Aug

16

Dowry gazette - August 16, 2009

August 16, 2009 posted by indiatime | 14 Comments

New Delhi (August 5, 2009)
A court in New Delhi ruled that the action of kicking a daughter-in-law and threatening her with divorce, cannot be termed cruel under India’s dowry law.

New Delhi (July 27, 2009)
Sangeeta (27), was found dead under the staircase of her in-laws’ home, and all members of the husband’s family are absconding. Her bruised body was discovered by her parents who had gone to her in-laws’ house to discuss dowry demands.

New Delhi (July 28, 2009)
Preeti Kaur (23) hanged herself to death, to escape dowry demands from her husband and his family. Preeti’s mother told the police that she did not take her daughter’s complaints seriously and kept telling her daughter to adjust to her husband’s family.

New Delhi (August 10, 2009)
A court chided the father of a dowry victim for recording his police statement 4-days after his daughter’s death by poisoning, and acquitted the husband of the murder charges. Sushila, the man’s daughter had died of eating poison-laced pakodas back in late 2003. Sushila’s father, the court alleged, did not accuse the husband for 4 days after her death and went to the district magistrate on the fifth day.

New Delhi (August 10, 2009)
The sessions court decided to prosecute the father of the bride for accepting the other party’s dowry demands, and giving a dowry. The father got in trouble when his daughter complained against her in-laws’ for their dowry demands.

And now, away from the capital:

Ahmedabad, Gujarat (August 4, 2009)
A court in Ahmedabad sentenced a husband and his parents for 14 years and 10 years life sentences, for setting fire to and killing Dipa Shukla, in 2007.

Bhuvaneshwar, Orissa (August 7. 2009)
The local superintendent of police has been charged with cruelty and abuse for torturing his wife and making dowry demands. His wife has alleged that her parents had given him Rs 40 lakhs in dowry, but he has been asking for more money from her parents.

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (August 3, 2009)
A medical doctor is under arrest for harassing his wife for dowry. His wife has alleged that he asked for Rs 5 lakhs and a land lot gift from her parents. The husband’s family has alleged that the relationship turned sour because the doctor found his wife speaking to strangers.

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (Aug 14, 2009)
G Vijaya Lakshmi (28), a software engineer, committed suicide by hanging herself on the terrace of her parent’s apartment. She was distraught over the dowry negotiations and demands from Chakradhar, her groom from Korea, whose family had been demanding additional cash before marriage.

Gurdaspur, Punjab (August 1, 2009)
Jaswant Kaur (now 32), has complained that Karamjit Singh, her NRI husband of 11 years, who took more than Rs 7 lakhs in dowry 11 years ago, hasn’t returned to take her to Britain where he resides. Her family has recently found out that the Karamjit’s UK address did not exist, and that he was already married and had 2 kids.

Jul

20

Yet another young mother burnt for dowry

July 20, 2009 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

Barely a month ago, India’s top court spoke about the need to introduce capital punishment as a strong deterrent against bride burning.

Yesterday, yet another ghastly bride burning occurred within a few miles of India’s Supreme court. 28-year old Deepika Bajaj, a customer care manager with Hyundai, became the latest addition to the stunning statistic that has been regularly claiming the lives of women all over India. Deepika’s case is yet another disgrace on the society around her, especially Indian capital’s law enforcement, that failed this young mother of a six-year old.

Married for last seven years, Deepika Bajaj had recently made several attempts to seek help and intervention in her troubled marriage. And her pleas for intervention had reached beyond a few desperate phone call to her parents and friends.

1. Three months ago, Deepika Bajaj sought intervention from the ‘Crime Against Women’ cell of the local police district, complaining that her husband and in-laws were harassing her for dowry.

2. Three days ago, Deepika called the police again, complaining about additional and increasingly violent abuse by her husband.

3. Minutes before her death, she called the police again, pleading them to save her life, and told her that her husband’s family was ‘preparing to set her on fire’.

That Deepika Bajaj was declared dead on arival within hours after that phone call, speaks volumes about the brutality and the extent of abuse she had been facing at the hands of her own family, in front of her own daughter.

And what was the Delhi police’s response to this brutal murder? First, they reached the victim’s house too late to be able to save the victim. Second, they said they were still trying to ascertain the veracity of the dead mother’s claims of abuse. “..She called us and said her husband Aditya Bajaj and her in-laws had set her ablaze…”, said one police officer. “…We cannot say anything concrete as of now as it is too early but we think the in-laws were responsible for her death….”, said his senior.

The next time the Supreme court speak about hanging people for committing these bride burnings, I hope they consider hanging the lazy police officers who sit on their fat asses doing nothing as young mothers burn to their deaths. I bet the police officer on duty was chewing his betel leaves or sipping a hot cup of tea when this poor and desperate mother called for help.

I truly cannot believe that Indians have learnt to look the other way when such things happen. Forget punishing bride burnings by hanging, merely asking for dowry should be punishable by hanging.

Jun

13

Dowry gazette - June 13, 2009

June 13, 2009 posted by indiatime | 7 Comments

Greater Noida, June 12, 2009:
Bharati (4) and Priyanshi (2) were axed to death by their father Yogesh Sharma when their mother failed to bring in the dowry money from her father. Sharma was caught while disposing the daughters’ bodies in a gutter.

Bokaro, June 11, 2009:
Rizwana Praveen (22) was beaten to death by husband and his family, after her father failed to come up with a motorbike in dowry.

Mumbai, June 11, 2009:
Reshma Shaikh (26) killed herself by consuming poison, tired of the constant dowry demands by husband and his family. Husband Amjad had been harassing her because her father wound’t transfer his business in Amjad’s name.

Rajkot, June 11, 2009:
Four married women from four different families attempted suicide, tired of the dowry demands made by their husbands. Hetal Dudakia (26) and Santok Vasant (28) died after consuming poison. Bhavana Dhankecha (27) hanged herself to death to free herself of the dowry harassment. Namrata, the 4th woman, has however survived the attempt.

Varanasi, June 10, 2009:
Tortured by her husband for dowry, Rekhadevi, a local woman, committed suicide by hanging.

New Delhi, June 5, 2009:
India’s Supreme Court set aside the dowry death conviction of one Suresh Kumar whose wife Asha Devi had died of severe burn injuries. The court basically ruled that dowry cannot be a factor if the harassment issue is more than one year old.

Bhopal, June 5, 2009:
A 45-year woman who had pressed charges against her in-laws, was brought to a police station and gang-raped by cops at the Amla police station.

Noida, June 5, 2009:
Arati (24), suffering from extensive burn injuries, trying to lodge a dowry complaint against her husband, was turned away by the police who told her to ‘come back tomorrow’.

Ludhiana, June 5, 2009:
Sukhpal Kaur (32) was poisoned to death by husband and his family when she didn’t cave in to their dowry demands.

Gurgaon, June 2:
Tapasya (28) was found hanging in her apartment in the city of Gurgaon. Although initially suspected to be a suicide, the police have now arrested husband Rajiv Singh for Tapasya’s murder, qualifying the murder to be a dowry death.

Lucknow, June 1:
The bride’s brother threw acid on the groom’s face when the groom demanded a dowry of Rs 10000 minutes before the marriage ceremony was to begin. Sanjay Yadav, the accused, escaped after the acid attack. Ramesh, the groom, has been hospitalized and is in critical condition.

Jan

23

Domestic terrorism

January 23, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

Yesterday in New Delhi, a domestic violence case turned into an attempted murder scene right before the eyes of the magistrate. Geeta Jain had filed a domestic battery complaint against husband Vikas, he had been threatening her to take her complaint back, and there, right before the lawyers and the judge, the husband pulled out a dagger from under his shirt and cut his wife’s throat, almost killing her. Geeta Jain didn’t die, but was critically wounded.

Also yesterday, I watched a TV court drama where Kiran Bedi, India’s most famous woman police officer-turned-India’s Judge Judy, ruled on a domestic case where the frightened wife pleaded her case against her abusive husband. With all due respect to Ms. Bedi, (who I personally do admire and respect much), her judgement in the case played right into the hands of the abusive husband as Ms. Bedi, from her judge’s bench, ended up convincing the abused wife to go back to her husband since the husband had publicly apologized and supposedly repented for his behavior.

I remember the times from In my elementary school days, when night after night, I overheard sounds of our neighbor beating up on his wife, and her crying for help asking him to stop beating her. The first time I heard those sounds, I made a mention of it to my family who told me to shut up and never mention it to anyone in school or outside. In the evenings, I used to see the same neighboring couple walk hand in hand to the nearby park and was astonished to see the dramatic reversal from the midnight madness. As I grew up, I noticed a lot more blue and black faces of women in nearby and distant families, women beaten up by husbands, women afraid to speak up and women afraid to take a stand and walk away.

Domestic abuse and domestic battery, of either physical or emotional nature, is definitely not a uniquely Indian phenomenon. But historically, Indian women have shown a higher tolerance and sustained stamina to take a lot of such abuse from their husband or the husband’s family. And although the laws and the court systems and the environment has been changing for better, the community and neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be. And it is still a huge deal for a woman to stand up and actually go through the process of filing battery charges and following it up in the court system. And India, to a great extent, is still a very hypocritical country when it comes to respecting women - where with the treatment of female fetuses, casual attitude towards eve-teasing, domestic beatings or even dowry deaths.

Oh, I do very much regret my family’s not standing up for the neighboring lady. The elders didn’t think much of this domestic abuse thing until years later, when my own aunt went in coma after her doctor husband tried to kill her by overdosing her with insulin. From those times when a woman was India’s prime minister, to these present times when another woman is India’s president, not much may have changed for the average Indian woman who has been patiently waiting for a change in India’s social fabric.

Jan

17

The dowry gazette - January 17, 2009

January 17, 2009 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

Here’s what’s happening in the dowry world. Every time you think India is turning a page on this practice, there’s another story that jumps out of the newspaper and grabs you by your throat.

Arul Selvi, a 30-year old Chennai RJ (Radio Jockey) for All India Radio’s Rainbow FM, killed herself by hanging. Selvi, who was married just 2 months ago and was pregnant, was spending time at her parent’s house when the incident happened. Selvi’s family had reportedly paid gold and other gifts during and after her marriage, but squabbles over marriage and pongal gifts had reportedly created a rift between the two families. For now, a criminal case (IPC 174(3)) for death due to dowry harassment has been registered.

Gunjan, a Lucknow man shaved his wife’s Asha Devi’s head and paraded her through his village. He wanted to demean and insult her because Asha Devi had failed to bring adequate dowry. The in-laws have been arrested but husband Gunjan is absconding. So far the police are not ready to declare Gunjan as a barbarian, but have only characterized him as a barber.

Barely kilometers from India, a woman reporter who reported onmatters of dowry, was hacked to death in southern Nepal. Uma Singh was a fearles journalist who often campaigned against the practice of dowry and ended up paying a very high price for her courage. A couple of hours away from Kathmandu, Uma’s apartment was invaded by 15 armed men, who stabbed the 24-year old journalist to death.

And thousands of miles away from India, 22-year old Amandeep Dhillon of Toronto, Canada, was recently stabbed to death by her own father-in-law. Amandeep’s parents had paid close to $120,000 for her dowry, but she still found herself in an unhappy marriage where the husband’s family never stopped demanding more gifts.

But India is doing something about the (is it really?) gender bias. India’s government has decided to declare January 24th as the ‘National Girl Child Day’. Selective abortions of female fetuses have supposedly killed close to 10 million female babies in India over last 2 decades. But Indian government’s revolutionary declaration of the Girl Child Day will now certainly put an end to all these ghastly things. India’s law interprets dowry as a ‘customary payment’ and we will now have a new custom on January 24th.

Dec

5

The dowry drama goes on…

December 5, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

A high court decision in Noida is about to give a new twist to the dowry drama in India. A husband who was jailed for a week on allegations of dowry demands, has now turned the tables on his wife and her family by showing them to be accomplices in the dowry crime. So ther NOida court has now ordered a case to be registered against his wife’s family for aiding and abetting a crime that they had initially said they were the victim of.

A recent decision by the Delhi High Court had already signalled a landmark change by allowing the authorities to go after the dowry-givers, qualifying them to be accomplices more than victims.

Here is the problem. The Delhi court decision makes sense when dowry demands precede the marriage negotiations. So imagine a scenario where the prospective groom and his family demand small or large sums of money to ink the marriage deal. In such cases, the brides’ families that enter such negotiations, are of course aiding and abetting the age old crime.

But in situations where marriage has taken place 5 years ago, and dowry is still being demanded, there is an unfortunate and ill-perceived tendency among the brides’ families, to give in to those demands, just to keep the marriage alive. Although one can still call it aiding and abetting by complying, such aiding and abetting seems to be rather under duress and hardly voluntary.

And then one can find millions of examples of brides’ families giving gifts to the grooms’ families every day. None of those gifts are given under duress, but who can tell the difference between a gift given with pleasure and a gift given under duress? That duress doesn’t have to a demand from the groom. It can be the pressure of the society, the neighbors , the friends, the relatives.

The antidote for social ills like dowry is not going to come from the court system. It will have to be a seed change in our own highly hypocritical society which on one hand makes a grand show of woman goddesses and vande mataram and woman prime ministers and woman presidents; and on the other hand treats women as second class citizens. Even today, in several pockets of India, the life cycle for a female baby starts with the family’s desire to kill it before it is born and ends with the society’s wish that the female jump into her husband’s funeral flames.

May

15

sex, dowry and videotape

May 15, 2008 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

“…You can’t possibly trust him. He’s perverted….”
- Ann, in Sex, Lies and Vidoetape (1989)

Of all the dowry cases that we have discussed on this site, this one gets the honor of being the strangest and perhaps the raciest.

A woman in New Delhi has accused her husband and his father of threatening her family into paying a huge dowry amount. She has told the police that her husband’s family had secretly filmed her and her husband in bed, and had threatened to post the video on the internet if the woman’s parents do not pay up $200,000. Her family had already paid more than $10,000 in dowry, but the husband’s family was still not satisfied with the deal and wanted more money.

The husband and his father were arrested and later released on bail. It was not known whether the police had confiscated the alleged sex tape to further investigate the matter.

The woman’s complaint was registered on the 27th birthday of India’s only international porn star Sunny Leone, the Indo-Canadian-American beauty who has blown the competition away and is now considered one of the most famous adult film stars on the planet. Soon to star in a Bollywood film, Leone, who herself was brought up in New Delhi, is one Indian beauty who does not have to worry about such novel dowry threats. She makes several multiples of those dowry amounts doing exactly what the Delhi woman’s husband threatened her with!

Apr

23

The government of India has dropped its plans to toughen the law against Sati (or Suttee), India’s age-old practice of widows committing themselves to death by self-immolation.

Last year, the government had proposed changes to India’s existing Sati law - the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act (of 1987). The changes were meant to bring the act of glorification of the practice of Sati within the confines of the existing law. The punishment for inciting a widow to commit suicide on the funeral pyre was to be raised from a minimum of 1 to a minimum of of 3 years and the maximum period of punishment was to be extended from 7 to 10 years. Another biting aspect of the proposed law was to tsart holding the local city/village councils responsible for any local widow’s death on the funeral pyre.

Why the sudden change of heart? Unbelievably, as is clear now, some people in the ruling party as well as politicians from certain states had actually been actively campaigning and lobbying against tough laws for Sati inciters. One of the people who has opposed the law is Sis Ram Ola, India’s minister of mines. Ola, a parliament member from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, who boasts of starting a girls’ school in a rural area, apparently isn’t keen on stopping or deterring the practice of Sati. That’s because Jhunjhunu, his constituency, is famous for its Rani Sati temple, a big tourist draw for hundreds of thousands of devotees, and obviously an important economic engine for his constituency. Another opponent of the law was Kapi Sibal, the minister of Science & Technology who opposed it because he was worried about the unintended fallout of innocent village chiefs facing the brunt of the new law.

The current prevention of Sati act came ito being after the burning of Roop Kanwar, a Rajasthan youngster who was forced by a mob of locals to commit herself to the burning pyres after her husband (to whom she was married for just 8 months) passed away.

I am not even close to be considered a women’s issue activist or a feminist. I’m just an average Joe who sees black and white and can tell it as is. What I am astounded by is our country’s inability to cross political and fundamentalistic barriers in straghtforward and nonconfusing matters of human rights such as dowry and Sati. One would have thought India was over these stupidities and would by now be able to differentiate such atrocious and heinous practices from the deitified and glorified traditions that they are purported to be. In any other civilized society, this would be called murder. In some corners of our strange and complex land, that act of murdering widows is a tradition.

Apr

22

Pune Marriage breaks over mango pulp dowry

April 22, 2008 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

A wedding ceremony in Pune went awry last week, when the bridal party failed to meet a last minute demand by the groom’s side. Not it wasn’t money. It wasn’t a television set or a refrigerator or a washing machine either. The groom’s party, in the midst of what seemed like a smooth sailing party, suddenly demanded that mango pulp be served as a delicacy.

The bride’s parents, unable to meet this last minute mango pulp dowry, tried to talk the groom’s party out of it, pleading with them that it was too late to arrange for mango pulp for hundreds of guests. But the mango pulp, normally a sweet delicacy, became a bitter issue that flared tempers on the groom’s side. Within minutes of realizing that they weren’t getting their mango pulp, the groom’s party walked out of the marriage.

The ex-groom and his family, then went home and ate a lot of mango pulp. They ate as much mango pulp as they could. In fact, they ate so much mango pulp that they couldn’t eat it any more. At one point in the evening, even the very thought of mango pulp triggered a puking feeling. That night, as he lay on his bed in his parent’s home, the memories of the mango pulp brought a smile to the ex-groom’s face. “Mommy, can I have some more mango pulp tomorrow? Please mommy, pretty please”, he begged. “Yes, yes, my sweet son, as long as I’m alive, you will never be denied mango pulp..”, she muttered with mutterly affection as she kissed him goodnight.

Feb

2

If tomorrow comes

February 2, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

It’s groundhog day in the United States today, a day celebrated in honor of an age-old tradition and legend, especially in a rustic cold northeastern Pennsylvania town called Punxsutawney. The celebration is centered around a woodchuck coming out of a burrow and seeing its own shadow. That tells the people if the winter weather will last longer and if the spring is just around the corner. I’ve been to Punxsutawney a few times, and that is just one of the reasons why I love Hollywood’s version of the Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is about a TV weatherman who finds himself in a place he doesn’t much like, life really sucks, and the same day keeps repeating no matter how many day-night cycles go by.

I’ve often wondered if that feeling of the same day repeating day in day out, prevails in the rustic but a lot warmer backyards on the eastern side of the globe. I doubt if the days are different for the farmers of western Maharashtra, many of whom have chosen to take their own life to end nightmarish lives laden with debt and destitution. I doubt if tomorrow is ever different for brave souls who patrol India’s dangerous borders, never knowing where the terrorist might strike, often falling victims to unprovoked wanton aggression from across the border. I’m quite certain that the day still repeats for the straphangers of our miserable public transportation systems, the newlywed brides of the north and the northeast, and the tsunami victims of the south.

Recent figures about India’s dragging literacy rate indicate that there will not be a better tomorrow anytime soon for a third of our population who cannot yet read or write. Recent republic day honors tell us that our government nowadays appreciates those with billions more than those without - perhaps an indication of our changing values and traditions. Recent RTP ratings for our media tell us that publicity, not hard work, is what it takes to reach the pinnacle of artistic success, shaking the age-old dictum that hard work alone can bring a better tomorrow.

For me personally, a year of blogging day in day out, has been an unforgettable and a humbling experience that I would not trade for anything. Like Bill Murray’s weatherman Phil in ‘Groundhog Day’, I still think I could be in a better place doing better things in a better tomorrow. Until that tomorrow comes however, I will do my best to keep my word about blogging for those who can’t because they can’t.

Jan

19

The coward bystanders

January 19, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

pu·sil·lan·i·mous
- lacking courage or resolution; cowardly

The recent string of molestation news in India, starting with the new year eve’s public molestation incidence to the everyday news of tourists being molested here and there, belies the statistical fact that this has always been a problem for Indian women. The statistic from the National Crime Reporting Bureau shows that there isn’t even any data for such crimes before 1994, and during recent years, the nuber of officially reported molestation cases have ballooned to about 36000 per year. That translates to about 100 reported or known molestation cases in the country every single day.

Now, for every such reported case of molestation, there are surely many more that go unreported. And even for those that are reported, a ridiculously low number actually gets seriously pursued by the police and even a lesser number fetch any convictions. The new year eve’s public molestation of two non-resident Indian women by 60-70 people, caught everyone’s attention, made headline news, seemingly woke up the sleeping politicians and the police, and became the talk of India’s tinseltown for days. Now, only a few weeks later, all seems to have been forgotten and the perpetrators are free and busy ogling the rest of Mumbai’s womenfolk.

The catalyst that is absent from this extinguishing fire is the public’s interest. With all the news about Cricket and Bollywood and politics and Bharat Ratna awards, women’s molestations is sure to take a backseat. But what is even more alarming is the complete apathy shown by witnesses, onlookers and passers-by who passing on a chance to become good samaritans, proactively choose to turn their heads away.

In one of his earlier Socratic dialogs known as ‘Laches’, Plato, the famous Greek philosopher discusses the virtue of courage. He illustrates the thinking pattern of an individual soldier when that soldier stands on the frontlines of the battle, facing an enemy line. If the enemy forces appear too strong, the soldier might choose to flee, since there is no point in fighting a big enemy and one would surely lose the battle. If the enemy forces appear to be too weak, the soldier still chooses to walk away, thinking that his colleagues can easily take care of such a weak enemy and his help is really unnecessary. If all the soldiers on one side think like this and walk away from the battle, the enemy has already won.

India’s public, in the matter of crimes against women, seems to taken after that Plato-Socratic soldier. Often times, many of us witness crimes that we could report and register and help the justice system. But thinking that there are others who will do it anyways, we walk away from doing that one right thing which could bring much-needed justice to a battered soul.

Sep

23

The dowry gazette - September 23

September 23, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

On September 19th, in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, a bride and her family chased a groom away from the marriage ceremony and beat him up when the increasing dowry demands from the groom and his family finally ended to their patience.

On September 14th, Rekha Lodh (28) of Lucknow, was burnt to death by her husband Chhatrapal and his brother. Rekha was being harassed by her husband and his family for last 5 years. Initially the murder was made to loook like an accidental fire, but subsequent investigation revealed the murder plot.

On September 8, Dinanath, a central police force jawan from Kolkata was arrested for strangling his wife Jayashri (28) to death and later dumping her body on the street. Dinanath had a history of torturing his wife for dowry and had tried to murder her before as well.

In what can be called a reverse dowry, a new website has been advertising young brides for sale asking for money from willing and would-be grooms. Marry our daughter has posts of young brides on sale. (The US laws legally allow girls younger than 18 (most states except Nebraska and Mississippi) to marry with parental consent). Within its first few days on the net, the site has evoked tremendous anger and outrage everywhere. India’s grooms would know how it feels to be advertised for sale, as year after year, educated eligible bachelors put themselves up for sale for new cars, TVs, two-wheelers, and gold.

Sep

5

The dowry gazette - September 5, 2007

September 5, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

Yesterday, 30-year old Sarita from Muzaffarnagar was burnt to death by her husband and in-laws when she could not bring the one-lakh Rupee dowry that her husband’s family deamnded of her.

On August 26th, protesters belonging to several NGOs rallied in New Delhi, to focus on what they called the ‘discriminatory domestic violence’ laws in the Indian Penal Code. They contended, that in many cases, the wives falsely implicate husbands to extort money from them.

3 weeks ago, Prakash Rout of Orissa was killed by his own family when he opposed their dowry demands from his wife Pravasini.

Also 3 weeks ago, 22-year old Fatima from Mysore was forced by her husband to drink acid mixed with alcohol. Her face is now 90% burnt and she is fighting for her life in a Mysore hospital.

In Krishnanagar, West Bengal, this week, a 5-months pregnant woman has alleged that her software engineer husband of her one-week old marriage has left her for another woman since the other woman’s family offered him a hefty dowry.

On August 28th, Indian-American author Shobhan Bantwal published her first novel - ‘The Dowry Bride’, based on the age-old practice of dowry in her motherland India.

Aug

4

The dowry gazette - August 4, 2007

August 4, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Last midnight, Sunita De (31) of Kolkata, was found hanging from the ceiling in her home in Salt Lake, Kolkata. Her mother has alleged that she was being tortured for dowry by her husband and his family. The police have arrested husband Sandeep De, his parents and his sister.

On July 29th, India’s minister for Human Resources had a dowry case filed against him, his son and practically his whole family by the father of his granddaughter-in-law. Speaking to reporters, Arjun Singh later distanced himself from the dowry charges contending that he stayed away from family matters.

On July 27th, Anuradha Lal (27) of Mohali, Punjab, took her own life by pouring kerosene over her body and setting herself on fire at her parents’ house. In her suicide note, she blamed her husband and her in-laws for torturing and harassing her for dowry.

On July 18th, Deepa Kuriel of Kanpur filed a case against her husband Abhinay, his parents and his minor brothers aged 4 and 8 for an attempt to set her on fire since she couldn’t pay a dowry of Rs 50000. The minor brothers-in-law have been accused of pouring kerosene over their sister-in-law at the behest of the rest of the family members.

Bangalore, India’s IT capital, reports about 3 dowry deaths per day, and about 100 per month. Donna Fernandes of Vimochana, an NGO working with victims of domestic violence, says that hundreds of more cases go unreported every month.

The night of July 22nd, Dayawati Verma (25) of Surat, Gujarat was found strangulated to death. Her husband Surendra is absconding. For last several months, Surendra had been demanding a motorcycle from Dayawati’s parents and was upset that they were delaying the dowry.

On July 4th, Puja Chauhan (22) stripped to her undergarments and walked through the city of Rajkot to protest her torture and harassment at the hands of her husband and in-laws.

On July 13th, Jyoti Mali (15) of Kolkata was rat-poisoned by her common-law husband Parmalal Khatik (45). Parmalal had kidnapped and raped Jyoti for seven days four months ago, but her parents and the police brokered a live-in arrangement with Parmala and his first wife who eventually tortured and harassed young Jyoti for money.

Rewinding to the last case again. Folks, the police at the Girish Park police station in Kolkata brokered a live-in arrangement between a 15-year old kidnapping/rape victim and her 45-yera old kidnapper and rapist. The live-in arrangement basically officialised the kidnapping/rape and eventual torture of the 15-year old. Kudos to their middlemanship and peace-brokering skills, because 15-year old Jyoti is now DEAD!

On July 25th, Pratibha Patil became India’s first woman president. Speaking to the media on her election to the top spot, she commented that her becoming president was truly an honor for India’s women. “..Sixty years after Independence, a woman will be in Rashtrapati Bhavan (India’s Presidential palace)” she said.

Jul

30

Arjun Singh, the union minister for Human Resource and Development is now caught smack in the middle of his own hypocrisy. The government’s most vocal proponent of reservations for backward classes and reparations for age-old ancestral castisms, the minister is now ‘distancing himself’ from a dowry scandal in his own family.

Madhvendra Singh, the father of Arjun SIngh’s granddaughter-in-law Priyanka, has files a case against Singh and his whole family for allegedly harassing the granddaughter-in-law for a dowry of a mercedes car and an apartment.

What did Arjun Singh have to say to that? “I have nothing to do with it. My opinion was sidelined at the wedding,”, said Arjun Singh.

That’s very, very convenient Mr. Singh.

For all those thousands of years that the downtrodden of this country faced injustice and unfair treatments, my ancestors had nothing to do with that either. More so, I myself had nothing to do with it. In fact, the opinions of my ancestors or my own for that matter, did not even matter. So why the heck do I have to account for the sins of people who were not even my fathers or forefathers?

And you, Mr. Singh, try to distance yourself from something that you apparently admit your own son and your own family to be guilty of. Why don’t you face the situation and reserve some sympathy for your own granddaughter-in-law and her family? Why don’t you open up your own quota of open heart and goodwill? Why don’t you distance yourself from this hypocrisy and show some fairness to the Indian public?

I, hereby distance myself from the reservation and quota policies of this government. I further distance myself from Arjun Singh, the minister for human resources. Not just me, but my father and his father and even his father had nothing to do with the caste system. They were poor souls who worked hard to bring bread and butter to the table. They did not offend any untouchables. They did not take food away from anybody. They did not lynch anybody. They didn’t ask anybody for a mercedes car or an apartment. They did not take any dowry from their daughters-in-law. So, once again, let the record books show that I had nothing to do with it. My family had nothing to do with it.

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