Opinion | Sixty-year-old Practice India’s Incomplete Battle Against Dowry

The Dowry Prohibition Act was introduced in the Indian parliament way back in 1961. This means that it is older than the current Indian population, and it is even older than the green revolution and the introduction of color TV in Indian homes. The practice of dowry is a practice that has survived six decades of existence despite all the efforts made by the act to eliminate it. Dowry is still practiced in weddings held all over India, from small town weddings to those held in urban settings. These weddings are still marked by the practice of exchanging gifts including gold, money, and cars among others.

The reason why dowry continues to remain such a persistent phenomenon is precisely because it has evolved rather than gone away. Directly expressed demands , something which used to happen quite openly in matchmaking meetings, have gotten quite rare among well-educated urban populations, both as a result of actual social evolution and also as a consequence of the legal implications that attach themselves to dowry harassment. In place of direct demand, however, comes a softer kind of expectation conveyed through subtle hints or by comparing oneself to others and what they did, or simply assuming what a “decent” marriage would entail. Indian brides continue to be under a tacit pressure to leave their parents’ home with jewelry, furniture, appliances, maybe even a car, all couched in terms of free-will generosity.

The human cost of this practice has been documented extensively by both government data and independent research over decades. National Crime Records Bureau statistics have consistently recorded thousands of dowry-related death cases annually across India, a category that includes both what the law defines as dowry deaths under Section 304B and related harassment cases. These numbers, grim as they are, almost certainly understate the true scale of the problem, since many cases of domestic harassment tied to dowry disputes never reach police records, resolved instead through informal family mediation, silence, or the victim’s own reluctance to escalate a matter that could fracture both her marital and natal family relationships simultaneously.

However, Kashmir has also been susceptible to this trend, despite the fact that the regional culture is one which is perceived, perhaps wrongly, by the locals to be more tolerant than other regions in India when it comes to such dowry practices. From speaking to some local lawyers and social workers, one is bound to realize that in Kashmir, too, there are dowry disputes that take place regularly within the family courts and police stations, most of them revolving around the issue of jewelry received at the time of marriage, and whether it should be returned after divorce or marital discord.

Economic anxiety among families raising daughters is one of the clearest drivers keeping this practice alive despite its illegality. Parents who have internalised, often across generations, the belief that a daughter’s marriage prospects depend partly on what the family can offer continue to save specifically for this purpose, sometimes from the moment a daughter is born. This anticipatory saving shapes household financial decisions in ways that go well beyond the wedding day itself, delayed home renovations, reduced investment in the daughter’s own higher education in some more conservative households, a general framing of daughters as a future financial obligation rather than an asset in their own right. Public health researchers examining India’s skewed sex ratio at birth have pointed to dowry-related economic anxiety as one contributing factor among several, alongside broader preferences for male children rooted in inheritance and old-age support expectations.

Legal reform has tried repeatedly to close gaps that allow dowry practices to continue under cover of legality. Amendments strengthened the original 1961 Act over subsequent decades, and the criminal justice system now treats dowry harassment and dowry deaths as serious offences carrying substantial penalties. Yet enforcement remains inconsistent, and legal experts have long noted a genuine tension within the system: provisions meant to protect women from dowry harassment, particularly Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code dealing with cruelty by husband or relatives, have occasionally been misused in matrimonial disputes unrelated to dowry itself, a concern the Supreme Court has addressed in various judgments over the years while affirming the underlying protective intent of the law. This complexity means dowry reform cannot simply be a matter of harsher punishment; it requires better investigation, more consistent enforcement, and social change that reduces the underlying demand rather than just penalising its expression after harm has occurred.

Where social change has occurred, it has largely been the result of changing economic conditions and attitudes among younger, more educated Indians rather than through the legal deterrence method. Indian couples who decide to marry on their own accord, which has become more common practice in urban India, claim that they negotiate the marriage contract in a manner much less subservient to dowry conventions than those whose marriages were brokered through the intervention of extended family members. Women who have gained education prior to marriage and therefore have financial independence prior to marriage are able to resist or defy the practice of dowries in ways that earlier generations of women could not. Communities and religious groups across the nation have started holding mass weddings and campaigns against the dowry system based on the ideal of a dowry-free marriage.

A realistic evaluation of dowry in India sixty years after the legislation is that it has been forced underground and mellowed in its overt forms, but not ended. The prohibition has indeed established an unacceptable minimum standard that has made a real difference, especially in the legal framework available to victims of dowry abuse which had not existed prior to 1961. However, law alone could never undo the practice in such intimate connection with economic concerns, social standing, and ingrained beliefs about a daughter’s position in the marriage market. This, when it occurs, happens slowly and haltingly through economic independence and education, among other factors.

mdmuslimbhat@gmail.com