Dowry scourge

It is one of contemporary India’s biggest shame that we have not been able to eradicate the scourge of dowry from our society. The latest news of a young married woman found hanging from a ceiling fan reportedly after excessive dowry demands and threats from her husband and in-laws brings home the extent to which dowry is still an acceptable custom.

The news that dowry demands are growing in the new middle classes reinforces the fact that neither money nor education leads to an automatic rejection of barbaric or obscurantist practices.

Instead it seems that more the pleasures of modern living takes one away from one’s roots, the harder one clings on to remnants of old life. It is a sad testament to Indian society that such practices have grown rather decreased in the last 60 years.

Sociologists have stressed on the new affluent lifestyles and the desire for easy money as the main reasons for dowry demands.  However, dowry harassment is just one more aspect of the disturbing attitude towards women in some aspects of our new society.

Dowry deaths or suicides are the other side of the female foeticide coin. Women are still seen either as intolerable burdens or cash-cows, good enough only for the money that they can give to the family they marry into.

That this should happen in a country with 9 per cent growth, where more and more women are entering the work force, where the government is trying to encourage education of the girl child is even more appalling.

It seems that our enormous progress over the last few years has not opened our minds to the simple truth that killing females because their only crime is to be female is unacceptable and condemnable.

The focus on dowry prevention so far has been in the rural areas and the lower classes. But it appears as if that needs to shift to the middle class.

They have to be made aware that demanding dowry is illegal and even more importantly, harassing and killing a young woman because her parents are not able to give any more is wrong. It is ridiculous and tragic that this even has to be said, but must needs when the devil drives.

As India becomes a more youthful country it is imperative that fostering gender sensitivity amongst girls and boys gets greater priority. We also have to look at social reform which encourages people to see the difference between acceptable norms and traditions and those that are illegal.