Dowry is extortion, alimony is agency, don’t conflate the two
Dowry deaths are society-enabled femicides. Women are burned, poisoned, hanged, or pushed off balconies, while we debate “misuse” of laws
Comparing dowry to alimony is false equivalence; it keeps women unsafe and men unaccountable. Istock
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When 28-year-old Nikki Bhati was allegedly beaten unconscious and set ablaze by her husband and in-laws over dowry, the MRAs (men’s rights activists) shouted — but but… what about alimony? If women marry for money, then dowry demands are fair!
This is despite Nikki’s family already giving her in-laws a Scorpio, gold, and lakhs in cash. This is despite her little boy, the only witness, telling the police: “Papa killed mummy with fire.” Despite a guy from Navi Mumbai similarly burning his wife alive in front of his seven-year-old daughter. Despite a guy from Bengaluru hanging his wife because of her complexion.
Choosing a financially stable partner is not the same as being forced to cough up cash, cars, or cosmetic surgery demands under the threat of violence. One is agency, the other is extortion. Conflating the two is not just intellectually dishonest, it legitimises violence against women. Calling women gold-diggers to justify dowry deaths is like calling rape a date gone wrong. It’s a false equivalence designed to excuse violence.
So, yes, stop comparing dowry to alimony! One is a death sentence; the other is survival. Dowry is criminal extortion — demanded before or during marriage, often under threat of harm and death. Alimony is a civil remedy, granted after due process, usually to women left desperate by callous and irresponsible spouses. This false equivalence is not harmless rhetoric; it keeps women unsafe and men unaccountable.
Because for every alimony, there are thousands of burnt bodies of a Nikki, a tortured Sonali, an unknown woman whose death will never trend. Misuse is the exception. Murder is the epidemic.
Sadly, these tragedies flare briefly in headlines before fading. India scrolls on, outrage evaporates, and the women stay dead.
We’ve tried 60 years of laws and awareness. Yet 7,000 women are killed every year over dowry. That’s 20 women every day. One every hour. We call them “dowry deaths”, but they’re society-enabled femicides. Women are burned, poisoned, hanged, or pushed off balconies, while we debate “misuse” of laws.
Just as after Nirbhaya’s brutal gang rape in 2012, India rewrote rape laws overnight, we need something similar for dowry: make dowry murder a capital offence. If a man and his family can demand dowry like a birthright, the State should respond with equal force. This isn’t vengeance; it’s deterrence. When cruelty is systemic, only the harshest punishment fits the crime.
Yet every time a woman is killed, trolls scream “498A misuse!” They cherry-pick tragic outliers — like Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash’s suicide — to claim women weaponise the law. This is national gaslighting. For every one alleged misuse, there are lakhs of silent graves. Low conviction rates don’t prove innocence — they prove police apathy, witness intimidation, and evidence burned along with women’s bodies.
The main issue is that dowry isn’t disappearing, it’s modernising. It isn’t a “village problem”. In Gurugram, Noida and Mumbai, dowry has “modernised” into liposuction packages, IVF cycles and foreign honeymoons. Bollywood beauty standards meet capitalist greed and women become customised commodities. We sanitise murder with phrases like “domestic issues”, gaslight victims as “gold diggers”, and cry about “false cases” at women’s funerals. These aren’t cultural quirks but calculated crimes.
Honestly, I blame the collective. Just the husband or in-laws do not kill the woman. We as a collective do. Especially the parents who give dowry. You are complicit in doing something that has been illegal since 1961. Paying dowry doesn’t protect your daughter; it bankrolls her abuse. Remember: you’re not giving dowry, you’re giving supari. Respect your daughter. Believe in her enough to know that she is not a parasite you have to “pay” for. Stop calling dowry “gifts”. Agree to a wedding you can comfortably afford; cap wedding expenses to 1 per cent of your net worth. Make this the new normal. Save for your daughter’s education and investments instead of her dowry. Show your daughters off for their achievement and not their marriage — remember, marriage is not the end goal of life, it’s a part of life.
Know the law. The law bans dowry demands even before marriage, but police rarely register FIRs until a woman is bruised or dead after marriage. Girls, if a man slaps you, abuses you, or asks for dowry once — leave. Divorce is better than death and disrespect. It’s better to be single and alive, than married and dead, no? I mean, why does this have to be said out loud? Stop asking, “Log kya kahenge?” The log are busy lighting pyres of bodies they did not respect.
India spends more energy protecting excuses than protecting women. We’ve turned kitchens into crime scenes and buried too many daughters to stay polite. If we could rewrite rape laws after Nirbhaya, we can rewrite this script too: make dowry murder a capital offence, punish both givers and takers, incentivise education over weddings, and enforce laws that already exist.
The question is simple: will India protect women — or their murderers?
— The writer is an acclaimed author
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