Indian Brides Pay a High Price

[Guest guest]

NEW DELHI (OCTOBER 23, 2006): Once the wedding guests were all

assembled, the father of the bride brought out a large metal tray on

which he had piled up 51,000 rupees (in notes of 10 and 50 rupees,

to make the heap look larger) and handed it to the groom.

 

A new television and sofa were conspicuously displayed in the same

room, so that every member of the party could see what was being

offered from the bride's family to the groom as a dowry. A full list

of all the other items was copied out by hand and handed to five

witnesses - itemizing all the pieces of furniture, kitchen equipment

and jewelry that would be delivered in payment.

 

Unfortunately for Kamlesh, the 18-year-old bride, who uses only one

name, the payment from her father, Misrilal, was insufficient. Her

new husband had expected a scooter; his parents had wanted more than

the 51,000 rupees - about $1,100 - that they got. During three years

of marriage, the requests for an extended dowry settlement began to

be accompanied by worsening bouts of violence - until in August, he

beat her over the head with a wooden stick, tied her up and locked

her in the cow shed as she bled profusely.

 

Violent dowry harassment is an increasingly visible phenomenon in

India.

 

An average of one dowry death is reported every 77 minutes according

to the National Crime Record Bureau and victim support groups say

complaints of dowry harassment are rising, fueled by a rising

climate of consumerism.

 

"Everyone is becoming more and more westernized - they want

expensive clothes, they want the consumer objects which are

constantly advertised on television. A dowry is seen as an easy way

to get them," said Varsha Jha, an official with the Delhi Commission

for Women.

 

Although the giving and taking of dowry is banned here under

legislation that threatens a five-year jail term, activists describe

the law as "ornamental" and point out that it is almost never

imposed. Dowry negotiations remain an integral part of wedding

arrangements, although, to avoid legal complications, the payments

are often referred to as wedding gifts.

 

Kamlesh has barely spoken since the attack and doctors are

investigating whether she suffered permanent brain damage. The Delhi

Commission for Women, a government-funded body, is helping her to

prosecute her husband, who is currently under arrest for the beating.

 

Officials at the commission see about 40 abused women every day, and

estimate that approximately 85 percent of these cases are related to

dowry demands, a figure that they say has grown over the past five

years.

 

"There has been a rise in the materialistic way of life across India

and dowry demands have risen to become more extravagant in line with

these materialistic needs," Kiran Walia, chairwoman of the group,

said. "It is one thing to give and take dowry. But what is really

obnoxious is the torture women undergo because the dowry is less

than expected."

 

Disputes over inadequate dowry split couples from every social

strata. This week the former Indian cricket player Manoj Prabhakar

was in court trying to settle a case of alleged harassment filed by

his estranged wife, Sandhya. She says that the Maruti car, jewelry,

television, fridge, sofa-set, double bed and cash handed over by her

family as dowry when they married were considered unsatisfactory by

her husband, and alleged that he harassed her for more from the

start of their marriage. He denies this.

 

"People are getting more greedy and aggressive in their dowry

demands," said Jha, of the Delhi Commission for Women. "You might

expect that as the country becomes more and more Westernized, this

traditional practice would be dying out, like other traditions, but

actually the reverse is true. The old habits remain."

 

"The men say, 'I'll just ask the girl's parents to get me a Honda.'

But they forget that then they have to buy the petrol, so they go

back to the bride's family to ask for the petrol money. It's not a

one- step system; it's a continuous process."

 

Kamlesh's father had been saving for his daughter's wedding and

dowry for 16 years before she married, and was squirreling away as

much as he could from his daily earnings as a carpenter of around

125 rupees. The total cost of the wedding and dowry came to around

250,000 rupees, 60,000 of which he borrowed from his boss. When the

demands for further dowry payments from the groom's side began

coming, it was impossible for him to meet them.

 

Misrilal said his daughter was being bullied for an increased dowry

payment from the start. After her husband attacked her in August, he

left her, tied up, in the shed for several days, without food or

water, until relatives came to her rescue.

 

"Within a year of marriage he was beating her because of dowry,"

Misrilal said, sitting with his daughter in a hospital corridor,

waiting for her head wound to be examined.

 

The burden both of dowry payments and lavish weddings is one of the

main reasons why female feticide - the practice of aborting female

fetuses - remains widespread in India. Earlier this year a report in

The Lancet, a British medical journal, indicated that as many as 10

million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past

20 years by families trying to avoid the expense of having a

daughter and hoping to secure themselves a male heir.

 

"After all this torture, I feel that having a daughter is a curse,"

Misrilal said.

 

At the headquarters of the Delhi Commission for Women, the

chairwoman, Walia, was meeting relatives of a young woman, Kusum

Hardina, who set fire to herself a few weeks ago because she felt so

desperate at the constant pressure from her in-laws to extract a

higher dowry payment from her family.

 

On Sept. 22, she fought with her mother-in-law and brother-in-law

over the dowry and then in a fit of anger poured kerosene over

herself and set it alight. As she lay dying in hospital, she gave a

statement to the police saying she had done it because she was being

harassed for a dowry, Walia said.

 

She had tried to explain to her parents that she was being

tormented, but they told her to stick with her husband. When she

told the police, they sent around an officer who beat up her

husband, which did not calm relations.

 

"We gave 22,000 rupees when they got married. But they wanted a

color television, a motorcycle and a fridge as well," Asharam, the

brother of the dead woman, said. "Her husband doesn't earn much as a

builder, but he was greedy for possessions."

 

"Dowry should be stopped," he added. "Why should you give the

husband's family money when you are already giving them a girl?"

 

Walia has launched an awareness-raising campaign, sending counselors

to universities across the capital to alert students to the problem

of dowry violence. But she was not optimistic about it chances of

success.

 

"It is very unfortunate, but even educated boys are doing this. The

rich set standards for the rest of society. I have no hope that this

is coming to an end," she said.

 

SOURCE: International Herald Tribune, Paris

URL: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/22/news/dowry.php

[pranay2 0]

These days money is everything. They dont marry for the bride but for the money. I sincerely wonder how a father can expect her daughter to be happy with a relationship whose foundation is money.In olden days what was a gift has turned into a sell and buy now a days. It is a must to totally shun dowry. It is an Irony that even activists demand dowry. I have heard about people counting rupees at the time of marriage.

[Guest guest]

dowry started with the british, who brought that european custum to india

[pranay2 0]

Hey it was just a custom to gift BOTH the BRIDE and the GROOM , and not just the GROOM as it is just today by both the family and not just the Brides family, as today to help start the family. As gifts today is just a few dollars, in the past due to countless wealth it was high, And yes it was not a compulsion. Just a gift as in the west today. What we see is a distortion, born out of jealosy by distorting the ancient custom. Male dominence was a result of foreign invation, and the Aribic and Victorian culture brought the conservativeness in us, nor an Indian label.Earlies we had the Moksha sastras as well as the Kama Shastras, a matter of personal choise, "Purdah" is an urdu term and dosent have a sanskrit equalivent.Dowry was a gift given by BOTH( both brides as well as grooms family) sides and not the "For Sale" Tag that we see today.