday is a bad day :) ...But a friend of mine sent me over the hill completely by making should I say stupid, nah..total bull statements....

The conversation:

Me: This dowry thing is really something that should be banned in India...I don't even understand why its still rampant..I could understand that when the society was more autocratic and under the influence of religious and social dogmas "Dowry" was an in thing, an unspoken rule followed during almost all marriages in India...But today at least the dowry ritual and dowry deaths should go down amongst the educated classes of the society....

Him: Yaar, but its not that simple...I am a young engineer and earn well as a fresh graduate in Bangalore..But thats not enough..If I want to get my sister married (who is also a well educated engineer and earns well) in a good family with a good guy we gotta pay her in-laws something like 15,00,000 Indian rupees in cash and gifts....I am like why so? Well you know being the bride's family we need to pay for the marriage itself, then gifts and jewelry for my sister, for all her in-laws and then we need to either buy them an apartment or a car depending on how easy they are on us.... Now with my salary and my father's savings we can't afford that hence, I must get married in a well to-do family so that they can pay me somthing like 10,00,000 in dowry which in turn I will use for my sister's wedding..So you see I am not greedy and I won't harm or harrass my future wife for money...I just need some help getting my sister married and if her family can help me out then alls well in the family...

Me: I am like...You are crazy...First of all why would you even get your sister married in a family where they demand dowry..You never know, they may keep asking for more money or worse yet they may harm your sister physically or phscyologically...You should get her married where her husband and his family love her and do not demand for money or gifts in order to accept her in their hearts... Secondly, just because you need the money does not mean its okay for you to ask for dowry...Dowry is against the law, is unethical and you are degrading yourself and your future relationship with your wife and her family by asking for dowry...And yes you are greedy if you do this..If you think you are not, then every thief is not wrong..After all he also steals for feeding himself and his family...

Him: Well to answer your first question I do want to get my sister married in an educated and nice family that which does not demand for money/gifts to take my sister in their family but you know what in my caste the probability of finding a non-dowry seeking boy and family is something like less than 1%.... For those who are unaware, to date 65% of marriages in India are arranged marriages those that are arranged by the brides' and grooms' parents after a long process of short and formal dates with prospective candidates...these marriages are also typically within the same caste..So for instance, if my parents were to look for a groom for me, he would have to be a Kashmiri Hindu Brahmin... My friend belongs to Bihar, a state in northern India which is famous for its dowry related head lines apart from the erstwhile Laloo Prasad and his antics....Now in Bihar they even have a scale for dowry, so you would start looking for a groom in the slot you can afford..Last I knew, IAS/government officers were at the top of the chart followed by doctors, computer engineers, other engineers, etc...The next criteria was also their salary and the institute from where they had studied..So for instance if you went to AIIMS, IIM or IIT your rates would be even higher..Talk about a complex system..Phew... Anyways, his point was that it was next to impossible for him to find a groom who did not want dowry in his caste...and the same caste groom is of course desirable more so than a non-dowry seeking....

Moral of the story: Dowry is still rampant in various flavors in both urban and rural India. So long as educated people like my friend keep finding excuses in order to justify taking dowry, this social stigma is never going to vanish from our culture..Its an unending self serving chain of events and this vicious cycle needs to be broken....

Losing Daughters, an article in Femina on this issue is worth a read.

Other related articles:
Didn't we ban dowry 40 years ago?
Dowry crimes increase as India's economy grows
Jail crisis for dowry crimes
Rising number of dowry deaths in India
Don't condemn the intitution of dowry

In fact if you websearch dowry crimes u will find tons of articles all with different statistics on the number of women killed due to dowry related issues....

My take on Dowry:

In a country of 1 B, 6000 deaths is quite less compared to accidents, number of soldiers killed everyday in Kashmir and so on..Nevertheless, these are deaths that in essence bring out where the Indian society and culture is headed..... In all the recent articles including the one above there is a lot written about how consumerism in India is increasing with the booming economy and the dowry syndrome is seen in all economic classes of the society...A lot of bullshit is mentioned about: how the male child is made to beleive since childhood that he can get anything he demands; painful examples of real dowry deaths and so on.. 2 points should be focused on instead of all the crap:

1. The female child is not a second citizen in India and if not treated well she should herself be proactive and strong. (There is no point of education and earning money if a woman is not independent in her own right, this given the fact that dowry deaths are common amongst the so called educated middle class strata of society)

2. The very painful encounters often narrated by parents or family members of deceased females should be ashamed of themselves....What is the point of them crying out loud now...when they shouldn't have A. paid dowry B. kept up with the consistent demands after marriage C. saved their daughter by bringing her back from her in-laws house at the first instance of dowry request/harrasment

India absolutely needs more strong and courageous role models like Nisha Sharma to bring an end to this menace called DOWRY. For those who are not familiar with her check out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3027683.stm
http://www.the-week.com/23jun01/events8.htm