Dowry major cause of poor sex ratio

Vandana Shukla

Irrespective of the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, dowry deaths are on the rise and the number of women's deaths has not been a cause of great concern. Concern about the declining birth ratio too is limited to sloganeering. “Movements” like “Selfie with Daughter” and “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” and other welfare schemes, launched with great fanfare to encourage the birth of girl child, fail to show improved data on child sex-ratio. The facts are well known; neither the key reasons behind this phenomenon are well understood, nor its linkages with larger societal failures. Dichotomies grow around gender issues, with the so-called “liberation of women”. 

Government departments do not promote “Dulhan hi dahej hai” kind of jingles anymore to condemn dowry. In the past few years, especially since the public mobilisation in the Nirbhaya gangrape case of 2012, the focus has moved away from the “not-so-sexy” issues like dowry to sexual violence. Data-based facts depict how things have worsened on the dowry front. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows a rising graph in the number of registered dowry cases (many more go unregistered): 9,038 for 2012; 10,709 for 2013; 10,050 for 2014. Another peculiarity about dowry cases is that they are reported only when a marriage fails. In most cases, women accommodate the demands of dowry to make the marriage work, for the scar of a broken home continues to be the burden of a woman in Indian society. More telling is the data on dowry deaths: 8,233 in 2012; 8,083 in 2013; 8,455 in 2014. That translates into more than 23 women killed a day, almost one per hour, for dowry. And yet it finds no mention in the schemes and missions aimed at saving the girl child. The co-relation is ignored. 

A study by data journalism website IndiaSpend finds that states with the highest dowry deaths between 2005 and 2010 reported the greatest decrease in the child sex ratio for the same period. 

For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, the state with the highest increase in dowry deaths (from 1,564 in 2005 to 2,217 in 2010), there was a corresponding decline in child sex ratio, from 916 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2001 to 899 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2011. But states that have less than 1 dowry death per day for the last five years have seen their child sex ratios rise. Punjab and Haryana, known for their rigid patriarchal order, have done surprisingly well in increasing the child sex ratio and have also seen a reduction in dowry deaths. Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir are an exception in this data; the states have not reported dowry deaths though the child sex ratio has declined. In the states of the North-East, neither of the two issues is a cause of concern.   

Dowry, first criminalised in 1961 under the Dowry Prohibition Act, became untouchable since the hue and cry made over the misuse of section 498-A by men's rights organisations like Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) and Purush Hakka Sanrakshan Samiti (Men's Rights Preservation Society) across the country, that mobilised demand for amendment to anti-dowry laws with amazing solidarity and organisational skills. Even the Supreme Court observed in 2014 that provisions under 498-A have been “used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives.” Embedded sexism of “disgruntled wives” was a reflection of the patriarchal mindset that works across board, and of the success of SIFF and other such organisations that tried to raise an amendment to 498-A as an election issue in 2014, to the extent of demanding a men's welfare ministry. 

Under the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, all states were told to appoint dowry prohibition officers across the state to keep tabs on marriages involving dowry. The officers were given the powers of police to ensure that dowry is not involved in any marriage in their jurisdiction. The failure of this Act is also a reflection of societal approval for dowry. In a seminar organised by Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, in Chandigarh, in 2014, the prohibition officers from the northern states admitted, they had never filed a case in their entire career involving violation of the Dowry Act, because they felt hesitant in going to weddings and spoiling the “happy” event for the family. Most dowry cases are reported by the victimised woman or her family, often only when the woman is harassed beyond her parents’ capacity to meet the demands. 

Maharashtra has a different story. The state government acceded to appoint prohibition officers in 2015, only 55 years since the Dowry Prohibition Act came into being, after a Mumbai-based advocate Priscilla Samuel filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Bombay High Court. “In our society, the bride's family does not speak up about dowry demands, because that would mean that the girl would probably not find a suitable match and the family would be outcast,” says Samuel, whose petition has now shifted the onus on the dowry prohibition officers to gather intelligence and act on it. “Officers do not have to wait for a complaint and can act suo moto,” she adds. The Mumbai Police Commissionerate admitted none of the police officials appointed by the state were aware that they were to double as dowry protection officers. The Bombay HC has also ordered the state to act immediately to curb matrimonial ads in publications suggesting dowry involved in particular matches and marriage bureaus that enjoy commission on dowry exchanged between families. Once again, it's a matter of implementation. Only time will tell if prohibition officers act differently.     

In Kerala, the state with highest literacy rate, girls work for years to “arrange” their dowry. In Kochi, I met a hotel receptionist whose mother had worked for years in the UAE, as domestic help to arrange 80 tolas of gold for her marriage. She was married to an alcoholic who hardly earned. She wasn't thinking of divorce; she didn't have the resources to arrange another dowry and her mother, who had invested her youth to arrange her dowry, insisted that she make the marriage work. She was Christian. In Kerala, Muslims raise the amount for meher and demand the girl's family to match the meher amount in gold (meher is a mandatory payment, paid or promised by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage). The dowry of Hindu women in this progressive state is best left to the imagination. 

[email protected]