What Twisha Told Us

Why do parents tell daughters to adjust to dowry demands or cruelty?

Three cases, last week, burst the bubble, yet again, for many who assumed India’s getting ahead of its most regressive practice – dowry. How wrong were they! Supreme Court will hear today, suo moto, Twisha Sharma’s case, the young woman, whose ‘death’ in MP is less marked by grief, and more by murky allegations and slander exchanged between Twisha’s marital and parental families.

The other two cases, in UP and MP again, and the approx 16 daily dowry deaths in India, speak just one truth. That women’s security, or empowerment, is not a sum of parts, which are markers of progress or modernity. Their education/professional achievements, financial security or prosperity, social profile, access to healthcare, awareness of rights, none of this helped in the face of dowry demands, harassment, micro-aggressions, mental and physical torture, murder. Women risk all of this as part of the marriage pact between two families, tragically, even in ‘love’ marriages. No role, perhaps, bears as much burden as the young ‘bahu’, trained and conditioned from childhood, dangerously, to ‘adjust’. It’s what endangers their lives.

What are parents thinking when they turn away when a daughter communicates fear for her life? Indians, and govts, gloat about girls’ achievements of schooling, college enrolment. Women’s safety is such a talking point today. But what about when that ‘safety’ is missing within the family? Who is turning away when the married woman in her 20s-40s, seeks help? Dowry is near normalised, despite being illegal for decades, especially in northern states – UP, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, MP, but growing across India.

Studies of modern dowry practices, from researchers in BHU and Azim Premji Univ, for example, show dowry deaths are underreported, that dowry harassment, and cruelty come to light often after the woman’s death – the victim reduced to a tool of extraction/transaction between two families. Incidence of dowry harassment (1.2L per NCRB 2024) and reporting is up, showing law’s being used. But anti-dowry legislation is only as good as its implementation. 87% of cases end in chargesheets. Courts are sitting on 90% pendency. Acquittals in dowry deaths, over 50%, outnumber convictions. Sector experts say ‘suicide’ is becoming what ‘bride-burning’ was in 1980s-1990s; abetment is notorious to prove. Another chilling stat – 47% of all convictions in ‘crimes against women’ were of those accused of dowry harassment. In-family cruelty is real. Financial coercion knows no economic strata. Dowry remains the single biggest source of harm to women’s lives. Why can’t bahus who feel threatened walk out from a dangerous marital home? That’s a question for brides’ parents. And cops. And govts.