Thesis on Dowry Law misuse by IIM Bangalore Graduates
A study on the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 was done as a law project by a couple of graduates of the esteemed management school, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Some excerpts of the same:
Dowry is derived from the ancient Hindu custom of “kanyadan”, where the father presents his daughter jewelry and clothes at the time of her marriage, and “vardakshina”, where the father of the bride presents the groom cash or kind. Both of these were done voluntarily and out of affection and love. These days, these customs have rendered coercive and brutally dangerous. What was originally intended to be a taken dakshina for the bridegroom has now gone out of proportion and has assumed the nomenclature ‘dowry’.
Despite the fact that in the last few decades the Dowry Prohibition Act has been made more stringent, the culture of dowry-giving is spreading even to communities, which has no such tradition one or two generation ago. According to an article in Time magazine, deaths in India related to dowry demands have increase 15-fold since the mid-1980s from 400 a year to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s.
Read the full report here to know the truth.