Reverence or Hypocrisy? Confronting India’s Dowry Paradox

 

Reverence or Hypocrisy? Confronting India’s Dowry Paradox

Few words carry as much weight as woman and mother. They evoke respect, love, and devotion. In India, the mother is often revered above even God. Yet this reverence is tragically selective. It is lavished on one’s own mother, but too often denied to other women — sometimes even to the mother of one’s own children. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in the practice of dowry.

Dowry has been outlawed since 1961, but the law remains a hollow promise. Across villages, towns, and even metropolitan cities, dowry persists as a “custom” cloaked in tradition. Cash, jewellery, automobiles, and household appliances change hands as if marriage were a transaction. Illiteracy may perpetuate this practice, but education has not eradicated it; even “modern” households indulge in this regressive exchange.

The cruelty lies not only in the transaction but in its consequences. Women who cannot meet dowry demands are subjected to humiliation, violence, and abuse — often at the hands of husbands and in-laws, sometimes even other women. Their own families hesitate to intervene, shackled by outdated notions of inferiority as parents of a girl child. Once married, a daughter is treated as a stranger in her own home. Returning to her mayka (parental house) is frowned upon, and society enforces taboos so absurd that a father is discouraged from even drinking a glass of water at his daughter’s marital home.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, more than 6,000 dowry-related deaths are recorded annually. The National Commission for Women’s 2024 complaint data adds further urgency: 4,383 cases of dowry harassment (17% of total complaints) and 292 cases of dowry deaths were reported. Alarmingly, over 60% of dowry murders occurred in West Bengal, Odisha, and Bihar. Among India’s 19 major cities, Delhi alone accounted for 30% of all dowry death cases, with other high-reporting cities including Kanpur, Bengaluru, Lucknow, and Patna. These figures underscore that the problem is not confined to rural areas but is deeply entrenched across urban India as well.

This is present-day India — a nation touted as the world’s fourth-largest economy and an emerging superpower — yet such atrocities persist. Indians have become desensitized. Many still consider domestic violence a private matter, and many continue to view the wife as her husband’s property. How can this be called reverence for women? It is sheer hypocrisy. A society that worships the mother while degrading women betrays its own values.

To honour women truly, India must confront the dowry system not as a tradition but as a crime. Respect cannot be selective. Love cannot be conditional. Reverence must extend beyond ritual to reality. The government must take strict action against perpetrators of such hateful crimes. Laws alone are insufficient; prompt investigation and strict punishment are essential deterrents.

Society, too, must awaken. Turning a blind eye to the tragedy in a neighbour’s home erodes the moral right to demand justice when it strikes one’s own. Fathers must raise daughters to be strong women, ready to fight for their rights and dignity. They must show the world that they will never remain silent if their daughters are attacked or humiliated. Above all, daughters must know that their father’s home will always be a refuge — a place of safety, dignity, and unconditional love.

It must also be acknowledged that several prominent voices from the Bollywood film industry — including Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Anushka Sharma, Varun Dhawan, and Kangana Ranaut — have spoken against this social ill. Yet this is not enough. More influential personalities, across cinema, sports, politics, and business, must unite to amplify the message. Their collective voice can pressure the government to act decisively and inspire society to finally recognize dowry for what it is: a crime, not a custom.

Institutional Integrity and the Larger Hypocrisy

However, one must also question the integrity and honesty of a government that time and again appears more protective of the rights of its party members or supporters who stand accused — and even convicted — of heinous crimes. Equally troubling is the role of the judiciary, which can so conveniently grant furlough to convicted political leaders like Baba Ram Rahim close to elections, or bail to a convicted rapist and murderer like Kuldeep Sengar on tenuous grounds. When the highest court of the land and the ruling government are perceived to side with the accused rather than consider the trauma faced by victims, how can justice deter future crimes — especially when the perpetrators are people of power?

Closing Note

India cannot claim to honour women while tolerating practices and institutions that dehumanize them. Reverence without justice is hypocrisy. Until dowry and the broader culture of impunity are eradicated not just in law but in lived reality, the worship of the mother will remain a hollow ritual, masking a society complicit in cruelty.