Bride Burning in India kills or maims thousands of women every year!
Are Our Sisters
And Daughters
For Sale?
by Himendra Thakur
INDIA TOGETHER
September 13th, 2008
Doesn’t the love of one’s country include love for one’s countrymen?
Or is it merely a fashionable thing, patriotism merely to find pride in something but not to actually strive towards a better nation?
A country is her people. Years ago, Rabindranath Tagore summed it up as: Desh mrinmoy noi, desh chinmoy The country is not a chunk of earth: it is a saga of consciousness.
Without the conscience of our people, this consciousness will fade. We must rouse ourselves to the daily indignities that surround us.
There are a thousand places and ways we can begin loving the people of our nation, and I offer but one here. It is a journey that each of us can begin quite easily, because the victims of this malaise – dowry – are within reach, they are our mothers, sisters, friends, neighbors.
Let us begin, then, with the people whose suffering we have even ceased to notice, let alone empathize with. Let us begin with the women around us, those whose marriage through dowry we regard as normal when in fact it is apalling.
Countless brides in India are constantly under harassment in their matrimonial homes because their fathers have fallen behind in the payment of endless dowry installments, or the dowry she did bring to her husband is regarded as too meagre.
Imagine the plight of a young woman, newly wed into an unfamiliar situation, and surrounded by those she has only just met, who regard her as a means to an end, little more than a device by which to enrich themselves.
She knows only too well that a bride may be killed for lack of dowry … she too must have heard the same stories we’ve all heard … but she does not know what to do.
She may have overheard her in-laws, even her own husband, talk casually about harassing her, and sometimes contemplate even killing her!
The kind of fear that instills in a person is beyond our ability to comprehend. It isn’t even fear, it is terror.
.
.
The cruelest aspect of this menace is the role that brides’ parents play in perpetuating it.
My inquiry at the Dowry Cell of New Delhi Police Department revealed that most of the parents of the bride do not want to take their daughters back.
There is considerable social stigma in India against those parents who shelter a married daughter back in their family.
In most of the cases, parents persuade the daughter to go back to her husband’s home, that is considered to be the highest form of behavior one can learn from the old scriptures.
The alternative for the scared bride is to go to one of those government shelters. However, these shelters are controlled by unscrupulous bureaucrats and their politician bosses who are accused of taking full advantage of the helpless condition of the victims who come to the shelters.
.
.
The reputation and working condition of most of the shelters are so horrible that a bride will prefer to die at the hands of her in-laws than to move one of those “shelters”.
So, she stays in the house of her in-laws, resigned to her fate.
Then, one evening, when she is working in the kitchen, someone throws a pail of kerosene on her, and someone else throws a burning match, and she turns into a ball of flames.
Can she save herself by taking off her clothes ?
There is no time.
Petroleum products like kerosene or gasoline work very fast, aided by her own body heat.
Once that splinter is thrown, there is no more chance of life.
Perhaps this sort of recital is gruesome, and we look away.
.
We imagine that it cannot happen to anyone we know, that our education and money has raised us above these village truths.
But that isn’t so – we merely glamorize the slavery we perpetuate, and pretend to endow our daughters and sisters with “gifts”.
These aren’t dowries, we tell ourselves, this is just to help her get a good start. Conveniently, we overlook the fact that there’s more than one person getting married, we don’t ask often enough why this good start mustn’t come from both sides.
With these pretexts, we dismiss these as unimportant issues.
And as we look away, an estimated 25,000 brides are killed or maimed every year in India over dowry disputes.
Intellectuals pull out their calculator and say it is less than 0.003% of India’s population.
They slide into research mode and throw a vast array of statistics about atrocities on women in USA, UK, Pakistan, and many other countries of the world.
Foundation owners refuse to help because there are so many other problems in India like street beggars, lepers, street children, bonded laborers, etc.
.
So, the brides keep on burning.
Except, when she burns, the “problem” is one hundred percent hers, not 0.003%. She is NOT suffering from economic exploitation like bonded labor or economic deprivation like poverty :
she is instead suffering from a very complex psychological set up in the minds of most of the people, the apathy of our times, and the stench of our unwillingness to eradicate dowry.
Many intellectuals do not like to talk about this subject.
They open their speech with a presentation how India is doing very good in other fields like computers, space technology, etc., as if achievements in these fields can be used as excuses to burn the brides.
A nation that trades in its people, sells its daughters into ready bondage, what words can describe these horrors?
What kind of progress teaches us to ignore these problems, to pretend that these can never come past our doors?
One day,
our daughters too will pass into slavery,
and the jewel in our eyes will lead
the wretched life we choose to
look away from.
When will it be enough?
Himendra Thakur
June 1999
.
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Saira Liaqat, 26,
Bride Burning Links in GREEN
Where the hell is that moron Himendra Thakur now?
He spread lies around the world to collect funds. The chance of a woman getting murdered by husband or relatives in 2 times more in US than India.
There are only 1830 convictions in deaths due to DV and dowry in 2006 even when it is very easy to convict the accused.
55,000 husbands committed suicide in 2006 compared to 28000 women. The reasons for both are same.
You copy a hoax from 1999 and publish it. Now, Himendra Thakur has gone into hiding after collecting/…..
Sumanth - September 15, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
check stats at : ncrb.nic.in
Most dowry death cases are false.
Sumanth - September 15, 2008 at 9:34 pm |
Seriously? I am fourteen years old, and when I found out about this horrible tradition, it brought me to tears and I realized how sheltered I am. This is no “hoax”; these women are suffering, and live in fear. How could you, as a human being with a beating heart and a functioning mind, not try to put yourself in their shoes, to imagine the anguish they must feel? How can you possibly say that they are lying? As I said, I am only 14, and I care so passionately about this that I have decided to move to India after graduating college and try to open up my own hospital and shelter for these women. You have no soul if you don’t care.
Abigail - March 30, 2009 at 10:52 pm |
It is a hoax perpetuated by likes of himendra
parimalini bannerjee - April 1, 2009 at 6:38 pm |
the fact that you are trying to cover it up, really shows that this cruelty may never stop only a coward would set a woman on fire for any reason, what kind of a parent would send a child that they have raised to be burnt ?this tradition puts shame on your country and the rest of the world is well aware of it,cowardly parents, cowardly grooms, cowardly inlaws
manuel medeiros - February 23, 2011 at 8:45 pm |
WELL spoken brother !!!!!
marie - July 17, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I pride myself on not being a prejudiced person …with the exception
of the Eastern people….they are no
better than animals….in fact, animals have more class and morals…the way
they treat women is atrocious and make
me sick…when they come to the US, they try to bring their rudeness and
anger at American women…I wish it
could be that no more muslims can
come to the US….they are rude, not
well groomed, person hygiene is not
so good, and want their women to
be very obedient….they need to stay
in their shit hole country…
jeanie - May 4, 2011 at 4:33 pm |
These people burning
that are buring the brides
are not actually following
Muslim traditions.
Iffat - May 6, 2011 at 12:35 am
Well said,
Thank You
for pointing that
out Iffat and
Thank You for
reading 22MOON.
Rash
rashmanly - May 6, 2011 at 12:55 am
I WORKED IN INDIA IN 1988 WHERE I WITNESSED SOME THE WORST CASES “NOTED.”
THE BRITISH GOVERMENT INTERVENED TO STOP THIS-
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT CONTINUES IN THE NUMBERS IT DOES TODAY.
IT MAKES ME SICK AND SAD.
Elizabeth Dylak - June 22, 2009 at 3:03 am |
omg. this is so illigal isn’t it?
you know,
my teacher said that the cops
don’t even investigate this.
If i was one of those girls,
i would stay single forever or come to America.
seriously , that is not right,
somebody should do something about that.
ceara - August 31, 2009 at 9:08 pm |
Why aren’t those monsters
burned alive to feel the pain they
so easily inflict on those they
are suppose to cherish?
Shame on that tradition,
and on the cowards who let it happen,
the whole world is spitting on you now.
Jenny - October 14, 2009 at 6:25 am |
Well said Jenny!
I agree with you!
Rash
rashmanly - October 14, 2009 at 6:40 am |
I agree that this needs to end and I feel that
if the social reformers during the british rule
could end sati,
without proper means of communication,
we can try to end this now,
with all the means at our disposal…..
if need be,
even go to scools and colleges
and show the girls movies on this topic
and make them aware of it ………
I am sure they will all opt to join
a movement against bride burning…
But we must take it up on a war footing!!
anjali - December 5, 2009 at 5:41 am |
HOW CAN WE FIGHT TERRORISTS
FROM OUTSIDE WHEN WE HAVE THEM
IN OUR OWN HOMES ????
anjali - December 5, 2009 at 5:42 am |
Very well said Anjali.
This sick evil practice
must be stamped out forever!
Thank You for speaking up
and Thank You for reading 22MOON.
Rash
rashmanly - December 5, 2009 at 9:32 am |
WE INDIANS MUST UNITE TO PROTEST BRIDE BURNING.
AND ALSO PARENTS OF THE GIRL WHO FEAR
TURN DOWNS AND SUBMIT TO PRESSURES
SHOULD NOT DO SO.
A GIRL IS ALLOWED ONLY TO BRING GIFTS
TO HER IN-LAWS’ HOUSE NOT DOWRY.
PULL UP THE ROOTS FROM EVERY VILLAGE AND CITY,
THE CURSED TREE SHALL NEVER GROW.
HATE THE CULPRITS OF THIS SORT OF CRIMES,
MORE SO AFTER MY OWN MARRIAGE.
MY MOTHER IS DECEASED AND I HAVE NO SIBLINGS,
SO I FEEL HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO STAND STRONG
AGAINST ALL ODDS.
anindita banerjee - February 3, 2010 at 12:06 pm |
Well said Anindita,
may the world hear
your words.
Rash
rashmanly - February 4, 2010 at 3:56 am |
This needs to stop and it will stop sooon
alisha - May 31, 2010 at 10:34 pm |
WOW,
I had to do some studying
on this topic for school.
And I cant get over the fact
that this is happening EVERYDAY,
this needs to stop.
I think that it was a good move on
the goverment to stop dowry,
and I think that the grooms family
needs to stop being so greedy.
I also think men need to control
their temper and open their eyes
to what they are doing.
This is horrible I am praying it stops.
Net - May 13, 2010 at 1:34 pm |
Well said Net,
it is just so awful!!!
rashmanly - May 13, 2010 at 4:04 pm |
Wow..
I can’t say more.
I’m studying this subject for school
too and I just can’t belive that 12 women
are being burned to death every hour in India!
This HAS to stop.
It’s awful…
The men and their families has to open their eyes –
what if it were their own daughter or sister?
Anja
Anja - June 14, 2010 at 12:52 pm |
I agree Anja –
it is the worse thing ever!
rashmanly - June 14, 2010 at 7:35 pm |
I also am doing a story on this for school.
I am deeply disturbed that something
like this still continues.
These women are taking care
of their men and familys,
giving birth to their children.
To be burnt over money or possesions…
What happened to love and caring?
These men and in-laws should
be ashamed of themselves,
and burn in hell for causing
these beautiful women such pain!
Paula - November 29, 2010 at 12:14 pm |
Well said Paula.
Rash
rashmanly - November 29, 2010 at 5:24 pm |
just Awful
mahesh - May 4, 2011 at 5:22 pm |
This is horrible
I can’t believe it this is pure evil
I pray that they would come
to their senses and stop this madness.
Jason - May 6, 2011 at 3:18 pm |
I agree with you Jason.
I did not know about
Bride Burning until I
accidently ran across a story
printed in Russia after I started
this website.
It hurt me so deeply,
and my site focus
took a giant shift –
I had no choice.
A large direction of my focus
shifted then to Bride Burning,
Acid Attacks, Honor Killing
which I cover on 22moon.
Thank You for caring Jason
and Thank You for reading
22moon!
Rash
rashmanly - May 8, 2011 at 2:13 am |
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rashmanly - May 21, 2011 at 8:49 am |
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Cam Jobs - June 3, 2011 at 9:15 pm |
For sure,
I’m doing an ongoing
series about Bride Burning
that will never end until
it does.
I’ll be doing more
on it very soon,
the photos I
won’t publish
are horrible-
this evil
practice must stop.
Rash
rashmanly - June 4, 2011 at 3:49 am |
I am praying for all of those poor young women that are going through this horrible abuse. Please hang in there ladies and know that you ARE NOT WORTHLESS! Never ever believe that you are worthless!
Priya28 - September 23, 2011 at 5:59 pm |
Come on people we talk of human rights every time,
do we see any here our women are being burned
to death due to that stupid custom so called “dowly”
w@ a stupid custom and it should be stopped ahah!!
I hate all those who practice the foolish belief.
Jerome ching'amba - December 12, 2011 at 11:35 pm |
Well said,
thank you for saying it!
Rash
rashmanly - December 12, 2011 at 11:45 pm |
Por que tanto dolor, tanto sufrimiento,
¿por que hay gobiernos tan ciegos?.
¿Es que no se puede evitar?
Hay millones de personas que como yo,
cuando lo vemos o leemos nos impacta y no damos
credito a lo que está ocurriendo.
Deberia haber una manifestación en la India
solo de mujeres del mundo,
de todo el mundo, al menos que no
se sintieran tan solas.
¿Hasta cuando Señor?.
Pediremos por todos,
por las victimas y por los
ciegos.
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let alone the content!.
Thanks For Your article about Bride Burning in India
kills or maims thousands of women every year!
| 22MOON.COM .
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more - May 9, 2013 at 7:09 am |
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rashmanly - May 10, 2013 at 2:32 pm |