When it comes to dowry crimes, we may as well be living in the 1970s or ’80s, given the sickening regularity with which they persist in the curtained nooks and crannies of India’s homes today. Those who remember the feminist activism of the 1980s will also remember the sense of hope that a clear articulation of the issue and targeted action would end such crimes. Such optimism has, of course, long been belied.

The only difference between yesteryear and today is that six decades ago there was public outrage, countrywide street protests, demands for parliamentary inquiry and an enactment of legal instruments. Families of the women murdered over dowry were unrelenting in their fight for justice, with lion-hearted mothers like Satyarani Chadha even sitting on the steps of the Supreme Court, contesting the claim that her daughter’s death was an “accident.” As for the Supreme Court judges, many of them went the extra mile to deliver verdicts that reflected not just the letter but also the spirit of the law. 

In keeping with that spirit of resistance, the media gaze on dowry crimes was constant and unrelenting. Newspaper investigations established what the activists were claiming: that mysterious burn injuries suffered by newly married women were not from faulty stoves, rather a result of egregious social mores. Statements made by once living, thriving women, who were now on their death beds, occupied the front pages.

Today, there is far more vacillation in the evidence as families continue to “adjust” to such realities, while asking their threatened daughters to do the same. Recently, we even saw a case of such “adjustment” taking place after the dowry murder was committed. The family of a woman, who died in a fire at home, dropped all charges after what the press described as a “panchayat-mediated settlement” with her husband’s family, including promises to transfer property to the woman’s children.

The role of the panchayat in this “deal-making” is completely in sync with the three conspicuous societal transformations we are observing today.

One, the rise of a spurious, religion-fuelled spiritualism. The doctrine of Manu Smriti enjoins a woman (no matter if she holds a PhD degree) to accept the family’s natural suzerainty over her: marriage only meaning a transfer of this custody from the natal to the marital home. The acceptance of this doctrine is so total, that law officers of the Government of India argue before receptive courts against outlawing marital rape, claiming the move would “destroy the family system.” 

Two, the wolf began to cry wolf – men facing judicial action for dowry crimes took to playing the victim card to undermine the legislative gains made by the gender movement in India. “Rampant misuse of the dowry law” became their anthem, as they called for repealing protections like Section 498(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (which now falls under Section 85 and 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), gained through decades-long feminist struggle. Successive judicial verdicts, on this supposed “rampant misuse,” saw the protection diluted and made bailable.

Jhuma Sen and Asmita Basu, in their article “Curator’s Note – Backlash: The law’s betrayal of feminist gains,” put it well:

What we witness today is not just resistance, but an orchestrated backlash that seeks to erase the very legitimacy of feminist legal discourse. A particularly dangerous strand of backlash has emerged from the co-opting of rights language by dominant groups to claim victimhood. 

What we witness today is not just resistance, but an orchestrated backlash that seeks to erase the very legitimacy of feminist legal discourse. A particularly dangerous strand of backlash has emerged from the co-opting of rights language by dominant groups to claim victimhood. 

Three, the marketisation of marriage. Last November, the Kotak Mutual Funds carried an interesting piece on rising marriage outlays, more in the spirit of encouraging the trend rather than critiquing it. It termed the 45-day peak of the marriage season every year, when an average of over 100,000 daily weddings take place, as “one of the most intense, concentrated bursts of economic activity on Earth.” The period brings in an estimated Rs 6-6.5 lakh crore (approximately $78 billion) into the Indian economy. The piece also decoded Indian families, with one analyst claiming they spend “twice as much on a single wedding as they do on 18 years of their child’s education.” For some, it could be 20% of their entire lifetime earnings. 

Everybody is invited. The media can even celebrate and whisper “hardik shubhkamnaye (heartfelt greetings)” into the couple’s ears, considering the advertising moolah entailed. Not wanting to unsettle the cash cow could be a major reason why reporting on dowry has seen a distinct decline. There have been sophisticated analyses of this phenomenon. A popular argument is that intensive coverage of dowry crimes, at one stage, provoked backlash. Major media houses like the The Times of India, which tends to look at its readers as fungible assets, argued that people needed to be protected from........

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