Kannur, February 02: Sixty-five-year-old Muhammad and 60-year-old Fathima, natives of Cheruvathukunnu, a Muslim dominated village near Nilambur in Kerala have seven children – five girls and two boys. The family lives in a small house on the five cents of land they own.
Muhammed is a daily-wage labourer. Yet, with his meagre earnings, he managed to marry off two of his daughters, giving five sovereigns of gold for one and 15 sovereigns for the other as dowry.
Muhammed gave the other three daughters what he couldn’t provide for the first two – education. Thanks to his labour, his daughters Sajna (35) is now a post-graduate, Jaseela (29) is a graduate while Shameela (26) has completed her teachers’ training course.
Muhammed should actually be a satisfied father. But, he’s not. Despite educating his daughters he still has to get them married and prospective grooms are demanding huge sums as dowry. That this is illegal of course, makes no difference.
Years of toiling under the scorching sun and frequent skipping of meals have taken a toll on his health. Fathima too is not in the pink of health.
Sajna, Jaseela and Shameela are not the only ones who remain unmarried. There are thousands of others cutting across religions throughout the villages of Malabar where dowry continues to thrive in its most monstrous form.
Aishumma, for instance, is a 53-year-old spinster, again, a native of Chervathukunnu. Once she crossed the age of 30, she knew she had no chance of getting married. Marriage, even for those women who are educated, is still essential in this society.
So monstrous is the dowry menace in these parts, that even marriage is no guarantee of a happy life. Girls have been thrown out of their husband’s homes if their parents are unable to fulfil the dowry demand within the prescribed time.
Farida, now 30, a native of Nilambur was married off when she was a Class VIII student and just 14 years old. Her father paid 20 sovereigns of gold and Rs 1 lakh in cash as dowry. Though the couple had two children, her husband deserted her after five years.
Ummu Salma (36) was thrown out by her husband’s family along with her five-year-old daughter because her father could not pay the balance dowry.
Nilambur Municipality woke up to the magnitude of the problem only recently during a survey for a housing project.
“We did the survey to prepare a list of beneficiaries. It was then that we found that most applicants lived in penury because they sold or mortgaged their houses to meet wedding expenses,” said municipal chairman Aryadan Shoukath.
The survey found that most applicants had sought financial assistance from panchayats to repay the loans to recover their mortgaged houses. Later, a survey covering 11 panchayats in Nilambur Block was conducted with the help of the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Samithi (MSS) under the HRD ministry.
It revealed that Nilambur Block alone was home to 3,000 spinsters of marriageable age.
They remained unmarried because their parents could not afford the huge dowry being demanded by bridegrooms.
The survey, interestingly, also brought to light that 40 per cent of the families had gone bankrupt after they were forced to pay dowry while 52 per cent of the divorced women attributed their fate to non-fulfillment of dowry commitment.
The survey also found, nearly 30 per cent of lower-middle class families were rendered homeless owing to the dowry menace. The survey further observed that one panchayat conducted 60 weddings in a month, and in each case dowry of Rs 4 lakh was paid. This meant a total expenditure of Rs 24 crore in just one panchayat!
“There are 100 panchayats in Malappuram district and the common man’s annual dowry liability is about Rs 2,400 crore,” said Mr Shoukath.
The dowry menace seems to be having a cascading effect, going by the survey, since parents are hurrying to marry off their young boys.
“These boys accept dowry in order to bail out their beleaguered parents. So, in effect, it’s become vicious circle,” Mr Shoukath revealed.
KMSS spokesperson Selina T. said the “Mysore Marriage” was still in vogue in the villages of Malabar. “This system is nothing but old, rich men marrying young women from poverty-stricken families. Most such wives get deserted after a brief period of cohabitation,” she said.
The situation at Pinarayi panchayat in Kannur district too is not any different. There are over 1,000 spinsters in 19 wards waiting to get married, according to panchayat president Konky Raveendran.
“We have a project called Sayoojyam, with the basic mission of finding suitable matches for the unmarried girls. Earlier not many girls were ready to register their names. Now, we have about 200 registrations,” Mr Raveendran revealed.
The buying of women – which is what dowry amounts to – thrives in the villages of Malabar though it has been outlawed and there are penalties for giving and taking dowry. Sanctified by custom and encouraged by greed, it thrives because the administration and law enforcement agencies are not proactive enough and prosecutions are few and far between.
Kerala crime records bureau findings
Dowry death
2007 – 27
2008 – 31
2009 – 20
2010 – 22
2011 – 15
Dowry harassment cases
2007 – 3,999
2008 – 4,138
2009 – 4,007
2010 – 4,797
2011 – 5,367
–Courtesy:DC