Facebook Group against Dowry

While we will start our discussions through this blog in a while, I invite you to join the facebook community which is getting tremendous response from people, with members approaching 100 within just 7 days since its start. Come on.. join us in spreading the word.. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=374339410996

Jad se mita do.. Strike at its roots.. School Chalo.. !!

Latest News: Some of the posts here will now also be a part of a larger community working for this cause - the Bell Bajao campaign. Remember Boman Irani's ad on the television? One of the previous posts is already up there.. Have a glance at it..

So, here I once again invite you to share your stories with me so that I can frame them into articles and we can together spread the awareness.

In the meanwhile, I was brainstorming over the ideas for the campaigns that can be effective in the long run. Apart from spreading the awareness through street-shows, TV, Radio and internet, I have come across this thought. How about going to schools and organizing the speech competitions for school children - who are grown up enough to take the help of their parents or their teachers in getting the speeches written and can speak in front of their school - like they do in the case of Independence Day speech?

Here is the plan in points:

1. Select a town

2. Approach all the leading schools in the town

3. Organize the speech competition in each school with the topics related to "Dowry and Domestic Oppression"

4. Make the students of that school listen to their school participants (2-3 speakers from one class)

5. Select a few top speakers from each school, make them participate in the town level competition

Benefits of this approach:

1. Parents are usually the ones who prepare the students for participation in different activities - so while they are preparing their kids for the competition, this will make them also think about the topic

2. Children will have to work for some 10 days to prepare for the speech - a good enough time for making them indulged in the thoughts about this topic - which will accompany them for a lifetime

3. When parents will listen to their own kids speaking on this topic during the town level competition, they will be made to think again

4. In future competitions also, those kids will think about selecting this topic as a topic of their speech as they already have knowledge about this issue now

5. The winners of these competitions will be the potential leaders from these towns and cities to lead the campaign against the Dowry & Domestic Violence in that town

Organizing this competition every year in these towns will help spread the awareness and inculcate the spirit of compassion for relationships in the minds of the youth. In terms of leadership and logistics, it only needs some motivated individuals as and when available in different towns, lead this campaign, arrange for some token funds locally - some 4000/- for distributing as cash prizes for school children in different schools (who are more than happy to receive even 200/- as prize).

One more way of organizing these competitions can be to take the help of the organizations who already have a big network in cities and towns in India - like Rotary Club, or Lions Club.

Such an effort, at the grassroots level, will not only help in spreading awareness about this cause, but also strike at its roots. This will certainly make a lasting impact on the society and help eradicate the curse completely.

Would like to know all of yours views on the same..

Domestic Violence Rises with Education..

While we had a discussion few days back on this forum that modern day grooms are found getting sold in this unethical deal making requirements like they would be sold only to "a well educated, handsomely earning and a good looking wife", today I found a shocking research on this topic. This research conducted by UNESCO in 2002 shows that the cases of domestic violence increase with the rise in the level of education of the women. Not to be mentioned, this report does not mean that the girls of this country should not be allowed to gain higher education. Education is an empowering tool for women, and what is required is the attitudinal change among men and society in general.

The key interpretations drawn out of the findings from this report by a Delhi based organization are:

- As educated women are aware of their rights, they are no longer willing to follow commands blindly. When they ask questions, it causes conflicts, which, in turn, leads to violence. In many Indian states, working women are asked to hand over their paycheck to the husband and have no control over their finances. So, if they stop doing so or start asserting their right, there is bound to be friction

- The problem in India stems from a cultural bias against women who challenge their husband's right to control their behavior. Women who do this - even by asking for household money or stepping out of the house without their permission - are seen as punishable. This process leads men to believe their notion of masculinity and manhood is reflected to the degree to which they control their wives.

- Two of every five women in an abusive relationship in India remain silent about their suffering because of shame and family honor. The studies have also shown, nearly one-third of the Indian women experiencing abuse had thought about running away, but most said they feared leaving their young children and had no place to go. Activists felt that for intervention strategies to succeed, attitudes about violence would have to change and the level of awareness, among both men and women, about the negative impact of violence had to be raised.

To read the full news article, click here.

A few days back I came across another article by the founder of the organization Manushi, who says:

"Domestic violence is about using brute force to establish power relations in the family whereby women are taught and conditioned to accept a subservient status. Domestic violence is a way of trying to get women to believe that they can only live at men’s mercy. It is often committed by men with low self-esteem who destroy a woman’s sense of self worth because they feel inadequate to cope with a woman who thinks and acts as a free human being with a mind of her own.

Even though I maintain that dowry per se is not the cause of domestic violence, there is no denying that dowry demands and sharp escalation in the amounts of money being spent by families in putting together dowries has contributed to viewing daughters as a burden and consequent devaluation of women’s lives."

Hence, all our findings so far are coming together. Dowry leads to domestic violence, while the ego of men is also at work and while they want highly educated wives, their ego tries to push their wives down and this leads to Domestic Violence - physical and emotional!!

I think all of us need to spread the awareness.. as much as we can.. spread the word.. for spreading the word might help someone you know who needs your help.. for there are laws against these crimes.. !!

The Unethical Deal..

A friend of mine asked me today morning, "Do these things happen in present times also?" Having lived so far in a well-cultured and open-minded family in a metropolitan, isolated background, he had no idea about what happens in a house the very next street to his. And having studied and then worked out of his home for the last 10 years, he is totally unaware of things like groom-selling and Domestic Oppression. I had to give him a couple of examples to make him believe the subtle ways in which these things happen - in the name of "Gifts" or "Maa baap ke armaan" and how dowry is related to domestic-oppression. After listening in brief about these things, he immediately got ready to spread the awareness about these things in his hometown. And there grew my conviction towards this cause a bit more - if a 2 minute talk about these things can make anyone feel the pain of a woman, what pain would she be made to go through for the whole of her life.. day by day, month by month, year by year.. just to prove herself to be a good daughter, a good wife, a good daughter-in-law and above all, a good Bharatiya Naari!!

While the demand for dowry in uneducated families in rural areas seems to be totally baseless, and totally inspired by greed for earning some quick bucks without any hardwork, there is an interesting explanation that educated families in urban areas give for demanding dowry. "Apne bacche ko padha likhaakar badha kiya hai, accha kamaata hai, acchi naukri kar raha hai.. uski padhai ka kharcha to nikaalna hoga". Before hearing this explanation, I always thought and was taught in school and in the religious sermons in childhood that whatever parents do for their children is totally selfless. But here, the parents are reclaiming all that they have spent on their son so far! And what about the amount spent by the girl's parents on her upbringing who is not even going to live with them anymore!

And now that they have reclaimed the money spent on their son's education, care, growing him up, and his safety and security so far, and now that they have quoted an amount that they think is equivalent to all those direct and indirect expenses, they should ideally stop calling him son - for the son has been sold now and the parents should start calling themselves to be just the ex-caretakers of that guy! And the daughter-in-law to be the new caretaker to whom the son has been sold. And post this business-deal, the old caretakers should stop interfering in the matters related to the new caretaker and the guy! But this does not happen. Moreover, the interference increases, and the things like domestic oppression, and regular harassment of the bride keeps pinching her for the rest of her life. And if she is somehow able to take her husband away from his parents for a happy life for herself, she is termed as "ghar ko todne wali"...

What sort of unethical deal is this !!

The mathematics of Domestic Oppression

Thanks to all of you for sharing your/relatives' experiences regarding Dowry and Domestic Oppression with me. I've also been reading a few research papers on this topic and I have come up with this interesting correlation between Dowry and Domestic Oppression. I would like all of you to read it carefully, understand it, follow it and spread the word as much as you can. Because the more you spread the word, the more the probability of saving the rest of the life of someone you know...

I was going through the story of a friend of mine who's sister is facing the problems of Domestic Oppression. It has been 3 years since her marriage and the oppression began just 3 months after the marriage. Coincidentally, he shared this story with me just after I finished reading a paper on the relation of dowry and domestic oppression. So this was a real life example before me which proves that dowry leads to domestic oppression post-marriage.

She is a girl from a well-educated family, and is herself very highly educated. She is a gazzetted officer - a lecturer in a university. According to my friend, she is being continuously threatened by her husband for divorce. She does all the household work before going to the university, and does all the remaining work after her hectic schedule in the university. And is doing her best at whatever she can. But still she is being nagged for something or the other, and is threatened to be divorced. They force her repeatedly to leave the house. But an educated girl that she is, she does not succumb to these threats. There is a Domestic Violence Act 2006 to save her. But mental stress for her and her parents is natural.

A well educated, beautiful, caring girl that she is, what could be the potential reason for this condition of hers? I asked my friend immediately "Was dowry offered during the marriage?". He says "Yes. Infact a lot of negotiations and demands happened at the time of dowry and many things including a car was asked for in dowry". This was the catch. The research paper mentions this fact!

The time the negotiations for dowry start or the dowry is specifically "demanded" from the girl's parents, and once the girl's parents start agreeing to those demands, it is then that all the damage starts happening. There is a thing called self-respect in the human civilization. But in the modern Indus-Valley civilization, putting that self-respect in the feet of the potential groom's father is called "humility because of being a girl's father". And ironically, the more money the girl's father shows and the more demands that he is ready to fulfil, the more he thinks will his respect grow in the society.

So, once the "negotiations" for the sale of the boy start, the value of the girl starts going down with each demand agreed-to. Thinking logically, this is natural - and it should happen. It is the eternal rule of the business. The more is the requirement of a product, the more the price will be. Here the product being sold is the boy. And the more price the customer is ready to pay for it, the more the shopkeeper will keep quoting - you have to be emotionless when you are a businessmen. Else you fail. This is another rule of business.

Once it has been established that the self-respect of the girl's father is on the boy's father's feet, and that the value of even a beautiful, highly-educated girl is degraded during this negotiation, and that the boy's value has been increased significantly, anyone who has an idea of business or a bit of economics can say how the girl would be treated, and what will be the manner in which the girl's family will be treated post-marriage!

Do not agree to those demands, and do not send your daughter or sister to such a jail. Find another boy for her before it gets too late !!!

I have myself been a live witness to one such case where high-dowry negotiations were involved and the kind of jail that the girl is living into post marriage, and the rights that she and her family are barred from exercising. I would like all of you to spread the message. The more you spread the message, the more will we, together, be able to eliminate this evil from the society.

Hum to daal roti khaane waale bande hain ji..

Amidst the support that we are getting for this awareness campaign, I got this write up from one of my friends (identity preserved) who was also asked for dowry - in a sophisticated 21st century manner. An interesting read !! Spread the word !! The more you spread the word, the more is the probability of affecting the life of someone somewhere you know.. Help them !!

21st century Sophisticated Dowry

Every educated guy these days wants an equally educated wife and in some cases their partner’s requirements clearly mention that “the girl should be working”. They want a well educated, handsomely earning, good looking, piece of decoration for their house. The guy takes a stab at evaluating the girl - meeting her, talking to her and seeing if it fits the bill. Once the guy feels "Yess!! The girl fulfills my checklist", he leaves "everything else" to his parents and asks the girl’s parents to talk to his parents - like a cattle is herded to the butcher.

Why? Because the guy is a man of principles. How can he quote his own price!

The story doesn’t end here.

Now the girl’s father humbly asks about the monetary expectations from one of a renowned Jain families in Delhi when the boy’s father says “Hum to daal roti khaane waale bande hain ji. Baaki har maa baap ke armaan hote hain apne bacchon ke liye. Aap apni marzi se bataiye kitna lagaanaa chahenge”

Another case, where the guy is NRI - a green card holder. The father has high hopes that at least this guy’s views would match the so called 21st century educated Indian. Here is what the sophisticated boy says “Uncle mere mummy papaa ki, humari family ki koi aisi expectations nahi hai, baaki ye hai ki... mere mummy papa ne bhi meri sister ke liye bachpan se hi jodna shuru kar diya tha… they spent 35 lakh in my sister’s marriage” ..and poor girl’s father is bound to think "Did I commit any blunder by investing all my hard earned money in the education of my daughter than accumulating it for her marriage ??"

Why is it always that a girl’s parents are subjected to torture of revealing their financial conditions? Why are they forced to tell their budget and then feel ashamed of it when it is compared with the flashy budget of their friends in the society?

Why can’t millionaires and billionaires set an example by keeping their son or daughter’s marriage a low profile affair? Why are they polluting the society by setting this difficult benchmark for other simple families in the society?

Height of sophistication: High class 21st century parents have devised a new way of fooling everyone - by the means of rituals. Boy’s family will send a long list of rituals to be conducted at the marriage and the rituals are nothing but a lavish give and give (never take) of gifts and hefty shagun to mark the respect of baratis and the groom. What a trick!!!

Can’t we simply conduct a marriage by conducting an Almighty’s pooja and seeking His and elders’ blessings?

Kitne ki shaadi karenge?

It has just been 15 minutes while the launch of this blog that one of my female friends shared her story with me. I would like to share it with all of you, and you would be proud of her parents too!

This girl gets a proposal from a highly educated family somewhere in Bundelkhand where it had already been made clear to all the relatives that no dowry will be offered in her marriage. Parents of that highly-educated guy came to see the girl, liked her, returned back, and as it always happens, they approached one of her father's friend to ask him that ever-green beggarly question: "Kitne ki shaadi karenge?"

Her dad's response: "Shaadi hi nahin karni hai" and my friend was not married in that family. I am proud of her and her family.. Just imagine the case had her parents accepted the proposal and would have got ready to buy the guy for a few hard-earned lakhs. They would have bought that guy for that money, but would have sent their daughter to a place no less than a jail. Who knows if the greed increases after the marriage!!

My friend's parents have finally decided not to marry her in any Jain family in Bundelkhand. We should be proud of their decision.

If any person demands, directly or indirectly, from the parents or other relatives or guardian of a bride or bridegroom, as the case may be, any dowry, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months, but which may extend to two years and with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees. Provided that the Court may, for adequate and special reasons to be mentioned in the judgement impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of less than six months. Read more

If any such incident has happened with you, you can share them here..