Dowry a curse

Dowry as per Webster's dictionary is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband.
As per the dowry prohibition act 1961, dowry means any property or valuable security to be given or agreed to be given directly or indirectly -

• By one party to the marriage to other party to the marriage; or
• By the parents of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either party to the marriage or any other person;

Menace of dowry has spread to every section of Indian society irrespective of religious, regional, cultural groups because of insatiable materialism, greed and tendency to easy acquisition of wealth. It is observed that parents spend rather invest in the career building of male child to reap return on investment in the form of dowry. The girl child on the other hand is considered to be huge liability on parents. The girl child becomes eternal burden for parents as grooms' side always expect favor in money and kind. This lead to gloom on birth of a girl in our society. The birth of a girl is mourned and female gender who is mother, sister, wife and many other are despised and looked down upon because of this malaise of dowry. This has given rise to female feticide which is skewing gender ratio which in turn has brought about many ills in our society.

There is an unfavourable correlation between education of girl child and dowry as educated girl needs to be married to an educated boy whose parents expect return on investment made on education. This leads to rampant illiteracy among female. which is again bad for society as an illiterate mother can not form a healthy society.

In India dowry related violence lead to dowry death though the 1961 dowry prohibition act is in place. To safeguard women against atrocities, the act provides that if a person gives of takes or abets in giving or taking of dowry, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years, and the fine which shall not be less than fifteen thousand rupees or the amount of the values of dowry, whichever is more.

According to Indian police it registered 8172 dowry death cases in 2008 alone. Moreover, many deaths are disguised as suicide. In every 4 hours a dowry death takes place in India. There are million who face domestic violence in the form of mental and physical torture because of not bringing enough dowry with them.

India enacted law, set up ministry, commission, provided positive discrimination to women in five year plan and there many civil society organisation working for development and empowerment of women, still, women are vulnerable to all kind of violence and this is on increase.

How this evil can be eliminated from our so called civilized society?

This scourge can be combated with multi pronged strategy:

• An anti dowry campaign targeting youth should be carried out with the help of repute and trustworthy person from politics, academics and religion
• Enforcement of law and stringent action against violators
• Engagement of civil society organization especially panchayati raj institution to the level of village