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NEW DELHI, INDIA, June 14, 2003: Srimati Basu, anthropology professor at DePauw University, U.S., has been tackling the complex system of dowry, explaining its origins and why it is still perpetuated in East Indian culture. Basu calls dowry the Indian women’s oppression under patriarchal systems and says that it is expanding into all communities in India. Families with daughters have resorted to drastic means to cover dowry payments, including some fathers selling their kidneys. The Dowry Prohibition Act has done little to curb the practice as it excludes voluntary gifts, and there is no way of proving that the gifts are not voluntary. The problem is multidimensional, Basu believes, and must be looked at in the context of “broader gender subordination and the effects of capitalist processes.” Thus the focus must be on protesting dowry and strengthening claims for parental inheritance, all the while working to change the social attitude toward daughters and making sure that women have another source of security besides marriage. Veena Talwar Oldenburg in her book “Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime” studied dowry in the Punjab. She explains that before colonial times dowry was, “Put together by the bride’s female relatives, partly from their own jewelry but partly from setting aside household resources. This benefited women because it gave them a fund of their own.” The anti-dowry movement lost momentum in the nineties, but it has been spearheaded again by the All-India Democratic Women’s Association who organized a workshop in September 2002. One of the resolutions of this organization is to start a national campaign against dowry, keeping in mind that the issue is “related to structural inequalities in Indian society.”

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