Despite progress, dowry still remains a menace in the Indian society
Any young man who makes dowry a condition of marriage discredits his education and his country and dishonours womanhood said by Mahatma Gandhi It is being said over and again that ‘India is on the verge of becoming a Developed Nation.’ This sounds really good to all the Indians, as we might then be at par with other developed countries of the world. No more we would now be considered as a backward nation with poor technological know-how & below the average education system. However, with all this positive & hopeful news, how should we react to various news about ‘Bride Burning’ resulting from the age-old dreadful evil system of “Dowry.” Does this kind of news match up with the pace at which we are developing? Well !! On the contrary, these kinds of events put us back to where we were i.e. a poor & underdeveloped nation.
It is quite surprising that in spite of so much development, we Indians have still not had success in total abolition of the ‘Dowry System’ that is as old as man is. 'No dowry No marriage' is the biggest fear in India as a result no parents wish to have a daughter in their home. In Fact, some Indians shamefully believe that bringing up a daughter is like watering one's neighbour's land. Unseasonable dowry demands from the groom's family negatively affect the financial conditions of the bride's family. The rapacious in-laws make all sorts of attempts to extort maximum dowry from the bride's parents as a result of this, today a girl who comes without dowry has little or no value at all in the marriage market. As recent news reports suggest, this barbarous practice has either led parents to borrow huge sums of money or it has driven brides to commit suicide or has caused recrimination and an alarming number of cases of wife-burning and wife-beating, thereby bringing loom and disaster to countless homes. It would not be exaggerating to say that the increasing amount of female foeticide in India is in some way because of this evil system of dowry. If we see its root then we will find that this evil is a typical expression of a socio-economic system that is built on the axiom that a woman is of less intrinsic value than a man.
Leave aside the reference to the old days, even today the laws of the state transfix the husband's name on the woman, for in official transactions, a woman is required to give her 'married name' also. Thus, bride burning or wife burning which has caused a countrywide wave of consternation is an outcome of our very own defective value system. It is a sign of extreme moral decay. It is a disease that afflicts a society that has come to regard money as the highest god.
Moreover, it should be realised that a greedy man, in pursuit of personal gain, would always brush aside consideration of legal barriers and invent covert means to circumvent the law. The real solution, therefore, lies in moral and social reform which cannot be accomplished in isolation. It can form only a part of a comprehensive scheme for the outlook and the belief that fundamentally, men and women are souls and that each has a role complementary to the others.
Society must also be given the realisation that there is a moral law in the world, which none, however high and influential can violate with impunity that a person who can go to the extent of extracting dowry from his wife and can indulge in wife-beating or wife-burning, is a mere degenerate who, in his day-to-day dealings, can throw all moral norms to winds and the first thing, therefore, needed is to reform this potential criminal rather than give him a girl in marriage. So, c’mon let us all make a strong resolve to educate our girls and sensitize our boys to burn this evil system from its roots & make a society where each soul has a right to live with dignity & self-respect.
(The Writer is a spiritual educator & popular columnist; views are personal)
