The
emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the
doctor says, "It's a girl."
~Shirley Chisholm
Being a woman is never easy more so in countries
like India where women have to fight all sorts of archaic beliefs to lead a
respectable life. When we speak about women’s rights we are termed as feminists
and as a gender which only believes in acting like damsels in distress.
I
myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist
whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a
prostitute. ~Rebecca West
Granted a lot has changed over the years in
the condition of women but that is only limited to the 20 or 30 percent of
population in the towns and cities. In that too life isn’t as rosy as it is
made out to be. Female feticide, Acid Throwing, Dowry and Bride Burning,
Domestic Violence, Honor Killing, Female Genital Mutilation, Forced
Prostitution, Human Trafficking , Marital Rape, Sexual Slavery are just some of
the diamonds in our crown; the chapters written in invisible ink in the history
of rising and shining India.
Women
are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association
with their opressors. ~Evelyn Cunningham
According to the National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB), a total of 213585 crimes against women were reported in 2010 out of
which 94041 were under the category of ‘Cruelty by Husband and Relatives’. 8391 were dowry related deaths. And these are
only figures of the cases which manage to get reported or are found out by an
NGO or NCW representatives who keep frequenting hospitals to unearth unreported
cases. There are hundreds and thousands of cases which go unreported and they
do not figure in this already humungous list. On top of that the conviction
rate is also awful in our country; perhaps it’s the loop holes in our laws that
is to blame or possibly our renowned lackluster judiciary. The proofs to this
statement are the statistics 1,948 convictions and 3,876 acquittals in dowry
death cases in the year 2008.
Appalled are you? Well you should be, considering
we belong to a country where people fast for weeks in the names of Goddesses
and where there are temples every few miles dedicated to the same.
I happened to come across an article on a
mother who married off her innocent daughter in the hope of a decent future for
the latter. Was that too much to ask? Was that wrong on her part to see her
daughter settled in life? The lady herself had lost her husband some years ago
in a road accident. She had lost an arm and a leg too in a train accident few
years after that. One would imagine that to be the culmination of her
sufferings and that she and her family wouldn’t face further adversity in the
future. But that wasn’t to be. Sometimes destiny only has hardships and obstacles
set for you. No sooner was the daughter married, demands of cash and vehicle began
doing the rounds; far too often than her liking.
What could she do, she was from a humble
family barely able to make her ends meet. The culture or non-culture, if we may
say, of dowry began in the upper echelon of society and seeped into that of the
less fortunate hence not even sparing the less fortunate from the shackles of
the so called big fat Indian wedding and its pathetic ‘customs’.
Like many parents the mother thought that
gradually as her daughter and son-in-law would spend more time together these
problems would phase out. She was trying to believe in something which she knew
deep down in her heart would never happen. But do they ever? Not really, her
daughter was subjected to inhumane treatments and repeated beatings in her
husband’s home. The mother kept praying for everything to be fine and kept
advising her daughter against leaving her in-law’s place no matter what the
situation. Isn’t that what many parents still advice their daughters in the
name of shame to the family or holding heads high in society? I mean it is
respectable to get ill-treated by the husband, but the moment the woman tries
to break out of the oppression she is tagged a hoar and what not by our very
society!
Finally that day came when the level of
torture escalated to something that could only be described as evil and nasty.
The daughter was burnt alive by her in-laws and dumped at a hospital to succumb
to her injuries. Yes the same story which had been happening over and over again
throughout history played out again and the daughter became just another
statistic to be put into the data of the NCRB reports.
The mother then realized how wrong she was
in leaving her daughter amidst such monsters. By then it was too late to save
her daughter but she resolved to put those guilty behind bars. She ran from
pillar to post to get an FIR lodged against them. That also took a lot of
effort as out police force too is infested with officers who would rather sit
sipping tea in their offices rather than do something actually beneficial for
the society. However with the help of a National Commission of Women
Representative and the dying statement of her daughter she was able finally
bring the offenders to book. But wasn’t it too late by then? Couldn’t she have
saved her daughter by not getting her married there in the first place?
I do not know what the problem is with us
as a society and our psyche! On one hand, we condemn dowry and on the other, we
ogle at the gifts that are bestowed upon a groom and his family from the bride’s
side. Anything missing in that and we form stories about things that must be
wrong in either the guy or the girl. And believe me it is a fact! Why is our
thinking so narrow? And this is not the only problem. The groom’s parents think
they have performed some sort of miracle by raising a boy and blatantly make
unfair and unjust demands. The bride’s parents are equally responsible for
heeding to whatever is asked off them even if in the process they end up
mortgaging their own selves. If even after that the marriage takes place, the
girl after being tormented will still try hard to live with her ‘husband’. Her
parents too will suggest her that, ensuing one day their daughter to be either
abetted towards suicide or be doused in kerosene and burnt alive!
Sometimes I am filled with disgust when I see
such thoughts still prevail in today’s society. Why can’t we bring changes in
ourselves? Can’t a girl decide against marrying a guy who dares ask even a
penny from her father? Can’t a father resolve never to marry his daughter to a
man who sells himself for a price in the marriage market? Can’t a guy make up
his mind not to take even a penny from the father of his to be wife? Why has
there to be a transaction for a union as sacred as marriage?
They say in Indian every hour one woman
dies in a dowry-related case. The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, with
amendments in 1984 and 1986, made dowry a recognizable and non-bailable
offence. But regardless of being illegal dowry has become an epidemic which is
turning out to be harder by the day to control. We Indians talk of culture and
actually practice these sorts of evils on its pretexts. Unless we bring changes
in ourselves, each and every one of us, in the way we perceive marriage in our
society these evils will continue to prevail and there will be many more daughters
burnt to death every day.
To all fellow women and girls I would ask
to take a leaf out of the below quote in choosing a life partner instead of
buying one in return for ‘Dowry’:
‘I,
with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes
enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does
not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a
woman. ~Anaïs Ni’
Find the post also on : What Young India Wants