origins of dowry

[Guest guest]

Namaskar Mitra,

 

Dowry is very much in the news again so here is an interview with historian

Veena Talwar author of "Dowry Murder:The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime"

as appeared on 31/1/03 in the Times of India, quoted verbatim, super so please

read. Please note that the Portuguese queen, Catherine of Braganza, who married

King Charles I in 1661, brought the fishing villages of Bombay as part of her

dowry and transformed British fortunes in western India.

Q. You blame the British for the accentuation of the dowry problem.

A. Prior to the arrival of the British in India, land was not seen as a

commodity which could be bought and sold. Notionally, the land belonged to the

king and no one could be evicted from it. kings showed concern for the

peasantry and, when required, were prepared to live more frugally. Ranjit

Singh, for instance, waived tax collections for a year, to compensate for lack

of rains. The produce of the land was meanwhile shared by all the villagers.

Putting landed property exclusively in male hands, and holding the latter

responsible for the payment of revenue had the effect of making the Indian male

the dominant legal subject. The British further instead that the peasants pay

revenue twice a year on a fixed date. Inability to pay would result in the land

being auctioned off by the government. As a result, peasant were forced, during

a bad year, to use their land as collateral to borrow from the money lender, in

order to pay taxes. Chronic indebtedness, instance, became the fate of a large

number of peasants who possessed small holding in Punjab. The British resolve

to rationalise and modernise the revenue was particulary hard on women. From

being co-partners in pre-colonial landholding arrangement, they found

themselves denied all access to economic resources, turning them into

dependents. In the event they faced martial problems, they were left with no

legal entitlements whatsoever.

Q. Basically what you are saying is that the entire economy became ‘masculine’.

A. Precisely. This was one of the key factors that made male children more

desirable. Also, the increasing recruitment of Punjabi peasants into the army

saw more and more families practise selective female infanticide. The newly

enhanced worth of sons saw families demand cash, jewellery or expensive

consumer durables at the time of marriage. The situation has steadily worsened

since then but rather than calling it ‘dowry problem’, we should call it the

problem of paying,’ groom price’.

The pre-colonial logic for female infanticide was unwittingly strengthened by

imperial and land-ownership policies even though the British outlawed the

practice in 1870. The British charged heavy fines and apprehended and

imprisoned culprits perpetuating such a crime. They did not however think it

worth their while to examine the social effects of their own methods of

governance that led to an intensification of these problems.

Q. Are you trying to say there was no practice of dowry before the British arrived in India?

A. No, I am not saying that, Dowry, or dahej as it is called in Hindi, has today

become a convenient peg on which to hang all explanations about discrimination

against women. But in its origins dowry was one of the few indigenous,

women-centred institutions in an overwhelmingly patriarchal and agrarian

society. Historically, it was an index of the ‘appreciation’ bestowed upon a

daughter in her natal village, and not a groom’s prerogative to make demands on

the girl’s family. The dowry-infanticide blight was used to justify the

annexation of India. Colonialism, it was claimed was a civilising mission.

Q. How did the codification of customary law affect women?

A. The problem of women worsened following the British decision to codify all

customary law. A key word like ‘local’ which meant village in customary law,

came to be transformed to mean ‘caste’ or ‘tribe.’ This shift in terminology

had implications for women, since they were now seen to belong to patriarchal

lineage rather than localities. The whole attempt was to translate social and

customary practice, which was flexible, into legal codes from which women were

excluded.

Even more significant was the act that colonial administration replaced the

indigenous version of democracy in which villagers had representatives with

mechanisms of direct control. The British courts replaced the authority of the

village panchayat with the patwari-the man who kept village records-by making

him a paid employee of the state. This conferred enormous powers on someone who

was earlier seen as a servant of the farmers.

Q. Why has modern, independent India failed to get rid of the problem of dowry?

A. We haven’t realised that making a dowry demand is a cultural oxymoron that

bears no resemblance to the historical meaning and practice of this

institution. Dowry demand must be tread on a par with crimes such as blackmail,

extortion or insurance fraud. Instead, they are put in the straitjacket of a

dowry case. No wonder the law takes no note of the pain and psychological

trauma that a woman suffers in a failed marriage. In other words, we will not

be in a position to address the problem of dowry unless the state begins to

take a wholly different view of it.

END OF MATTER.

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