Global Courant
Dowries have been illegal in India since 1961, but the bride’s family is still expected to gift cash, clothing and jewelry to the groom’s family.
A 27-year-old teacher from Bhopal, a city in the center of the country, started a petition calling on the police to deploy officers to wedding venues and carry out raids to end this “social evil”.
Gunjan Tiwari (not her real name) told the BBC that her petition stemmed from her own experience of being turned down by dozens of men over dowry issues.
The most recent incident took place in February, when her father invited a young man and his family to his home in the hope of finding a match for his daughter.
After his parents exchanged pleasantries with the guests, Gunjan entered the room carrying a tray with cups of steaming tea and snacks for the guests.
The young woman described the moment as “disturbing”.
“Everyone is looking at you, everyone is evaluating you,” he told me over the phone from his home.
Gunjan’s family had carefully planned when and how the young woman would appear before the guests. Her mother had chosen a green outfit for herself because she thought her daughter looked especially attractive in it.
He also advised Gunjan not to laugh as it would draw attention to his uneven teeth.
It’s an exercise Gunjan is all too familiar with, having done it six times in as many years. The questions she was asked were also familiar: about her education and her job, and whether she knew how to cook.
Before entering the room, the young woman had heard her parents ask the father of the future groom what was the dowry he expected. “They wanted 5 to 6 million rupees (US$61,000 to US$73,000),” she recounted.
In addition, the father of the future groom jokingly said: “If your daughter is beautiful, we will give you a discount.”
As the conversation progressed, Gunjan realized that he was not going to be offered a discount: visitors asked him about his irregular teeth and a mole on his forehead.
Getty Images Dowers have been illegal in India since 1961, but the bride’s family is still expected to gift cash, clothing and jewelry to the groom’s family.
After tea, when Gunjan had a few minutes to speak privately with the groom-to-be, she told him that she would not marry if there was a dowry involved.
“He agreed that the dowry was a social evil,” she told me, adding that the response made her think the young man was different from others she had known.
But the Tiwaris soon found out that Gunjan had been rejected.
“For my mother, the refusal was due to my stance against the dowry. She was furious with me and she didn’t speak to me for over two weeks.”
Gunjan recounted that in the past six years his father has contacted “families of 100 to 150 eligible singles” and met more than 20 of them. Gunjan herself was presented before six candidates. Almost all of her attempts, she says, failed because of her dowry.
“Because of these rejections I have lost all my confidence,” says Gunjan, who has a master’s degree in mathematics and takes classes online.
“When I think rationally, I know that it’s not me who lacks something, the problem is with people who want feats. But I often feel like I’ve become a liability to my parents.”
Despite the fact that dowries (both giving and accepting them) have been illegal for more than 60 years, they are used in 90% of Indian marriages, according to a recent study. Payments between 1950 and 1999 amounted to a quarter of a billion dollars.
Parents of brides have been known to take large loans or even sell their land and house to meet dowry demands. And even that does not necessarily guarantee a happy life for the bride.
According to the National Crime Records Office, 35,493 brides were killed in India between 2017 and 2022, an average of 20 women per day, for bringing insufficient dowry.
Activists point out that dowry is also one of the reasons behind India’s skewed gender ratio.
The United Nations estimates that, following prenatal sex detection tests, nearly 400,000 female fetuses are aborted each year by families worried about the cost of future dowries.
GUNJAN TIWARIGunjan met with Bhopal Police Commissioner Harinarayan Chari Mishra to ask for his support in his fight against dowry.
In his petition to Harinarayan Chari Mishra, the Bhopal police chief, Gunjan says the only solution is to raid wedding venues and arrest those found giving or receiving dowries.
The “fear of punishment” will help “put an end to this cruel practice,” he adds. Last week, the young Ella met with Mishra to ask for his support in her fight.
“Dowry is a social evil and we are committed to ending it. I have ordered all police stations to provide adequate help to any woman who requests it,” Mishra told the BBC.
However, added the commissioner, “the police have their limitations, they cannot be present everywhere and we need to raise more awareness on the issue, change mentalities.”
Women’s rights activist Kavita Srivastava believes the police can definitely help, though she says tackling dowry is a complex issue.
“India is not a police state, but there is a dowry ban law and we need better implementation of that law,” he said.
The dowry, Srivastava said, is often not a one-time payment. When it comes to greedy families they keep demanding more and more even after marriage as “it’s easy money, a way to get rich quick”.
The activist cites examples of women who face lifetime domestic violence and are even thrown out of their matrimonial homes for failing to comply with recurring demands.
The scourge of dowry, he says, can only be combated if young men and women begin to take a stand and refuse to give or accept dowries.
Getty ImagesMore than 35,000 brides were murdered in India between 2017 and 2022, an average of 20 women a day, for providing insufficient dowry, according to the National Crime Records Office.
Gunjan said she would like to get married because “life is long and I can’t spend it alone,” but said she won’t pay a dowry.
As time goes by, her family’s desperation to find a partner for the young woman continues to grow.
“Among my relatives in my ancestral village in Etawah district, in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, a 25-year-old girl is considered an old woman in the marriage market.”
Gunjan’s father regularly peruses newspaper marriage columns and asked various relatives to keep their eyes and ears open to find a suitable match. The father also joined a WhatsApp group with more than 2,000 members of his caste where families like his share resumes of his children.
“Most want a lavish wedding that costs Rs 5 crores or more. My father can only afford half of that,” says Gunjan.
The young woman adds that her insistence not to marry with a dowry has made life more difficult for her parents.
“My father says that it has only been six years since he started looking for a boyfriend for me. But he claims that without a dowry he will not find me a mate even if he searches for 60 years.”
