EDITORIAL: The heart-breaking story comes with a picture of a grieving father standing next to the well where his three married daughters and two grandchildren were found dead in a village of India’s Rajasthan state.
According to reports, the three sisters were married to brothers from the same family and lived in the same home suffering constant violence from their husbands and in-laws because their father could not meet demands for more money in addition to all the necessary household items he gave them in dowry.
“I am a father of six girls,” said the distraught father, pointing out “there is a limit to how much I could give them.” A message on WhatsApp purportedly left by one of the sisters read “our in-laws are the reason behind our deaths. We are dying together because it’s better than dying every day.” The police are looking at the deaths as suicides, it won’t be surprising, however, if it turns out a case of murder.
The evil custom of dowry given to son-in-law and/or parents in cash or kind is part of the subcontinent’s culture, but nowhere is it as pervasive as in India. The country’s National Crime Records Bureau documented nearly 7,000 dowry-related killings in 2020 — an average of 19 women murdered every day — and more than 1,700 women committing suicide in that year over “dowry-related issues”. There may be many more such cases that have gone unreported.
Although dowry is banned under the law since 1961, the custom is accepted and practiced even by educated urban classes. The trend of dowry deaths raises the troubling question why don’t women trapped in violence-prone oppressive relationships opt out? One answer is that divorce is a taboo in Indian culture.
Part of the reason for it is that most women are not financially independent. It is worth noting that a word repeatedly used about female children is ‘burden’. Hence they are encouraged by their families to bear marital abuse and stay there.
After the present tragic incident the father said life had been a living hell for his daughters, yet leaving their husbands was not an option for them. The other reason peculiar to the patriarchal structure of Indian society is an enduring tradition in which women are treated as subservient to their husbands, having no identity of their own. Young widows are seen as jinxed. In some rural communities widows are still shorn of their hairs, forced to wear white dress only, and denied the right to lead normal lives.
Underlying the alarming rate of dowry deaths are these very nasty traditions that make widespread domestic violence socially acceptable. It is for India’s civil society to alter the mindset that regards women as lesser beings than men. Indeed, many rights groups are challenging all these unjust and immoral customs. It is an uphill struggle, but one which will ultimately help change things for the better.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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