I was reading today about the practice of “bride burning” in India, which is the increasingly frequent practice of murdering a bride so the husband can get married again and claim another dowry.* It occurred to me that, in its tactics and economic motives, this is little different from murdering a spouse for life insurance or inheritance, as sometimes happens in the West.
But is there a difference in how the two crimes are regarded in their cultures? In the West, killing your spouse for inheritance or insurance is pretty universally seen as monstrous; it is not only against the law, but the perpetrator is held up to public disgrace and odium. In India, not only bride burning but dowry itself is illegal. But dowry is socially accepted and widely practiced despite being illegal. So, are bride burners subjected to public shame and the disgust of their peers, as insurance and inheritance killers are in the West?
One note; bride burning is evidently more frequent if the husband’s family feels “cheated” in the dowry negotiations. So is the Indian attitude toward bride burning at all dependent on how large the victim’s dowry was? That is, is it regarded as more defensible if the victim had a meager dowry?
*Obviously, this is completely different from sati, or widow burning, which hardly ever happens any more.
In a lot of cases, though, the family that commits such a crime has money and influence, which might preclude any real punishment. A poor person might suffer legal consequences, but among the poor, such things are often taken in stride. One must survive, after all.
My mother-in-law missed her favourite potato vendor for some time. One day, several months later, he was back. “Where were you all this time?” “I was in prison.” “In prison? What for?” “For killing my son’s wife.”
He had served his time and here he was, back in business.
This was in Bihar, by the way, a place known for its general lawlessness.
Thanks, this is very much the information I was looking for.
When you say that “among the poor, such things are often taken in stride,” you are saying that poor people often commit crimes despite the likelihood of punishment, because it is seen as necessary to survive. Do I understand you?
I’d like to ask some more about the potato vendor. In America, serving only “several months” for murder would be considered a very light sentence. Was the potato vendor’s prison sentence comparable to what other murderers would receive in Bihar? And if he had committed the murder in a more law-abiding part of India, would he have received a harsher sentence?
No, I mean that a person who has committed a crime will often be admitted back into his role into the family after serving whatever sentence has been given.
Unfortunately I have no information to answer these questions. And I don’t really know what the exact term of the sentence was nor the reason for his release. What is clear is that he was duly charged, convicted, and sentenced but eventually found himself back in the same circumstance he had been in prior, and he spoke matter-of-factly about his crime.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that in a more “law abiding” part of the country: (1) His punishment would have been harsher, (2) He would not have so easily found himself back in his former station and role in life, and (3) he would not have spoken so frankly about his crime.
Why is that? Sorry to take the thread in another direction but that sounds like a pretty interesting phenomenon. Why don’t they like putting people in prison?
I’m going to hazard a guess that it has something to do with an almost inconcievably vast population of people living in abject poverty, combined with the cost of keeping someone locked up 24/7. Prisons, courts, police are all massively overworked, under-invested and out-dated and simply cannot cope with how much needs doing with the resources available. Add in the legendary Indian bureacracy and it seems likely the whole setup is gridlocked. This article is four years old, but probably not much has changed. Kafkaesque cases like this chap (who spent 54 years drifting through the legal archipelago without a trial because no-one was interested in him) are probably relatively rare, but they do illustrate how the punishment of individuals can be totally disconnected from their actions.
Bride buring is a serious crime in India, and courts do hand out serious punishment ranging from life term to hanging in extreme cases…
No one is guilty until proven so in a court of law… So sometimes courts aquit the accused due to lack of evidence. and some brides file cases to harass their in laws also…
Those who get punished, serve their term and come back to society , as it is the case everywhere.
In india it is customary for brides’ parents to give money/property to their daughter , as a foundation for their future. When the demand from grooms and his parents becomes greed, these issues start, irrespective of size of dowry.
There was a court ruling recently that gifts given to daughter will not constitute dowry, citing the increase in dowry demand cases .
Reading this reminded me of a recent photo exhibition I saw, where a Dutch photographer, Jan Banning , pictured government officials around the world.
Because a picture says more then a thousand words: Here is an Indian government worker from 2003, in the typing room of a regional department of Finances;
and this is a Indian lady civil servant in her office.
Another note is that really dangerous people in India are often dealt with extrajudicially, either by officials or vigilantes. After the Khalistan business, the Panjab police and the Indian Army basically wiped out Sikh militants in “encounters.” Fatal traffic accidents sometimes result in an impromptu lynching of the driver at fault.
