The Hindu : 'Dowry, a haunting menace'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 02, 2003

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'Dowry, a haunting menace'

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 1. The concept of dowry is no more confined to the time of marriage but haunts a woman for the rest of her life, though in different forms.

A survey, "Expanding dimensions of dowry", conducted by the All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and the Indian School of Women's Studies and Development, has shown that dowry has come to encompass and dominate the entire life of a proposed and existing marriage, from when the match is sealed to the birth of children.

Unfortunately, even those communities and castes that did not believe in dowry have adopted the concept.

With colonialism, the superimposition of a market economy and capitalist development on pre-capitalist structures have widened economic and social inequalities even as it opened up new possibilities of economic mobility and freed avenues of social status from feudal and caste-bound rules, the survey says.

Speaking after releasing the report, the National Human Rights Commission member, Sujata Manohar, described dowry as Indian brand of violence against women.

"Nowhere in the world does a women face a threat to her life by being burnt alive," she said condemning the demand for repeal of Section 498 A.

If the section is being misused, the Government should check the misuse and not do away with it totally as it is the only safeguard for women against a crime that shows no sign of abating, she added.

Justice Manohar said dowry was not the only crime perpetrated against women.

Foeticide was also a form of devaluation of woman's life. Equal rights in ancestral inheritance would help in reducing the demand for dowry, he felt.

The survey was conducted in 10,000 households across the country to ensure that a cross-section of society was covered and that the surveyors got a feel of how `dowry' was interpreted in different communities.

"We fight liberalisation policies and believe that they can be reversed. But fail to address, let alone challenge, the impact such policies have on social impact," the AIDWA general secretary, Brinda Karat, writes in the survey. Dominant mainstream politics has no place for social reform.

It is considered a soft issue better dealt with by women's organisation, she adds.

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