Essays

There is no doubt that now India has turned from a food deficit state into a food surplus state. India has a strong industrial base. India has large resources of foreign exchange. India is the largest producer of milk in the world.

In spite of this, the poor people's lot is miserable. The fact is that most of the national wealth is Just in a few hands. The real prosperity has gone only to the industrial and business rich at the top who get loans of crores of rupees from banks and forget to repay the capital as well as the interest.

A vast population of India still sleeps on the pavements. The poor have to go without food even. There is no proper arrangement for drinking water, sewerage, healthcare, education, employment and housing for the poor. A number of schemes in various fields have, no doubt, been started. But red-tapism and corruption torpedo even the well-intentioned schemes.

Although the percentage of the poor is decreasing, yet their total number is increasing. It is because of the rapid increase in population which is one of the most crucial factors in the matter of perpetuity of poverty in India.

It is to be noted that many people in India, particularly the poor low income illiterate people do not believe in the population control system and family welfare programmes being pursued at national level.

They think that the more members they have in the family, the more hands and earning capacity they have. They forget that each pair of hands brings a mouth and a stomach to feed also. They should be given education and taught to limit their families.

We know that so many great literary figures like Goldsmith, Charles Lamle, John Keats, Bronte sisters, etc., though famous in the history of English literature, could not reach the pinnacle of glory, at least not in their life, mainly because of poverty. And when any of them got success in their own life, it was on a limited scale and not as grand as it would have been had they been rich.

Unfortunately, poverty dehumanizes a man and drives him to the thoughts of bondage and slavery. Such a man cannot appreciate or understand the real value of freedom. We daily read about suicides by workers, petty shopkeepers and farmers due to poverty.

Sometimes, even a brilliant man who has been ignored by all concerned can feel the burden of life too heavy and feel frustrated and longing to meet death.

Poverty is mainly responsible for the low quality of life most of the Indians are enjoying at present.

Dowry implies cash, jeweler and household and other goods given to the bride at the time of marriage.

In ancient times, this dowry system was probably started by some people to enable the young boy and girl to start a new household without any inconvenience. It was perhaps believed that when the boy's parents had to do a lot to make their son stand on his own legs in Business or some service, there was nothing wrong if the girl's parents also put in their mite to help the young couple to start their journey on the path of the world.

There was nothing wrong with such kind of line of thought so far as it went. Of course, it is as much the duty of the girl's parents to help the couple to start their new home as that of the boy's parents. But in such a line of thought there does not seem to be any element of compulsion or obligation.

Here there is a question of doing one's duty only, and the girl's parents could provide the goods and necessities according to their capacity, resources, circumstances and will.

Moreover, it should be noted that the girl's parents rear the girl according to their resources with utmost love and affection. They provide her education and means of good health and life. On all this, they spend a lot.

Still, the main question is not that of expenditure, it is to be understood that the girl after her marriage has to live in her in-laws' house and according to the arrangements made by them.

Hereafter, she becomes a part of their households a member of the family. She is supposed to promote their cause as that is also her own home now onwards. She has to adjust and adapt herself according to the atmosphere in the new house.

Keeping all this in mind, why should the girl be a liability on her parents? Why should it be obligatory on their part to provide their girl with so much cash and  jewellary and so many items of necessity and luxury when she is going away to become a part of a new family about which she often doesn't know much and the new world is almost entirely shrouded in mystery for her?

This does not mean that the girl or her parents are not or are supposed not to be attached to each other. On the other hand, the parents love their daughters as much as their sons. At least, this is so in homes the members of which are enlightened.

There may be some rare families in which there is discrimination against girls. And it is an immensely acknowledged fact that girls go on loving their parents even more than their brothers do all their lives.

When we realize the significance of family love, affection and devotion and the spirit of mutual sacrifice and self-effacement, we cannot ignore the fact that no parents would like to send their daughters empty-handed at the time of their marriage.

Instead, they would certainly like to load them with gifts whatever they can reasonably afford and which they think will be useful to the girl and will be liked by her husband and inlaws.

This giving of gifts to their daughters at the time of their marriage is prevalent in all communities and societies even western countries. Even the Supreme Court of India has allowed these gifts at the time of marriage to a certain extent.

As already stated, there was no compulsion in the matter of giving such gifts to their daughters or sons-in-law. It depended on one's own will, pleasure, convenience and resourcefulness, and there was never or hardly ever any resentment on the question of a gift being insignificant or below the expectation of the son-in-law or other members in the family of the in-laws.

The father-in-law and the mother-in-law of the bride almost always treated her as their own daughter and nobody ever taunted or rebuked her for bringing less or useless dowry. Nobody ever looked a gift horse in-the mouth.

As times passed and the world became more and more materialistic and man's lust for wealth and power and love of luxuries increased, the son's parents and other members of the family began to expect more and more from the girl's side as dowry.

In the middle ages, the dowry system started assuming alarming proportions, though still not quite pronouncedly. For instance, in the now defunct Vijayanagar Empire in south India, dowry system is said to be a bane of enormous dimensions.

The most obnoxious thing is that the boy’s parents now make hefty demands which are sometimes beyond the resources of the girl's parents. Car, air conditioner, refrigerator, desert cooler, TV set, computer, scooter, and all such and other items besides a big amount of money in cash, lands and jewellery are demanded.

The poor girl's parents have to beg for loans or mortgage their houses or sell some property to fulfill the demands of the boy's greedy parents and eiders.

There is virtually the sale of boys in the market. The girl's merits and high education are all ignored or taken lightly and Mamon-worship plays the major role in this horrid drama.

Even after meeting almost all the demands of the greedy in-laws, the girl has to take note of new demands and meet them expeditiously or else, if her parents are unable or unwilling to play the second fiddle, the poor creature must accept regular taunts and torture from various members of her in-laws' family and be ready to commit suicide or to be burnt alive by the heartless mother-in-law with collaboration or connivance or complicity of some or other members in the family and sometimes even her adorable husband.

How can such greedy people understand the meaning of the rights or empowerment of women unless some stringent laws are passed? to give exemplary punishments to the cruel recalcitrant’s and violators of sacred human rights? Such people make a frontal attack on women's rights and female dignity and should not be let off scot-free in any manner.

No doubt, we have a number of laws both at the state and union levels to deal effectively with the dowry-seekers; But almost daily we hear about dowry {deaths and tortures, and these laws either have no teeth or are not properly and universally implemented.

Those who have some links at higher levels can manage to escape all the tentacles of laws and roam freely on the streets even after causing the death of the poor girls who come to their house to become a part and parcel of it.

Of course, law alone cannot solve this problem. Much depends upon the people themselves. It is essential that dowry system should be condemned in school courses and young boys should take a vow that they would never demand dowry. They should try to convince their elders that dowry is only a primitive institution, the main thing now being the girl's merits.

                Similarly, the girls should take a vow that they would not marry a dowry seeker at any cost. There should be a far-spread campaign over the TV, on the cinema screen and in the newspaper sand magazines against this menace.

Seminars and functions should be held to convey to the people the dangers of this system. Such a campaign should not be limited to urban areas only. The youth themselves should go to the rural areas to spread the message against dowry system.