Another dowry death in India: What are India’s laws on the menace?

India has lost another precious life to dowry. A Kerala doctor’s death due to alleged dowry demands from the groom has again put the spotlight on the dowry scourge in India. Despite being illegal for more than six decades, this centuries-old tradition has continued to haunt the country, particularly women. Dowry-related abuse is also a persisting problem which the existing laws have failed to tackle. What does India’s dowry law state? How has it remained ineffective? Let’s take a closer look. India dowry law Passed in 1961, the Dowry Prohibition Act banned the practice of giving or accepting dowry. The Act defined dowry as “any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly” by a “party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage” or “by the parent of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either party to the marriage or to any other person.” The offence is punishable by a jail term of not less than five years and a fine of about Rs 15,000 or the “amount of the value of such dowry, whichever is more”. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalises cruelty towards a woman by her husband or in-laws. Recent incidents in India A resident trainee doctor, Shahana , in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram allegedly died by suicide this week after her boyfriend called off their wedding as her family failed to meet his “exorbitant” dowry demands.

The young doctor’s relatives have alleged that the accused, EA Ruwise, another resident trainee doctor, demanded 150 sovereigns of gold, 15 acres of land and a BMW car from Shahna’s family, reported Indian Express. The accused has been arrested by the Kerala Police. In November, a software engineer and his family were booked for the suicide of his 24-year-old wife over alleged dowry demands in Telangana’s Hyderabad. A similar case was reported in Hyderabad in July when a 31-year-old woman died by suicide at her residence after alleged harassment by her husband and in-laws for additional dowry. The Delhi High Court raised concerns over a “distressing pattern” of dowry-related deaths in October. A single-judge bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma made the observations while upholding the verdict of a trial court convicting a man under sections 498A and 304B (dowry death) of the IPC and sentencing him to 10 years in prison. Speaking about the psychological stress and emotional trauma faced by women who are subjected to constant harassment by their in-laws over dowry, the court said, “This trauma can be so overwhelming that, for some, death may tragically appear to be a lesser agony than the relentless torment caused by the demands for dowry and compulsion and pressure to ask their parents to keep on giving money and gifts to the in-laws,” reported Indian Express. In May last year, the death of three sisters in a village on the outskirts of Rajasthan’s Jaipur had sent shockwaves across the nation. The women, who were married into the same family, were allegedly abused by their husbands and in-laws for dowry. ALSO READ: Cruelty by husband, kidnapping & more: How crimes against women are on the rise again in India India’s dowry menace India witnesses thousands of dowry deaths each year, noted The Guardian. According to the latest National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) report, as many as 13,479 cases were reported in India under the Dowry Prohibition Act last year. About 6,450 dowry deaths were recorded in 2022, the report released on 4 December showed. In 2021, India logged 13,534 cases under the anti-dowry law, a 25 per cent spike compared to the registered cases in 2020. As many as 6,589 dowry deaths were reported in 2021, a slight decline of 3.85 per cent than the previous year. [caption id=“attachment_13482182” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Experts believe the official dowry figures are much less than actual cases in India. AP (Representational Image)[/caption] While it is a criminal offence, the practice of dowry has remained prevalent across India. Till women are considered objects by their families who are to be married off to the highest bidder, the menace of dowry will continue to persist. A recent paper by Siwan Anderson of the University of British Columbia claimed that the increase in the wealth of Indians has led to a rise in dowry payments. Another study in April found that as education and job opportunities have improved for men in India over the years, so has the practice of dowry. Jeffrey Weaver of University of Southern California and Gaurav Chiplunkar of University of Virginia analysed over 74,000 marriages in India between 1930 and 1999 to understand the evolution of dowry over time, as per the BBC report. Citing the study, the British broadcaster reported that grooms who were “well-educated” and had better-quality jobs demanded higher dowries. “Strong economic factors perpetuate dowry. On the bride side, families who refuse to pay dowry for their daughters are left with ’lower quality’ grooms. Grooms have a strong economic incentive to accept dowry, particularly if their family has to pay dowry for its own female children or wants to recoup investments in groom’s education,” the authors wrote. The research also said that the “size of dowry payment decreases” as more women ggot education in an area, BBC reported. Experts also believe the number of dowry-related cases is much more than the official figures. “In an hour, some 30 to 40 women are victims of domestic violence… and these are just documented (cases), so it must be much more than that,” Kavita Srivastava, an activist with India’s People’s Union for Civil Liberties, told AFP last year. She blamed the “widespread social acceptance of domestic violence in India” for women’s deaths, which, Srivastava said, leaves them feeling “trapped in oppressive and violent relationships”. Meanwhile, the misuse of Section 498A of the IPC is also a concern. As per The Swaddle, dowry harassment is a “cognisable, non-bailable, and non-compoundable” offence. Under the law, the accused can be arrested just on the basis of the victim’s testimony without prior investigation or evidence. Last year, the Supreme Court had also flagged the misuse of this provision. With inputs from agencies