Sunanda K Datta-Ray: The big deal about dowry

WHERE MONEY TALKS

Judicial fulmination over dowry recalls a visit many years ago to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy "" I think that's the proper name of the institution that churns out the inheritors of the guardians "" in Mussoorie. Two memories persist. First, the garrulousness of some of the young cadet officers. Second, a campus devoid of romance.

To deal with the first. The muted chattering that went on all through my talk might have given me a complex about my oratorical shortcomings if those probationers hadn't been just as inattentive while their director was introducing me.

I mentioned this at dinner that evening with the senior staff, and was told to my surprise that some entrants to the central services felt they had listened to enough lectures as students. All that ended with the UPSC exams. Now, they were members of the heaven-born service; they had arrived. Why should they suffer more lectures?

The second observation was just as dismal. Given the sprinkling of attractive young girls, I wondered if the lopsided male:female ratio bred rivalries and jealousies. No, I was assured, some girls might yearn for romance but Cupid had no entree into the former Charleville hotel. Male members of the IFS, IAS, IA&AS and other central services were not disposed to squander their matrimonial prospects.

According to my informant, probationers from Bihar and Haryana were especially aware of their value on the marriage mart. Looking back, I suppose they were just more blatant about it.

Men from other states, West Bengal or Tamil Nadu, would probably be just as avaricious (except that dowry is not seen as avarice but a right) but act with greater sophistication. Most preferred to let experienced parents negotiate the best marriage deals for them.

How, then, can they be expected later in life to uphold either the letter or the spirit of the Dowry Prohibition Act? The Supreme Court wants the Central and state governments to compel civil servants to keep scrupulous lists of all wedding gifts, as stipulated under Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, and comply with Section 6 and hand over the dowry they receive, to their wives. In Mr Bumble's immortal words in Oliver Twist, I can only repeat that "the law is a ass "" a idiot."

I once congratulated a senior IAS magistrate on his salutary verdict in a dowry case that the media had reported. His wife came into the room while he has lapping up my compliments.

She listened to us for a while in silence, then burst out, "Ask him if he is such a moral stickler, why didn't he himself observe the restrictions he is now imposing?" According to her, he had driven a hard bargain with her father before their marriage. "Now, he's a great sadhu!" she sneered. The husband didn't contradict her.

Of course, there is dowry and dowry, and that makes the law somewhat difficult to enforce. Gifts can be unsolicited. A bride's father should be free to give his daughter whatever he wishes without accusations being leveled at either party.

Both sides can help a young couple set up house with a car, refrigerator, air conditioners and other accessories, and, perhaps, even a flat to put them in. The European trousseau might be dated but attracts no stigma. At the highest level, the West still has marriage agreements, even covering the possibility of divorce.

Here, the most common word association with "dowry" is "death". That is because of suspicions of pressure. An avalanche of media reports of brides being subjected to torture and violence suggest two conclusions "" both erroneous. One is that dowry persecution is a new phenomenon.

The other that the abuse is prevalent only at the social level where bicycles and scooters are prized. Neither is true. The practice "" or problem "" is as ancient as the caste system. Second, the educated rich are just more cunning at camouflaging things so as not to run foul of new social norms.

Once upon a time middle and upper-middle class grooms expected jewellery or property or cash. According to legend in my extended family, a bride's irate father paid the last minute demand for money in silver rupees, clanging each coin on a marble slab in full view and hearing of the assembled guests. Then, among educated Bengalis at least, it became customary to ask for the groom (or his brother) to be sent abroad for higher studies.

The most effective dowry at the top nowadays is influence. The smart young man angles for the daughter of a senior official or a politician not only for her father's material possessions. His contacts matter far more. As we all know, a word in the right place does wonders that money can't buy.

As for morality, isn't this what the free market is all about? A boy has something to sell "" himself. A girl's father wants to buy the best for his daughter and is willing to pay the price. Why bother if coercion and cruelty are not involved? But when they are, the state cannot avoid its duty to intervene with its full authority.

Tailpiece: If dowry is outlawed retrospectively, India will have to return Bombay, sorry, Mumbai, to Portugal. After all, the British acquired it when Catherine of Braganza married Charles II. Of course, we could return it in a symbolic burst of piety and take it back right away as a belated act of decolonisation.