Shield or Weapon? The Abuse of India’s Dowry Laws
By Isra Syed, From Volume 2, Issue 2
n recent years, India has been on the minds of many people—common
associations are burgeoning economic growth, budding political hegemony,
and rapid technological innovations. However, while the most populous
coun- try of South Asia gains momentum in the global workplace, a legal
conundrum has taken hold of the Indian home. For decades, India has been
battling the issue of dowry-related domestic violence. According to
United Nations Population Fund Report, as many as seventy percent of
married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beat-
ing, rape, or forced sex.1 One of the leading causes for such violence
is dowry harassment, a widespread and culturally entrenched phenomenon
in which the family of the groom demands a high dowry from the family of
the bride. While the causes behind dowry harassment are difficult to
pinpoint, the socially dependent status of women makes them means for
their husbands’ families to easily increasing their stand- ard of
living, while reaffirming their position of power over the woman.
Dowry harassment can take many forms, from continuously escalat- ing
demands during the arrangement of the marriage, to the verbal and
physical abuse of the bride after her wedding, to pressurizing her to
bring a bigger dowry from her family. Even as society grants more
economic freedom to women, dowry-giving continues to be a part of the
Indian way of life, and its social externalities continue to affect
women of lower economic and social standing. Every year, more than 9,500
women are killed over dowry conflicts in India.2 For years, the Indian
government has attempted to craft a productive legal policy to punish
and prevent dowry abuse cases, but to little avail.
Indian Dowry Law: A Historical Perspective
In many segments of Indian society, the practice of dowry is an age-old
tradition still practiced to this day, despite its repeal in 1961.3
Generally speaking, it is a payment from the bride’s family to the
groom’s family at the time of the ar- ranged marriage. Depending on the
salary and status of the groom, the parents of the bride give her a
number of items, such as furniture, crockery, appliances, clothing,
jewelry, or cash.4 Historically, the family of the groom demands the
dowry to be of a certain value, placing tense financial and social
strain on the family of the bride. In many cases, these demands continue
long after the wedding, and failure to comply with them degenerate into
female domestic harass- ment and abuse. Moreover, the dowry phenomenon
is largely responsible for economically incentivizing a preference for
male over female children in the family unit, creating impli- cations
such as sex-selective abortions and unbalanced sex ratios.5
In order to mitigate these results, the Indian government is- sued the
Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, which made the act of giving or receiving
dowry a crime punishable by imprison- ment or fine.6 However, the
practice of dowry, and its nega- tive social implications, did not cease
with the enactment of this new law, for a number of reasons.7 For
instance, under the law, dowry is defined as “any property or valuable
se-curity given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly by
one party to a marriage to the other par- ty to the marriage or by the
parents of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either
party to the marriage.”8 At the same time, however, the law does allow
“gifts” given to the couple outside of a dowry arrangement.9 This has
rendered the law essentially toothless and made the enforcement of the
prohibition nearly impossible. Dowry harassment continued to be
widespread.
Following a spate of dowry-related murders in 1983 in the northern part
of the country, the Indian government realized that the ineffective
prohibition on dowry was in need of fine- tuning and strengthening. It
thus introduced a new section to the Indian Penal Code in 1983, which
made the preceding dowry harassment laws more stringent, in hopes of
clamp- ing down on the dowry problem once and for all. This law,
referred to as Section 498a, made cruelty by husband or his relatives a
criminal offense by stating that “whoever being the husband or relative
of the husband of woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be
punished with the imprisonment for a term which may extend to three
years and also be liable to fine.”10
Section 498a: Shifting the Power Balance
While Section 498a appears to have made revolutionary pro- gress, the
well-intentioned law has recently become the sub- ject of countless
legal complaints, scholarly criticisms, and a nation-wide public outcry
against the commonplace abuse of the law. A large number of recent dowry
harassment cases have involved inflated, aggravated, or nonexistent al-
legations, roping in the entire family of the accused husband on
baseless criminal charges, out of vengeance or greed on the part of the
wife.11 For instance, in the year 2005, out of 58,319 cases filed under
Section 498a, 10,491 of them were charge-sheeted on grounds of
frivolity, meaning that 24,256 innocent people were arrested on
illegitimate grounds, due to the non-bailable and cognizable nature of
the law.12 Ad- ditionally, only five per cent of all 498a cases resulted
in con- victions, further suggesting a widespread trend of legal abuse
and inefficacy.13
According to Justice D.K. Jain of the Supreme Court of In- dia,
“Section 498a IPC was introduced with the avowed ob- ject to combat the
menace of dowry deaths and harassment to a woman at the hands of her
husband or his relatives. Nevertheless, the provision should not be used
as a device to achieve oblique motives.”14 The conundrum lies in
Section 498a’s loose definition of cruelty as any willful conduct likely
to cause grave injury or danger to the woman, or harassment of the
woman in order to coerce her to meet any unlawful demand.15
Several unique qualities of Section 498a make it a particu- larly
stringent law. While in almost every crime, Indian juris- prudence puts
the burden of proof on the accuser, in matters of dowry law, the husband
is seen as guilty until proven in- nocent in the eyes of the law.
Additionally, as a cognizable of- fense, once such a complaint is
registered by the victim or any of her relatives, the police are legally
obligated to take action against the accused and take them into custody
as soon as possible. The law prescribes imprisonment for a term which
may extend to three years and includes a fine.
Moreover, Section 498a’s defi- nition of cruelty is not just con- fined
to causing grave injury, bodily harm, or danger to life, limb or
physical health, but also includes harming men- tal health through
harassment and verbal abuse. This law takes particular cognizance of
harassment, where it occurs to coerce the wife, or her relatives, to
meet any unlawful demand regarding any property or val- uable
security.16 Thus, through placing the burden of proof on the accused,
criminalizing har- assment, and making the pun- ishment cognizable, the
lan- guage of the section favors the woman greatly, in the hope of
making dowry complaints ac- cessible to women who would otherwise remain
silent about their plight.
Impact and Abuse of the Law
However, in 2008, out of the 31,950 dowry death cases brought to trial,
only 1,948 resulted in convictions.17 This number is up from past years,
indicating that perhaps the new stringency is empowering more women to
bring their abusers to trial, and finally bringing familial equality to
In- dia.18 However, there is another side to the coin of the law’s
success, surrounding the law in a bout of controversy.
In recent years, Section 498a has facilitated the creation of a new
type of marriage fraud, referred to as “498a entrap- ment.” In these
instances, a woman files or threatens to file a 498a case against her
husband’s entire family when the mar- riage turns sour, thereby
blackmailing them for large sums of money and ensuring that the divorce
proceedings pass quickly through India’s generally lethargic courts.
Other times, the family of the woman plans the case long before the
marriage turns bad, accusing the husband of abuse with- in weeks after
the wedding.19 A number of men and their families have filed complaints
and counter suits in this vein, and a burgeoning “men’s rights movement”
has been at the forefront of a vocal effort to denounce the law,
creating a polarizing dialogue about the state of the Indian family.
While efforts to bring men’s rights to the center of the dowry law
debate seem disingenuous and slightly misogynistic, the large and
growing number of genuine complaints regarding 498a entrapment is
impossible to ignore. Although the num- ber of false dowry claims
against men is still overshadowed by the intensity of dowry related
crimes committed against women in India, a number of men’s rights
organizations have made it their mission to lobby for the law’s removal,
on the grounds that its ambiguous language and near-dra- conian
strictness allow for easy abuse. These concerns are valid, especially in
regards to non-resident Indians, who are disproportionately likely to
fall victim to such fraud and bear the heavy consequences.20
Conclusions
The Indian justice system is still in search of an effective way to
legally mitigate the dowry death and domestic violence is- sue that has
troubled the nation for so long. While the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961
proved completely ineffectual due to its unenforceability, the
stringency of Section 498a went too far, creating a problem of legal
abuse and uncovering a much deeper problem of gendered social tensions
and resentment within Indian society. These facts raise the fundamental
question of whether the Indian judiciary should continue to regulate the
dowry practice, or whether a new approach needs to be taken in order to
counter it.
However, in many regards, the last word on the efficacy of 498a and the
current set of dowry laws has not yet been spoken. A number of women
have been able to free them- selves from abusive relationships due to
the law’s favorable language, even though the problem of dowry deaths
un- doubtedly continues. The catalyst of the dowry death phe- nomenon is
social in nature, and under current conditions of limited law
enforcement in India, can only be eliminated through large-scale social
change. While the place of the law is surely to regulate social customs
from causing harm, in the context of Section 498a, the value of harshly
criminalizing this aspect of family law may not outweigh the great
personal damage that has come about from its abuse.
For the time being, the Supreme Court of India has prom- ised to force
the government to reassess the law.21 Until then, it can only be hoped
that the law enforcement of India miti- gates the adverse effects of
498a, while realizing its potential to keep the Indian family from
further crises.
1. Ankur Kumar, “Domestic Violence in India: Causes, Conse- quences
and Remedies,” Youth Ki Awaaz, http://www.youthkiawaaz.
com/2010/02/domestic-violence-in-india-causes-consequences-
and-remedies-2/.
2. Anudita Chaurasia, “Dowry Death”: Crime Against Humanity, Mighty
Laws, Apr 11 2011, http://www.mightylaws.in/417/dowry-
death-crime-humanity. 3. “The Dowry Prohibition Act”, Ministry of Woman
and Child De- velopment, 20 May 1961.
4. ShinghKamayani, “The Dowry System and Women in India”, Internation
Christian University Center for Gender Studies, April 2005. 5. Amelia
Gentleman, “Indian Brides Pay a High Price”, The New York Times, Oct 22
2006.
6. “Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, Maahilayog, Maharashtra Gov- ernment,
May 20th 1961. <http://mahilaayog.maharashtra.gov.in/
new/pdf/dowery-%20act.pdf> 7. Ibid, Madhu Purnima Kishwar.
8. “The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961”, Ministry of Women and Child
Development, http://wcd.nic.in/dowryprohibitionact.htm. 9. Ibid, Madhu
Purnima Kishwar. 10. “Section 498A in the Indian Penal Code”, Central
Government Act, Indian Kanoon.org, http://indiankanoon.org/doc/538436/.
11. Richa Mishra, “Section 498 IPC”, Legal Service in India, 23 April
2009.
12. “The Silent Tears of Shattered Families”, 498a.org, http://
www.498a.org/contents/Publicity/498aReport.pdf. 13. “The Silent Tears of
Shattered Families”, Ibid. 14. “IPC-498a- Harrassment or Cruelty to
Women”, The Indians Abroad,
http://www.theindiansabroad.com/tag/ipc-498a/.
15. “Section 498A: Husband or Relative of Husband of a Woman Subjecting
her to Cruelty,” VakilNo1.com, http://www.vakilno1.
com/bareacts/indianpenalcode/s498a.htm. 16. Ibid, MadhuPurnimaKishwar.
17. “Disposal of IPC Cases by Courts in 2008,” National Crime Re- cords
Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs. 18. “Disposal of IPC Cases by Courts
in 2008,” Ibid. 19. “What’s Working: 498 or MHA?”,Save Indian Family
Founda- tion. http://www.saveindianfamily.org/articles/views/984-whats-
working-498a-or-mha.html
20. “Victim of Dowry Immigration Fraud”, India West, http://
www.498a.org/contents/general/Advice%20to%20NRIs%20marry-
ing%20in%20India.pdf. 21. “Amend Dowry Law to Stop its Misuse, says SC
to Government”, August 2010, The Times of India.
22. By Yann Forget (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org_copyleft_fdl. html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
http://yulr.org/shield-or-weapon-the-abuse-of-india%E2%80%99s-dowry-laws/
and
nothing was done to ensure that she does not repeat it. Is suicide a
solution to break-ups or separation? It is absurd to assume that all
human relations will remain everlasting in this age of modernity. Women
are portrayed as victims, while men are seen as abusers. Pancholi’s
arrest is not an example of the perils of lovesick women, but more
evidence of an irresponsible police force, says Save Indian Family
Foundation (SIFF), a non-profit NGO fighting for men’s rights, gender
equality and family harmony.