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By Rashme Sehgal A major new survey involving 10,000 respondents reports that the practice of dowry is becoming prevalent amongst dalit, backward caste, Muslim and Christian communities, which never had a tradition of dowry in the past. Even matriarchal societies, which earlier paid a bride price, are now demanding dowry from the bride's family
Banaja Raol, who immolated herself outside the residence of the speaker of the Orissa state assembly, has come to symbolise the changing face of dowry in this eastern Indian state. Raol, in her late-20s, was a teacher at a non-formal, state-sponsored education centre. Engaged to be married to an unemployed youth, her in-laws were willing to accept a smaller dowry only because she had a government job. The government's decision to retrench the education centre's staff saw Raol lose her job. Once she lost her job, her in-laws refused to go ahead with the marriage. Heartbroken, in her suicide note she wrote, “I have neither a job, nor can I get married; my future stretches before me as an area of darkness. What will I gain by living?” Until just a few years ago, the practice of Kanya Sona was prevalent throughout Orissa. This demanded that whatever was given to the girl by her parents on marriage had to be matched by her in-laws, whether it was gold, ornaments or cash. All that has changed and dowry, largely an urban, upper-class phenomenon, has now spread its tentacles to the dalits (tribals), other backward castes (OBCs), Christians and Muslims, communities which never had the tradition of dowry in the past. On the contrary, many of these groups had a tradition of bride price, bride service or forms of bride price wherein it was the groom and his family who paid money for a bride or else worked in her home for some years before being granted permission to marry the daughter. A joint survey on the changing face of dowry conducted by the Indian School of Women's Studies and Development (ISWSD) and the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) interviewed 10,000 respondents across the country. It concluded that even matriarchal societies where the status of women was very high, such as Assam and the north-east, are now openly demanding dowry. Brinda Karat, general secretary of AIDWA, points out, “The tradition in Assam was for the groom's family to give a compulsory brideprice called ‘ga' which means body and ‘dhan' or wealth. ‘Gadhan' generally involved giving rice, silver or gold to the bride's family. Since the 1960s and '70s, our survey shows, all this changed in middle class, urban homes where a bride's parents began giving clothes, ornaments, jewellery and furniture at the time of her marriage.” The AIDWA survey, conducted in five districts of Kamrup, Barpeta, Dibrugarh, Dhubri and Sonitpur in Assam, talked to 234 unmarried girls and their parents/guardians, who revealed that dowry expectations have now risen across the state. Twenty-one per cent of the respondents justified the taking of dowry. An educated, middle class girl from an urban family in Barpeta said, “I'm not asking for a major share of my parents' property which in any case will all go to my brother. Why should my parents discriminate against me? It is their duty to give me some material things for my personal use at the time of my marriage.” The situation is worse in the largely tribal northeastern state of Tripura where 364 unmarried girls and their parents/guardians who came from scheduled caste/scheduled tribe (SC/ST), OBC and Muslim families all claimed that their earlier tradition of giving a nominal amount in aashirwad (blessings) was now a relic of the past. Chandrakal Pandey, Rajya Sabha MP, (CPI-M), pointed out, “Not only are tribals and Muslim families now mortgaging their lands and selling their family assets to marry off their daughters but dowry deaths are on the rise with nine dowry killings being registered in the state in 2002 alone. Of the nine killed, three were from the SC, three from OBCs, one from a Muslim home and two from other groups. What is even more alarming is that tribal women are now going to ultrasound clinics, something which was unheard of even three years ago.” West Bengal is facing a similar crisis. A Muslim parent revealed that dowry was a dishonour to Allah and yet admitted to having given it under pressure. Pandey admitted that in her own state of West Bengal, the situation was no different. “Poor families are selling their land, including sharecropped land distributed during land reforms, solely to get their daughters married. In Burdwan district where several factories have closed down, workers are using their VRS (voluntary retirement scheme) savings for their daughter's marriage only to lead a life of penury after that.” Dalits, like the Muslims, are facing a steady erosion of values. Just ten years ago, dalits in UP practised the custom of ‘pai punji' whereby a bride was taken to a bridegroom's house with only five cooking vessels. If she could not afford even that, then five ‘pattals' or leaves sufficed. Dalit girls interviewed in both UP and Lucknow admitted that the tendency of members of their community to imitate the upper-castes seemed to have become the norm. Most dalit girls expressed fear that without dowry, their marriage would not be possible.
In UP, 240 unmarried girls were interviewed: 65% of the Muslims girls also expressed the view that they could not get married without a dowry. While some of these girls admitted that although dowry was not openly demanded in a Muslim marriage, the boy's side made an assessment of how much dowry they could expect. Respondents in Balia, Gonda, Bahraich and in Bihar spoke openly of how marriages amongst Muslims were now being fixed in terms of ‘sukhi-suha' which means that a simple money value is fixed and has to be adhered to. A Muslim girl pointed out, “Everyone knows that in Islam marriage is a contract in which a mehr has to be given when the marriage is broken. In practice, even this rule is not being followed and our clerics do not put any pressure on the bridegroom to ensure he pays up.” In Maharashtra the interviewers talked to neo-Buddhists – dalits and adivasis -- and Muslims from working class and lower-middle class areas with monthly incomes of less than Rs 5,000. A Muslim beedi worker had spent over Rs 1 lakh to provide electronic items for his daughter. Feeding the guests was another major expense. Adivasis, including members of the Warli tribe in Thane district, had never followed the practice of ‘deaz' as they term dowry. But in cognisance of changing times, two adivasi respondents reported spending between Rs 30,000-50,000 for their daughter's marriage. The money was spent on decorations and drinks during the ‘mandavli' and also on providing household items. Kirti Singh, Supreme Court lawyer and convenor of the AIDWA legal cell, believes that one of the major reasons why dowry extortion was on the rise was because the judiciary has not come down heavily against this practice. Singh pointed to a case in which a girl committed suicide due to mental and physical harassment including starvation for days on end. The Supreme Court refused to hold the husband guilty of abetment to suicide and praised the mother of the deceased for advising her daughter not to break marriage ties and to lead a more harmonious life. In another bizarre case, Kirti Singh cited the example of the Delhi High Court insisting that a demand for Rs 10,000 to buy a colour TV did not constitute a dowry demand. Singh said, “The courts are giving reduced punishments to these cases and in a recent case, the Supreme Court actually held that dowry death was not a heinous crime and therefore reduced the sentence. The case dealt with a young woman who had died of asphyxia due to extensive burns. The judiciary, which had earlier awarded her husband a life sentence, reduced it to ten years.” Globalisation and the imposition of a market economy has resulted in increasing consumerism in our society. It has also increased social and economic inequalities, with the nouveau riche setting the trends for what comprises status and style. Growing unemployment is only worsening the situation especially for women. Nothing illustrates the plight of women trapped in this spiral of demands better than the example of five girls living in Talcher district of Orissa. In lieu of the Mahanadi Coal Field Ltd taking over the parents' land, these girls had been provided jobs in this company. Five unemployed men were willing to marry these girls without dowry and their marriages were registered in the local court in 1992. The Mahanadi Coal Field Ltd reneged on their agreement some months later, and their husbands subsequently refused to accept them. They are presently living in their natal homes since they had not brought any dowries. Dr Rajni Palriwal of ISWSD believes, “The plurality of marital practices among the various castes, religions, regions and classes has now shifted in favour of one homogeneous upper-caste Hindu model which is further ensuring the devaluation of women. Dowry has cannibalised all other rituals and gift-taking relationships, thereby precipitating and intensifying gender inequalities in our society,” she adds. (Rashme Sehgal is a Delhi-based journalist.) InfoChange News & Features, September 2003
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